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Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers
How to Be Grateful: An Aztec Guide to the Art of Gratitude
A delightful Aztec work that has much to teach us about the value of giving thanks—to our contemporaries, our elders, and our ancestors
Centuries before anyone ever thought of keeping a gratitude journal, the Aztecs understood the profound value of being grateful. For generations, specially trained Aztec public speakers presented traditional dialogues at marriages, births, funerals, government ceremonies, and other important occasions. In these dialogues, people of different generations are imagined speaking to each other with mutual respect and gratitude across time, encouraging listeners to be grateful to their contemporaries, elders, and ancestors, as well as the divine, and reminding the living what they owe to future generations. In the late 1500s, one of these Aztec speakers, Pablo of Texcoco, recorded a collection of these dialogues, now known as the Bancroft Dialogues. In How to Be Grateful, Nahuatl- or Aztec-language specialist Frances Karttunen and Camilla Townsend, Cundhill History Prize–winning author of Fifth A New History of the Aztecs, present this fascinating work in an accessible translation that also features the original Nahuatl text on facing pages.
Although Pablo lived under Spanish rule, his parents, grandparents, and elderly teachers recalled the world before the Europeans arrived, and his dialogues, which delight in colorful metaphors and wry humor, offer remarkable insights into preconquest Aztec society, philosophy, and language. Pablo’s dialogues tell readers they will be loved and honored today and by future generations if they repay those who have helped them—the living, the dead, and the divine. The living should pay these debts by helping their people and ensuring their future—by “paying it forward” as we say today.
Centuries before anyone ever thought of keeping a gratitude journal, the Aztecs understood the profound value of being grateful. For generations, specially trained Aztec public speakers presented traditional dialogues at marriages, births, funerals, government ceremonies, and other important occasions. In these dialogues, people of different generations are imagined speaking to each other with mutual respect and gratitude across time, encouraging listeners to be grateful to their contemporaries, elders, and ancestors, as well as the divine, and reminding the living what they owe to future generations. In the late 1500s, one of these Aztec speakers, Pablo of Texcoco, recorded a collection of these dialogues, now known as the Bancroft Dialogues. In How to Be Grateful, Nahuatl- or Aztec-language specialist Frances Karttunen and Camilla Townsend, Cundhill History Prize–winning author of Fifth A New History of the Aztecs, present this fascinating work in an accessible translation that also features the original Nahuatl text on facing pages.
Although Pablo lived under Spanish rule, his parents, grandparents, and elderly teachers recalled the world before the Europeans arrived, and his dialogues, which delight in colorful metaphors and wry humor, offer remarkable insights into preconquest Aztec society, philosophy, and language. Pablo’s dialogues tell readers they will be loved and honored today and by future generations if they repay those who have helped them—the living, the dead, and the divine. The living should pay these debts by helping their people and ensuring their future—by “paying it forward” as we say today.
211 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 18, 2025
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January 20, 2026
This small text is an interesting snippet into the way mesoamerican nobles spoken to one another and how the youth were taught. Despite this booking containing corruptions from European influence of in how god and marry are mentioned and the Aztec gods are called false features of the old way bleed through the cracks such as the title of god as the all pervasive. Aztecs despite being known popularly as bloodthirsty conquerors this work shows their sophisticated formal greetings and small glimpses into their beliefs of the importance of physical, philosophical and even scientific education. With one notable feature of how positions of power where positions of extreme responsibility with any failure in duties resulting in public severe punishment. The reason was that Aztec rulers where ment to act as strong pillars of the community for all people to look up to and gather under with the text even referring to rulers calling their subjects as children under their care. Over all the small text paints a picture of at least the nobility as people who valued Proper conduct in all parts of public society and education and the importance of not taking up people’s time.
Displaying 1 of 1 review