One of the more interesting traits of the Mexican character—if there is such a thing as a national character—is machismo, the exaggerated emphasis upon the qualities of maleness which are expressed in violence, aggressive defiance, and the deprecation of women. It is the study of this quality and its manifestations which forms the major theme of Dr. Aniceto Aramoni’s work.

Using the techniques of the psychologist which are somewhat overwhelming to the historian, the author makes use of much historical evidence, but also employs many generalizations and statements which could not be accepted in any historical study. In spite of a confusing style which the general reader will not find unpleasant if he has the perseverance to continue beyond the first chapter, the book does have merit for the student of the history, the customs, the literature, and the sociology of Mexico.

Early Aztec society was matriarchal; its qualities were personified by the white god, Quetzalcoatl. This was transformed in the period immediately preceding the conquest into a male-dominated world characterized by cruelty, human sacrifice, and the warrior ideal as personified by the war god, Huitzilopochitli. Conquered and subjugated by the product of another male-dominated society, that of Renaissance Spain, the Aztec found himself cut off from all values of importance. The right to violence, to kill or to execute was denied him and now belonged to the mounted Spanish knight, the conquistador. The proud male Aztec would have been completely destroyed had he not returned to an earlier set of values, an earlier ideal, that of the mother-god image. He found this in the person of the brown virgin, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and clinging to it he was able to endure the suffering of the colonial period. He had something the Spaniards could not tear down or take away for it had the sanction of their own church.

In the Wars of Independence the mestizo, the son of the Spanish conquistador and his Aztec mistress, mounted the horse he had inherited from his conqueror, and under the banner of the virgen morena, toppled the Spaniards from their seats of authority. Once more, the violence and cruelty which had characterized the Aztec warrior was possible for the mestizo horseman of the civil wars of the nineteenth century, and it culminated in the terrible blood bath of the Revolution. This manifestation of machismo, in the opinion of the author, was best personified by the most macho of them all, Pancho Villa, whose bravery, dashing impetuousness, and rough treatment of women have become legend.

The remainder of the study should be of immediate interest to the students of literature and folklore, for it attempts to demonstrate that the corrida and the ranchera are expressions of some of the quailties of machismo. The final pages of the book are devoted to a study of the attitude of machismo toward women as mothers, as wives, and as mistresses.