“Aztec Philosophy” with Sebastian Purcell
The purpose of this article is to examine several claims made by Sebastian Purcell during Tales from Aztlantis Episode 102, “Aztec Philosophy,” and to evaluate them in light of the published scholarship. Rather than relying solely on my own observations, I summarize the principal criticisms advanced by scholars who have reviewed Purcell’s book, Discourses of the Elders: A First English Translation, while adding several observations drawn from the primary sources discussed in the episode. My aim is not to dismiss philosophical inquiry into Nahua thought, but to examine whether Purcell’s methodology is consistent with the current scholarly understanding of the relevant Nahuatl texts.
On July 7, 2026, Tales from Aztlantis co-host Kurly Tlapoyawa posted a promotional clip from his interview with Sebastian Purcell. In the clip, Purcell argues that early colonial scholars such as Horacio Carochi and Alonso de Molina were not philosophers and therefore could not fully appreciate the philosophical depth of the Nahuatl texts they documented.
Having previously read the published reviews of Purcell’s work, I found this claim surprising. Carochi and Molina remain two of the most important figures in the study of Classical Nahuatl. Carochi authored what is still widely regarded as the most detailed grammar of the language, while Molina compiled the earliest comprehensive Nahuatl dictionary. Their works continue to serve as indispensable resources for modern scholars.
Purcell, by contrast, describes his own Nahuatl proficiency on his LinkedIn profile as “limited working proficiency,” a level that LinkedIn defines as the ability to communicate in routine work situations while having noticeable limitations with complex discussions or difficult texts. Given this self-description, I found it difficult to reconcile Purcell’s characterization of Carochi and Molina with their extraordinary linguistic accomplishments. This prompted me to post the following public comment in response to the video: “and maybe Sebastian Purcell misses a lot of things because he can’t read Classical Nahuatl.”
My Exchange with Tales from Aztlantis
Shortly afterward, I received a private message from Kurly Tlapoyawa asking me to stop “talking shit” on his personal facebook page.
It is worth noting that another individual—an established linguist specializing in Nahuatl—also posted a critical comment on the video, one that was considerably more direct than my own. Both comments were subsequently removed.
Kurly explained that his personal Facebook page was “not a space for public debate.” That is, of course, his prerogative. Nevertheless, the decision raises an interesting question. Tales from Aztlantis frequently presents itself as a project dedicated to challenging misinformation and pseudohistory through critical inquiry. If that is its stated mission, one might reasonably expect critical engagement with opposing viewpoints, particularly when those criticisms are grounded in published scholarship.
This question becomes especially relevant because the principal criticisms discussed below do not originate with me. Rather, they come from respected specialists in Nahuatl studies, including Camilla Townsend and Julia Madajczak, both of whom published detailed reviews of Purcell’s book. Indeed, Kurly himself briefly acknowledged these reviews during the podcast.
The remainder of this article summarizes those critiques while examining several of Purcell’s claims in light of the primary sources on which they are based.
Issue 1: Can the Huehuetlahtolli Be Used to Reconstruct Pre-Columbian Nahua Philosophy?
A central premise of Sebastian Purcell’s work is that the Huehuetlahtolli can serve as a primary source for reconstructing pre-Columbian Nahua philosophy. This assumption deserves careful scrutiny because it has been the principal focus of criticism by scholars who have reviewed Discourses of the Elders.
Both Camilla Townsend and Julia Madajczak argue that the Huehuetlahtolli published by Juan Bautista in 1601 should not be treated as a direct window into pre-Hispanic Nahua thought. Rather, they contend that the text is the product of a complex editorial process in which Indigenous traditions were reshaped within a Christian framework. Consequently, the work cannot be read in isolation as an unfiltered expression of pre-Columbian philosophy.
Townsend explains that Andrés de Olmos, a Franciscan friar who worked closely with Nahua collaborators, collected a large body of traditional speeches from native speakers during the sixteenth century. Although Olmos’s original manuscript has not survived, portions of his collection were incorporated into his Arte de la lengua mexicana, preserving at least part of the material he documented.
“A brilliant Franciscan, fray Andrés de Olmos (c.1500–1571), who worked extensively with Indigenous aides, is understood to have collected material comprising huehuetlahtolli from several native speakers of Nahuatl. His manuscript does not survive, but he did copy a part of what he collected into his manuscript entitled Arte de la lengua mexicana…” (Townsend, p. 99)
The problem, however, is that the version translated by Purcell is not Olmos’s original collection. Instead, it is Juan Bautista’s 1601 edition, which scholars generally recognize as having undergone substantial editorial revision for Christian purposes.
Madajczak summarizes this point succinctly:
“In short, they are not a several hundred-year-old receptacle of Nahua lore with gods’ names changed to ‘Dios’ and some Christian interpolations…. They are the ideological work of sixteenth-century Spanish friars pursuing an evangelizing and educational effort.”
She continues:
“Scraps of Nahua philosophy may still be lurking in some of Bautista’s discourses, but the moral values and ideal behaviors they describe have been edited to become acceptable to Christians…. They just cannot be considered a pre-Hispanic philosophical treatise and studied in isolation.”
This distinction is fundamental. Madajczak is not arguing that Bautista’s Huehuetlahtolli lack historical value. Rather, she argues that they cannot be treated as transparent evidence for pre-Columbian Nahua philosophy without corroboration from other sources. Any attempt to reconstruct Nahua thought from these texts alone risks attributing sixteenth-century Christian editorial choices to the pre-Hispanic intellectual tradition.
Townsend reaches a similar conclusion when discussing Miguel León-Portilla’s work with the Huehuetlahtolli. According to Townsend, León-Portilla initially considered removing passages that were obviously Christian additions. Ultimately, however, he concluded that the Christian material had become so thoroughly intertwined with the Nahuatl text that separating the two was no longer possible.
As Townsend explains:
“So much of the text was so obviously edited and amended by a Christian hand that Miguel León-Portilla said he considered removing that material. Ultimately, however, he was forced to conclude…that it was too inextricably intertwined.”
If León-Portilla (working alongside a native Nahuatl speaker) determined that Christian revisions could not be reliably disentangled from earlier Indigenous material, then any attempt to identify an “original” philosophical core necessarily becomes speculative.
Evidence from Olmos’s Arte de la lengua mexicana
One might ask whether Olmos’s earlier material provides a clearer picture of pre-Hispanic thought before Bautista’s revisions. Fortunately, portions of Olmos’s original collection survive within his grammar, Arte de la lengua mexicana, allowing a limited comparison.
Even these earlier passages, however, reveal the same interpretive problem.
For example, one passage reads:
§82 God sends hunger or sickness.
Nahuatl
Xiuhcoatl mamaluaztli tepan quimotlaxilia tepan quimochiuilia in Dios.
Translation
“Fire-serpent and fire-drill—the instruments of devastating fire—God hurls upon people; God brings them upon people.”
Elsewhere, another passage states:
§67 The punishment of God is already coming, winnowing [people]; therefore let all amend themselves.
Nahuatl: Ye nica huitz: in itemux in yehecauh, in yahuauh in icolouh in itzitzicoz, in iteuh in icuauh. Auh ye nican onotihuitz in icoauh in itecuan in Tloque Nahuaque, in texelotihuitz tepepentihuitz, ma ic celia ma ic xotlalo.
Already here comes His descending, His wind, His stinging herb, His scorpion, His thorn, His staff… Already advances the serpent and the wild beast of Tloque Nahuaque…
These examples immediately raise interpretive questions. In some passages Olmos inserts the word Dios directly into otherwise Nahuatl discourse. In others, he appears to equate the pre-Columbian expression Tloque Nahuaque with the Christian God. Whether these substitutions reflect the original speeches or sixteenth-century missionary interpretation is impossible to determine with certainty.
This illustrates precisely the methodological problem identified by Townsend and Madajczak. Even the earliest surviving versions of the Huehuetlahtolli have already passed through the hands of Christian missionaries. Consequently, scholars cannot confidently determine where pre-Hispanic Nahua thought ends and missionary reinterpretation begins.
That uncertainty does not render the Huehuetlahtolli useless. Rather, it means that they must be interpreted alongside other early Nahuatl sources instead of being treated as an independent philosophical corpus.
Issue 2: More Suitable Sources for Reconstructing Nahua Philosophy
A second criticism raised by Townsend concerns Purcell’s choice of primary source. Even if one accepts that the Huehuetlahtolli preserve elements of Nahua thought, they are not necessarily the best available texts for investigating pre-Columbian philosophy.
Townsend argues that at least two other Nahuatl sources contain substantially less Christian editorial influence while preserving many of the same themes addressed in the Huehuetlahtolli.
She writes:
“But Purcell tells his readers that he specifically seeks to understand the philosophy of the Nahuas of the pre-conquest era. In that case, one wonders why he did not choose to study two other closely related texts that demonstrate far less Christian influence: Book 6 of the Florentine Codex contains material that resembles the ‘Huehuetlahtolli’ but betrays significantly less Christian influence, and the same is true of the ‘Dialogues’ housed in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Purcell has hardly worked with a ‘core set of Nahua philosophical documents’ as he posits.” (Townsend, pp. 100–101)
This criticism is methodological rather than philosophical. If the objective is to reconstruct pre-Hispanic Nahua ideas, then priority should generally be given to sources that preserve those ideas with the least amount of later editorial intervention. Townsend’s argument is therefore not simply that Purcell chose the wrong book, but that he began his investigation with one of the most heavily Christianized texts available.
The two sources she identifies (the Bancroft Dialogues and Book 6 of the Florentine Codex) deserve particular attention because both preserve extensive Nahuatl discourse while exhibiting considerably less evidence of theological restructuring than Bautista’s Huehuetlahtolli.
Translation Is Never Neutral
Purcell frequently cites respected translators, including Miguel León-Portilla, Arthur J. O. Anderson, Charles Dibble, and J. Richard Andrews. Their work has been indispensable to the field, and modern scholarship would be impossible without it. Nevertheless, every translation necessarily involves interpretation.
As J. Richard Andrews observed in the introduction to Introduction to Classical Nahuatl:
“The translations (as is the nature of all translation) are traitors to the Nahuatl structure and therefore misleading in regard to language facts… the translations are not always valid, and one must have a firm knowledge of the language to recognize and correct the mistakes.”
This observation is not a criticism of any particular translator. Rather, it reflects a fundamental principle of historical linguistics. Translation always requires choices regarding grammar, metaphor, idiom, and cultural context. Consequently, readers who rely exclusively on translations inevitably inherit those interpretive decisions.
An Example from Book 6 of the Florentine Codex
This point can be illustrated through a passage in which a mother advises her daughter.
The Nahuatl text reads:
Auh inic ahmo mitzihiyaz in motlahuical: ximocenmati, ximalti, ximopapaca: zan tel icuac in monequi, inic ahmo tilhuiloz, titocayotiloz tapepetzton, tinemachxoch 99-101
Which Dibble and Anderson translated as:
But in order that thy helpmate will not hate thee, pay attention to thyself, bathe thyself, wash thyself, but only when necessary, lest it were to be said of thee, lest though wert to be called Tepepetzton, Tinemachxoch.
Anderson and Dibble translate motlahuical as “thy helpmate.”
While this translation is certainly defensible, the immediate context suggests another possibility. Because the speaker is addressing her daughter, translating motlahuical as “your husband” arguably communicates the intended meaning more directly for modern readers.
The same passage concludes with two expressions that Anderson and Dibble leave untranslated in the body of the text:
Tepepetzton
Tinemachxoch
In the accompanying notes they cite Ángel María Garibay’s interpretation:
“Pearl of water”
and
“Bouquet of flowers.”
These translations successfully convey the general imagery, but they also illustrate how much interpretive work is involved in translation.
A more literal rendering might preserve additional nuances:
- Tapepetzton: “You glimmer pitifully like water.”
- Tinemachxoch: “You think yourself a flower.”
Neither translation is necessarily “wrong.” Rather, they emphasize different aspects of the underlying Nahuatl expression.
This example demonstrates an important methodological point. Translation is rarely a matter of substituting one word for another as Purcell and the co-hosts of Tales of Aztlantis appear to understand it as evidenced by their criticism of Frances Kartunnen and Townsend’s translation of Tloque Nahuaque as “the all-pervasive” while contrasting it with Anderson and Dibble translation of the same word as “the near and the nigh.” The difference here is that Tloque Nahuaque has been proven to be a legitimate pre-Columbian concept whereas many of the concepts Purcell chooses to translate have not and are very likely Christian calques as will be discussed in more detail below. Every translator must decide how much of the original grammar, metaphor, ambiguity, and cultural meaning to preserve. As a result, different translations may all be reasonable while simultaneously highlighting different dimensions of the same passage.
Why the Nahuatl Text Matters
For this reason, scholars seeking to reconstruct Nahua philosophy must continually return to the Nahuatl itself.
This is one respect in which the Florentine Codex offers a significant methodological advantage.
When Bernardino de Sahagún revised portions of the work, his editorial changes generally appeared in the accompanying Spanish translation rather than in the Nahuatl column itself. Consequently, the Nahuatl text often preserves concepts that become softened, abbreviated, or reshaped in the Spanish version.
Book 12 provides a striking example.
The Nahua authors describe the Spaniards’ reaction to receiving gold:
Auh in oquimomacaqueh iuhquin iixhuetzca, cenca papaquih, ahahuiah, iuhquin coozomatzitzquia in teocuitlatl, iuhquin oncan motlatlalia, iuhquin iiztaya iuhquin cecelia iyollo: ca nel yehuatl in cenca camiqui, quipozaya, quiteocihui, quipitzonequi in teocuitlatl.
Anderson and Dibble translate the passage:
And when they had given them these, they appeared to smile; they were greatly contented, gladdened. As if they were monkeys they seized upon the gold. It was as if their hearts were satisfied, brightened, calmed. For in truth they thirsted mightily for gold; they stuffed themselves with it; they starved for it; they lusted for it like pigs.
By contrast, Sahagún’s Spanish rendering reads much more simply:
“It seemed to the Indians that they were greatly pleased and rejoiced over the gold, for they held it in great esteem.”
The difference between these two versions is substantial.
The Nahuatl text employs vivid metaphorical language, portraying the Spaniards as greedily seizing gold with almost animal-like behavior. Sahagún’s Spanish translation retains the basic narrative but removes much of the rhetorical force and imagery.
Examples such as this illustrate why direct engagement with the Nahuatl text remains indispensable. Readers who consult only the Spanish translation would never encounter many of the linguistic features preserved by the Nahua scribes themselves.
Methodological Implications
None of this implies that Anderson, Dibble, León-Portilla, Garibay, or other translators produced poor scholarship. On the contrary, their work remains foundational to the study of Nahuatl literature.
Rather, these examples reinforce a broader methodological principle: every translation is an interpretation. Scholars attempting to reconstruct Nahua philosophy must therefore distinguish between what the Nahuatl text actually says and the interpretive choices made by later translators.
This principle becomes especially important when evaluating philosophical arguments that depend upon subtle distinctions in meaning. If a conclusion rests on the precise wording of a Nahuatl passage, then that conclusion should ultimately be tested against the original language rather than against a translation alone.
Issue 3: Nahuatl Proficiency and the Interpretation of Philosophical Texts
The previous sections have focused primarily on the sources Purcell chose to translate. A separate but equally important question concerns the level of linguistic proficiency required to interpret those sources reliably.
Purcell describes his Nahuatl ability on his LinkedIn profile as “limited working proficiency.” This self-assessment is relevant not because formal credentials determine the quality of scholarship, but because the reconstruction of philosophical concepts from sixteenth-century Nahuatl texts depends upon careful attention to grammar, syntax, idiom, and historical context.
Camilla Townsend repeatedly emphasizes this point throughout her review of Discourses of the Elders. Her principal concern is not that Purcell is a philosopher approaching Nahuatl sources. Rather, it is that his philosophical conclusions often appear to rest on interpretations that do not sufficiently engage with the original language.
She writes:
“There are countless such examples in the volume, places where the translator has adjusted the Spanish ever so slightly in order to provide support for his theory. He has apparently done so without consulting the Nahuatl itself, or at least without a strong determination to be faithful to it. Employing the terms with which he is so familiar (as a western-trained philosopher), I would argue that such acts should be considered cardinal sins.” (Townsend, p. 105)
This criticism deserves careful consideration because it addresses methodology rather than philosophical interpretation. Townsend is not arguing against philosophical analysis of Nahuatl texts. Instead, she argues that philosophical conclusions must emerge from a careful reading of the Nahuatl itself rather than from subtle reinterpretations of existing translations.
She concludes her review with a broader observation about the future of the field:
“There is a great deal of work waiting to be done… But the work must be done by people who spend years studying early colonial Nahuatl and who consult others who have likewise spent years, or who are native speakers. It must be done by people who read widely in different texts… and who refuse to assume they already know the message of a particular text even before they translate it.” (Townsend, p. 105)
This statement highlights an important principle of historical methodology. The challenge is not simply translating words accurately but understanding the linguistic and cultural conventions that shaped how those words conveyed meaning.
Can Christian Material Simply Be Removed?
Near the end of the Tales from Aztlantis episode, co-host Rubén Tlakatekatl Arellano suggests that one could recover an earlier Nahua philosophical core by removing Christian additions from the Huehuetlahtolli. Purcell responds by proposing a methodological principle for distinguishing authentic Nahua material from later colonial interpolations.
He explains:
“My guiding principle is this. For the Nahuas, as I read a passage, when it suggests that you should do something, if that ‘should’ is intrinsic or internal, then it’s probably more Nahua. That’s my guess. If it’s extrinsic, it’s probably more colonial.”
He illustrates the distinction by arguing that injunctions based upon divine punishment—such as “Do this or God will punish you”—reflect Christian theology, whereas recommendations grounded in the pursuit of a good and flourishing life are more characteristic of Nahua ethics. It is important to note that divine punishment is not limited to Christianity and one can find many instances in which Nahuas could be punished by the teteoh whether it be Tlaloc flooding a city or Chicome Coatl, the teotl of corn, leaving a city and thus causing the crops to fail due to the neglect of the community-members.
At first glance, this appears to provide a practical way of identifying Christian influence within the text. The difficulty, however, is that the proposed criterion is not independently established by the historical sources themselves. Instead, it risks becoming circular: passages are identified as authentically Nahua because they fit Purcell’s prior conception of Nahua philosophy, while passages that do not fit that conception are classified as colonial additions.
Purcell’s method proceeds by first defining Nahua ethics as those values that are intrinsic to the community rather than imposed by an external deity. Any passage consistent with that framework is then treated as original Nahua thought, while passages inconsistent with it are attributed to Christian influence. The difficulty with this approach is that it produces the result he has decided before. He has already decided what Aztecs believe, and what conforms to that is true Aztec and what doesn’t is foreign influence.
The problem is not simply that Purcell offers a heuristic. Historians and philologists frequently develop working hypotheses when interpreting difficult texts. Rather, the concern is whether the heuristic can be independently verified from the evidence rather than being used to determine the evidence itself.
The episode also raises another methodological question because Purcell’s criterion appears difficult to reconcile with earlier claims made during the same discussion. Earlier in the podcast, Purcell and the hosts argue that Nahua philosophy was fundamentally communal rather than individualistic. They suggest that Nahua ethics emphasized external obligations to one’s community rather than an internal conception of the self and even argue that Classical Nahuatl lacked a concept comparable to the Western philosophical notion of “being.” If that characterization is accepted, then it becomes less clear why “intrinsic” motivations should function as the defining feature of authentic Nahua philosophy. The episode therefore appears to employ the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction in different ways at different points in the discussion, making the proposed methodology difficult to apply consistently.
More importantly, neither Camilla Townsend nor Julia Madajczak believes that the surviving Huehuetlahtolli permit such a straightforward separation of Indigenous and Christian elements. As discussed earlier, Miguel León-Portilla himself concluded that Christian editorial revisions had become so thoroughly intertwined with the Nahuatl text that they could not be reliably disentangled. Madajczak likewise argues that Bautista’s Huehuetlahtolli cannot be treated as a pre-Hispanic philosophical treatise in isolation because Christian editorial activity permeates the work.
If those assessments are correct, then identifying authentic pre-Columbian ideas cannot be accomplished simply by labeling passages as “intrinsic” or “extrinsic.” Instead, the task requires careful comparison with other early Nahuatl sources, close attention to the language itself, and an awareness that Christian and Indigenous concepts often became inseparably intertwined within colonial texts.
This does not mean that traces of pre-Columbian philosophy are absent from the Huehuetlahtolli. Rather, it suggests that recovering those traces requires a historically grounded philological method rather than a criterion that risks confirming conclusions reached in advance.
Why Linguistic Proficiency Matters
Because the most important philosophical texts of early colonial central Mexico survive primarily in Classical Nahuatl, any attempt to reconstruct Nahua intellectual traditions ultimately depends upon close engagement with that language.
This observation is not unique to Nahuatl studies. Historians of Ancient Greece generally work from Greek, medievalists from Latin, and scholars of Classical China from literary Chinese. Although translations are indispensable tools, they inevitably reflect the interpretive decisions of their translators.
For this reason, many scholars regard advanced knowledge of Classical Nahuatl as an essential foundation for research into Nahua philosophy.
Camilla Townsend expressed this concern directly during a 2026 discussion on Reddit:
“I think it is a VERY significant problem. It is probably the greatest problem our field faces right now. People learn a few words of Nahuatl, then use works in translation without really understanding their deep structure.”
Her observation speaks to a broader issue within the discipline. Philosophical arguments frequently depend upon subtle grammatical distinctions, metaphorical expressions, and culturally specific concepts that cannot always be captured in translation. Consequently, conclusions drawn primarily from translated texts should be approached with appropriate caution.
One Final Example
During the podcast, Purcell discusses criticism of his decision to translate the difrasismo in cualli in yectli as evidence that the Nahuas had a concept for “virtue.”
Yet Magnus Pharao Hansen has argued that this expression is better understood as a biblical calque reflecting the Christian phrase “what is right and good in the sight of the Lord” which in turn comes directly from the Original Hebrew is יָשַׁר “right” & הַטּ֖וֹב “good.”
וְעָשִׂ֛יתָ הַיָּשָׁ֥ר וְהַטּ֖וֹב בְּעֵינֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה
what is right and good in the sight of the lord
Likewise, Julia Madajczak identifies several expressions that Purcell interprets as preserving pre-Columbian philosophical concepts but which she argues function instead as Christian terminology introduced by the friars.
Among the examples she discusses are:
- tlacatecolotl, which Purcell interprets literally as “owl-man,” whereas Bautista appears to employ it in the Christian sense of “devil.”
- Mictlan, which Purcell translates as “the land of the dead,” although within Bautista’s Christianized discourse Madajczak argues that it functions as “hell.”
These examples illustrate the central methodological question running throughout this article. Before philosophical conclusions can be drawn from colonial Nahuatl texts, scholars must first determine how those texts functioned within their historical and linguistic context.
Conclusion
The purpose of this review has not been to discourage philosophical engagement with Nahuatl literature. On the contrary, Nahua intellectual traditions remain one of the richest and most rewarding areas of Mesoamerican scholarship.
Rather, this review has examined whether Discourses of the Elders provides a reliable foundation for reconstructing pre-Columbian Nahua philosophy.
The published reviews by Camilla Townsend and Julia Madajczak identify three interconnected methodological concerns.
First, the Huehuetlahtolli translated by Purcell are not straightforward pre-Hispanic documents but texts that have undergone substantial Christian editorial revision.
Second, other Nahuatl sources, particularly Book 6 of the Florentine Codex and the Bancroft Dialogues, appear to preserve comparable material while exhibiting considerably less Christian influence.
Third, philosophical conclusions drawn from these texts ultimately depend upon careful engagement with Classical Nahuatl itself rather than upon translated editions alone.
Whether one ultimately agrees with Purcell’s philosophical interpretations is therefore a separate question. Before those interpretations can be accepted, however, the methodological concerns identified by Townsend, Madajczak, and other Nahuatl specialists deserve careful consideration.
As Nahuatl studies continue to develop, rigorous collaboration among linguists, historians, philologists, philosophers, and native speakers will remain essential to understanding the intellectual world of the Nahuas.
Works Cited:
Andrews, J. Richard. Introduction to Classical Nahuatl. 1975.
Julia Madajczak. Discourses of the Elders. The Aztec Huehuetlatolli: A First English Translation review by Julia Madajczak. Inter-American Journal of Philosophy. Fall 2024. Volume 15, Issue 1, Page 42.
Pharao Hansen, Magnus. https://x.com/magnuspharao/status/2076695861623410939?s=46. Accessed 7/13/26
Townsend, Camila. REVIEW OF DISCOURSES OF THE ELDERS: THE AZTECHUEHUETLATOLLI: A FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION Journal of Mexican Philosophy | Volume 3, Issue 1 (2024): 98-104
Townsend, Camila. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sla68b/hello_we_are_camilla_townsend_and_josh_anthony/ Accessed 7/12/2026
