Hello Hermione,
Im not sure what your point was in quoting Dr. Townsend, but it seems that your view is that, like Townsend, you believe that the Florentine codex was a product of Spanish invention and as such, not reliable. I was pleased that we can also refer to Bernards analysis of Townsend.
"Camilla Townsend is wrong when she systematically attributes the material in the Florentine codex to Sahaguns "students". Sahaguns materials were developed in a series of interviews with
OLD LEARNED MEN (emphasis Bernard) who had been trained before the Spanish conquest. Sahagun interviewed three sets in different communities and used pictographs as mneumonic devices as was usual in that culture."
So Dr. Townsend dismissed the Florentine codex as a Spanish invention solely on the premise that a peace loving foe of human sacrifice is "obviously" a European construct.
The purpose of my comments where not to re-litigate the Quetzalcoatl question, but to point out that its unfair to single out Heyerdahl as Eurocentric seeing how it is pervasive even today.
Duncan