A distant sound is heard. It sounds like a deep drum being hit with a heavy instrument. You hear it again and strain your eyes in the direction of the sound. All around you is dense jungle. Snakes slither between your legs. You hear the sound once again. In front of you is a dense stand of ferns. You part them and look down into a wide open valley. The valley gets so wide and it is so green that it takes your breath away. But that is not what you are looking at.
You are staring at a huge city with glittering buildings shining in the spring sunlight. Smoke rises up from some of the many houses. You can see and hear children playing in the wide open fields in front of the shining buildings. Lamas and chickens are being bought and sold. You see bags of gold jewelry being bought and sold. Beyond the market place you can watch a religious ceremony. You hear the scream of a person being sacrificed to one of the gods.
Beyond the city there are roads made of stone and canals full of pedestrians and canos. Who are these people and what are they doing here you wonder? The above paragraph describes what an early explorer in Mexico might have seen between 1400 and 1500 AD. The Aztec nation is one of the largest and most advanced Indian nations to ever exist on earth. Just about every part of the Aztec life was advance to such a state that at that time of the world the people were living better than many European nations.
The Aztec nation is unique in its history, economy, environment, and way of life then any other nation at that time. Perhaps three to four thousand years ago, small bands of hunting-gathering peoples made their way across the land bridge that was the frozen Bering Strait, migrated southward through what is now Alaska, Canada, the United States, Central America, South America, and Mexico, settling along the way. One such hunting- gathering group settled in the Central Valley of what is now Mexico (Nicholson 1985).
There is a long history of civilizations in the Central Valley of Mexico; as early as several centuries before Christ agricultural tribes had already settled, and by the birth of Christ had established as their great religious center Teotihuacan. The history of the Central Valley after circa the tenth century A. D. is one of tribal conflict and superiority. About the time of the fall of this agricultural civilization, which flourished from approximately the second to the tenth centuries A. D. , a new tribe, who we know as the Toltecs, settled at Tula, Hidalgo.
They belonged to a larger group known as the Nahua, or Nahuatl- speaking, and seem to have entered the Central Valley from the north or northwest. The Toltec civilization gradually replaced the older, agricultural civilization, as Toltec influence was felt as far as the Yucatan Peninsula and other areas occupied by the Mayan peoples. Yet by the eleventh century A. D. , another tribe, the Chichimecs, had already begun to eclipse the Toltecs as the dominant group of the Central Valley. By approximately the thirteenth century, the Chichimecs had replaced the Toltecs (Wolf 1998).
About this time, another Nahua tribe known as the Aztecs began their migration, in c. 1168. They left their mythical mysterious homeland called Aztlan, place of the herons, or Chicomoztoc, place of the seven caves, and migrated southwards through Michoacan (Leon-Portilla 1992). The Aztecs, or “Crane People,” arrived in the Central Valley and obtained permission to settle at Chapultepec in c. 1248 (Caso 1958). The tradition of tribal conflict in the Central Valley was continued; however, it seems that the Aztecs, at first, were practically enslaved by the other Nahua tribes inhabiting the Central Valley.
The Aztec culture would not be subjugated, however, and continued in its struggle for power. By the fourteenth century the Aztecs had founded two settlements on islands in lakes: Tlaltetalco and Tenochtitlan. The traditional founding date of Tenochtitlan is 1325; the quest for the sacred site on which to found Tenochtitlan is relayed to us by an Aztec myth,… [its] beginning is found in ancient times, when a humble tribe was banished– by the original Aztecs (Castillo 1908)– from a mysterious homeland it called Aztlan(place of the herons) or Chicomoztoc(place of the seven caves).
During the long exile the Mexicas wandered among hostile strangers while anxiously searching for the divine sign, whose presence, prophesied by their god, would mark their arrival in the promised land. The tale continues with the discovery of the omen and the subsequent founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan on the sacred site. (Leon-Portilla 1992) By the fifteenth century Tenochtitlan had become the center of the Aztec world– the center of Aztec growth, conquest, and expansion. As early as the sixteenth century Tenochtitlan dominated all other cities in the Central Valley and had reached the height of its power and magnificence (Caso 1958).
The center of the Aztec empire was located near the Lerma river which is near the southern part of the Mexican plateau. The plateau is the largest of Mexico’s land regions and it is the most varied region consisting of five sections. The Volcanic Axis is located across the southern part of the plateau. Many of the volcanoes are still active. This area receives a lot of rain and the soil is fertile. This area is the main area where corn and beans were grown for the Aztec empire. The Bajio lies north of the volcanic axis and has an average elevation of 7,000 feet. This region houses the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
Here there is very little rain and thus the region is very dry. The Mesa del Norte area makes up for more then half of the plateau and has an average elevation of 9,000 feet. Since it is so high crops are always in danger of freezing. The Sierra Madre Occidental is a long mountain range that forms the western ridge of the plateau. It remained a barrier for the Aztecs and their enemies. Some of this region still has not been explored by people. The Sierra Madre Oriental is the plateau’s eastern rim. The Aztecs had no use for this area but today there is a major coal and old industry in the area (Aschmann 1985).
The average January temperatures of the plateau is from 10 to 15 degrees Centigrade while in July the average temperature is around 20 to 25 degrees centigrade. Thus the weather is much like B. C. Average precipitation is from 30 – 50 cm at the Aztec capital to less than 30 in the highlands. The central part of life for any Aztec citizen, man or woman, was religion. For example, if a baby was to become a priest, immediately after birth it was painted in black and a beaded necklace placed about its neck, and certain rites were conducted.
The necklace was then removed and placed in a temple until the child came of age, when the child would then proceed in some type of ecclesiastical training. It was never doubted the child would become a priest; the Aztecs believed that the child’s soul was caught in the beads, and that the soul would draw the child to the temple inexorably without regard to the will of the child. Similarly, if a child was to become a great warrior, it was decided at birth and similar ceremonies were carried out.
Interestingly, these decisions about a child’s future were made by the parents soon after birth. Therefore, from the moment a child was brought into the world she was surrounded by religion. The religion of the Aztecs was a complex one, but is generally characterized as polytheistic, based on the worship of a multitude of personal gods. It is interesting that the Aztecs attempted to incorporate the gods of conquered people into their religion; this was accomplished by considering the conquered peoples’ gods simply as manifestations of the gods they already worshipped.
Similarly, often in the lower Aztec classes people would create whole gods out of what was generally considered only a manifestation of an attribute of a single god (Caso 6-9). There is a dual creative principle found throughout the Aztec culture, split not surprisingly between the masculine and the feminine. This dual creative principle was expressed in the form of two gods, Ometecuhtli, “two lord,” and Omecihuatl, “two lady. ” Both resided in Omeyocan, meaning “the place two” (Caso 9).
Aztec gods were created when Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl had four sons, to whom they entrusted the creation of the other gods, the world, and man. The sons were named Red Tezcatlipoca, also called Xipe or Camaxtle; Black Tezcatlipoca, commonly called Tezcatlipoca; Quetzlcoatl, the god of wind and life; and Huitzilopochtli, the Blue Tezcatlipoca. It is surmised that in ancient times Quetzlcoatl was replaced by a White Tezcatlipoca (Moctezuma 1988). One of the fundamental concepts in the Aztec religion was the grouping of all beings according to the four compass directions and the central direction of up and down.
Ometecuhtli (heaven) and Omecihuatl (earth) represented the central direction of up and down; this symbolizes the heavens and the earth. Their four sons were each associated with a different color and a different compass point. Black Tezcatlipoca was associated with the North, Blue Tezcatlipoca with the South, Red Tezcatlipoca with the East, and Quetzlcoatl with the West. Animals, trees, days, and also men and women were grouped in this manner. Men, according to the day on which they were born, belonged to one of the four regions of the world.
Aztec mythology states that the world has been created several times, and eventually each creation is followed by a cataclysm that has destroyed mankind. This was necessary, they believed, because rarely is anything perfected on the first essay. Thus, they could not have a perfect creation after the first try. There are two Aztec myths that clearly illustrate two main tenets of Aztec culture. The first myth centers on Quetzlcoatl. The myth says that if man was to live, he must reciprocate by offering his own blood in sacrifice. This is because man came about from Quetzcoatl making a sacrifice.
Sacrifice was essential in Aztec religion, for if no man could exist except through the creative force of the gods, the gods in turn need man to sustain them with human sacrifice. The second myth helps explain the warlike tendencies of the Aztecs. As explained by Caso, according to legend, Coatlicue, the old goddess of the earth, became a priestess in the temple living a life of chastity after having given birth to the moon and stars. One day when she was sweeping, Coatlicue came across a ball of down which she tucked into her waistband.
When she finished sweeping, she looked for the ball of down but realized it was gone and that she was pregnant. When her children Coyolxauhqui, the moon, and Centzonhuitznahuac, the stars, discovered this they became angry and decided to kill their mother. Coatlicue wept over her impending death, but the presence in her womb consoled her. When Coyolxauhqui and Centzonhuitznahuac came to slay her, Huitzilopochtli was born, and with the aid of the serpent of fire(sun’s rays) he cut off Coyolxauhqui’s head and sent Centzonhuitznahuac fleeing.
Thus, when Huitzilopochtli was born he had to do combat with his brothers the stars and his sister the moon; armed with the serpent of fire he drove them away, his victory signifying a new a new day of life for men. When Huitzilopochtli consummated his victory, he was carried across the sky on a litter by the spirits of warriors who have died either in combat or on the sacrificial stone. Later, in the early afternoon, Huitzilopochtli was picked up by the spirits of women who perished in childbirth. They then lead the sun to its setting.
Each day this divine combat is begun anew, and thus Huitzilopochtli must be strong if he is to defeat all of this brothers with only his arrows of light. To accomplish this task, Huitzilopochtli must be strong, nourished by human blood. Huitzilopochtli is a god, and disdains the coarse food of humans; he desires chalchihuatl, the precious liquid. Thus the Aztecs, the people of Huitzilopochtli, are charged with the duty of supplying him with food. Thus, for the Aztecs, war was an integral part of their diurnal routine. War became almost a from of worship of Huitzilopochtli.
Their belief that Huitzilopochtli depended on them for chalchihuatl led the Aztecs to establish the Xochiyaoyotl, or “flowery war. ” The sole purpose of the Xochiyaoyotl was to take prisoners to sacrifice to the sun. Therefore, each Aztec god required his own sacrifices. This led to an unusual culture: one refined, yet with an accepted level of brutality that is still unsurpassed. The Aztecs conducted an interesting ceremony called Toxcatl in the sixth month. A young warrior, most likely captured through Xochiyaoyotl, was selected for his godlike qualities: smooth skin, good looks, and poise among others.
He was then trained for an entire year in how to conduct himself as a personage of the court. He was taught how to play clay pipes, and was given an entourage to attend to him as though he were a lord. Dressed in the attire of the gods, this impersonator of Tezcatlipoca would stroll the streets smoking fine tobacco from gilded reed pipes carrying a bouquet of flowers. Any citizens who met him on the street held him in as high of an esteem as the king himself. Twenty days before the celebration of the festival, his dress was changed to that of a great captain.
He was married to four young maidens, incarnations of the wives of the god of providence: Xochiqutzal, Xilonen, Atlatonan, and Huixtocihuatl. When the day of the festival finally came, banquets, ceremonies, and dances were held in honor of the youth. The entire population praised him, commoners and nobles alike. Suddenly, he was taken with his wives and court to a small, neglected temple on the shore of a lake. Here, his wives and entourage left him. Left with but a few pages and his clay pipes, he was escorted to the base of the temple. Here, even the pages left him.
He ascended the temple steps alone. On each of the steps, he broke one of his flutes, symbolizing his passed grandeur. Finally, atop the temple he was seized by four priests and stripped of his remaining finery. Each of his arms and legs was seized by a priest, and the young man was stretched atop an altar resembling a flattened cylinder, with his chest thrust high in the air. A fifth priest, in a plunging motion, thrust an obsidian knife into the young man’s chest. The priest then reached in through the wound and tore out the young man’s heart.
Toxcatl had a moral: it was to instruct people that those who enjoy wealth and pleasures in this life will end in poverty and sorrow (Caso 69). Toxcatl is just one example of Aztec sacrifice. Captured warriors were painted with red and white stripes, in imitation of the astral gods, and sacrificed in the same way. The emptied corpses were then taken to the captors houses “for dismemberment and distribution: flesh scraped from the skulls and thighbones; fragments of flesh cooked and eaten; human skins, dripping with grease and blood, stretched over living flesh; clots of blood scooped up to smear the temple walls” (Clendinnen 261).
For the Aztecs, however, these were more than just grotesque rituals. The flesh was eaten atop whole dried maize kernels; to them, the flesh but was a different form of matter in the vegetable cycle (Clendinnen 209). To the Aztecs, the victims were the incarnation of the god whose attire they wore; thus, the eating of the flesh was a most sacred communion (Caso 75). The skins of the victims were often worn until decomposition occurred; the removal of the skin was a happy event. This served to remind the Aztecs of the bitterness of the experience of death.
In general, however, human skins were worn to this extreme only after one occasion: The Feast of the Flaying of Men. Other sacrificial methods were practiced as well: some men were tethered to a framework and riddled with arrow until they no longer could stand; some men were burned in sacrifices to the gods of fire; some men were flayed alive and the priest dressed in his skin; some men were decapitated; and some fought in gladiator matches. In these matches, the prisoner was bound and armed with a wooden sword, its usual blades of obsidian replaced with feathers. The prisoner was also given four cudgels of pine.
Four expert Aztec warriors, two each from the Jaguar and Eagle clans, would come fight the prisoner one at a time. Should these four fail to vanquish their foe, a fifth man was brought out, always left-handed and thus extremely powerful to slay the prisoner. This cycle continued until the prisoner was finally exterminated (Bray 1968). To the Aztecs family was very important. The family was an important part of survival. The man was a house builder and a farmer or craftsman while the woman prepared food, cared for the children, made clothes, and looked after the livestock.
Aztecs thought that marriage without children was incomplete and thus barren women were looked down upon and scorned. The aims of an average Aztec was to have a respected position in the community, a happy family life, and a marriage with children. The birth of a child was an important event. Every important event was always accompanied with speeches in Aztec life. As soon as the baby was born, the midwife would give the baby a speech while she cut the umbilical cord. In the speech she explained to the baby what its duties would be in life.
If the infant was a boy he would be told that he would be a warrior whose mission was to feed the Sun with the blood of enemies and if the infant was a girl she was to spend her days doing household chores and help the family. In about four days the father would call an astrologer to read the child’s horoscope and determine the appropriate day for the naming ceremony. After a naming ceremony, the name was announced and the news was spread by little boys who ran through the streets shouting. Each child had a calendrical name taken from the day of birth and also a personal name which belonged to him alone(Bray 1969).
Education was considered extremely important. Even from an infant to age four the child was taught with ‘quite words’. At age four, practical instruction was given under the watchful eyes of the elders. For example the child was taught all the words of the things he would carry in a basket. He would learn to carry things for his mother and go with his father to the local markets. For girls education was really training for marriage. She would be shown how to make thread and use it. At age 14 she would learn to weave a loom. She was also thought how to make cloth to support the family.
Self control and obedience was taught at home and punishments were severe. Boys were beaten, pricked with maguey spines, then tied hand and foot and laid naked on the wet ground for a whole day, or else were held over a fire of chili peppers and made to inhale the bitter smoke. Girls were too pricked or held over the fire, being forced to rise before dawn and to spend the whole day cleaning the home and sweeping the street outside (Bray 1968). In many other ways children were made to feel inferior. A ruler’s daughter was made to walk around and never look up from the ground.
She was to never talk while eating and must keep absolute silence. Maidens could not go outside the house without guards. Young unmarried women could never see their father without permission and every time the saw him they would give him presents and gifts they had made. None laughed in his presence and all acted very soberly and modestly(Bray 1969). The choice of who to marry was left up to the man alone. Women had no choice of who they could marry. The two families would arrange and organize the marriage ceremony. The man who was going to get married was released from school and the school gave him many gifts.
Now the young youth was considered a man. The girl who was usually 16, spent most of her time in preparing food for the big event. Marriage ceremonies were held in a house during the night with many people present (usually about 150). The marriage rite took place and the couple were perfumed with incense and were then presented with traditional gifts. Then they were joined by a match-maker by the young mans cloak and then they were man and wife. The party continued until the young people were tired and the old people were drunk.
Then on the fifth day after the marriage ceremony, there was another party in celebration of the married couple (Bray 1969). Polygamy was very common among the Aztecs. This was very important in the survival of the nation because so many males were killed in wars and in sacrifices. Also alliances were made in this way for diplomatic reasons. If you committed adultery the punishment was death by stoning or strangulation. The person accused had the choice between the two types of punishment. The social structure of the Aztecs is very interesting. A person called the Great Speaker was the supreme ruler.
The son of the Great Speaker not always was the heir. It was a Council of Wise Men- very similar to the Roman Senate- that decided in a democratic way who would be the next ruler of Tenochtitlan. In a way, the election of the Great Speaker was very similar to the election of the Byzantine Emperor (coincidentally, these two cultures are contemporary, the Byzantine ending years before the discovery of America). Once the Great Speaker was elected, he was obeyed in everything, since he was the represented of the god Huitzilopochtli on the Earth. The Great Speaker was also head of the government, and the main priest of the Great Temple.