Aztec - American Archaeology

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Aztec

Nomadic tribe, Nahuatl-speaking, living in the border territory on the margins of civilized Mesoamerica. Sometime in the 12th century they embarked on a period of wandering and in the 13th century settled in the valley of central Mexico. Continually dislodged by the small city-states that fought one another in shifting alliances, the Aztecs finally found refuge on a small island in Lake Texcoco where, about 1345, they founded the town of Tenochtitlán.

The Aztecs at first lived under the dominion of Azcapotzalco, the mightiest of the city-states in the valley of central Mexico. They helped this town to conquer territory in the early 15th century, but in 1428 they defeated Azcapotzalco itself with the assistance of allies. By 1431, Tenochtitlan had become an independent state in alliance with the neighboring cities of Texcoco and Tlacopan. This triple alliance soon controlled the entire valley and, with Tenochtitlan as the dominant partner, began a program of military expansion that was still unfinished at the time of the Spanish conquest.

For a century, the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan had been the greatest power in Mexico. As they grew in political status, they became sophisticated and civilized, learning from established peoples who had been town dwellers for more than 1,000 years. The Aztec empire consisted of numerous loosely connected urban communities. Land ownership was communal; each local group, called a capulli, was composed of a few families that jointly owned a piece of land. Part of the yield of cultivated land was given to the state as a kind of tax.

Aztec Religion

Like all the Mexican peoples, the Aztecs worshiped a multitude of gods, each of whom demanded offerings and sacrifices. Above all, the Aztecs considered themselves the chosen people of Huitzilopochtli, the sun and war god, in whose name they were destined to conquer all rival nations. Huitzilopochtli shared the main temple at Tenochtitlan with Tlaloc, the rain god, important to the farmers in a land where drought was a constant threat. Another important god was Qeutzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, patron of arts and crafts and the god of self-sacrifice.

Religion was ever present. Each place and each trade had its patron deity: each day, and each division of the day, was watched over by its own god. Priests were expected to live in chastity, to mortify their flesh, and to understand astronomy, astrology, the complex rituals and ceremonies, and the art of picture writing. Games also formed part of the religious ritual. A popular ball game was lachtli, in which a small rubber ball had to be struck by the hips or thighs and knocked across a special court. In another ritual game, men attired as birds and attached to ropes were slung in a wide circle around a pole. The official state religion of the soldiers and noblemen was concerned primarily with the great and powerful gods: the creators, the solar deities, the patrons of the warrior orders. By contrast, the common people seem to have preferred the lesser, more accessible gods: the patrons of the craft guilds, the protectors of local shrines, and the deities who looked after the things of everyday life. For everyone, however, rich or poor, each month of the Aztec calendar had its festival, with music, dancing, processions, and sacrifices. All this came to an end with the Spanish conquest and the introduction of the Christian religion, although at the peasant level certain traditions from the Aztec heritage still survive in modern Mexico.