Facts about Aztec
Aztec agriculture, transportation, economy, architecture, arts, and political institutions bear extraordinary witness to the creative and collaborative capability of humankind, and of the universal inclination to find transcendent meaning to human life.
Bernardino de Sahagъn (1499–1590), the Franciscan missionary, Juan Bautista de Pomar (circa 1539–1590), and Motolinнa reported that the Aztecs had 18 festivities each year.
The Aztec people also enjoyed a type of dramatic presentation, although it could not be called theatre.
The most important official of Tenochtitlan government is often called “The Aztec Emperor.” The Nahuatl title, Huey Tlatoani (plural huey tlatoque), translates roughly as "Great Speaker"; the tlatoque ("speakers") were an upper class.
De Pomar interviewed very old Aztecs for his “Relaciуn de Juan Bautista Pomar” (1582) and is considered by some to be the first anthropologist.
Aztec chronicles describe this time as a golden age, when music was established, people learned arts and craft from surviving Toltecs, and rulers held poetry contests in place of wars.
Most of the Aztec empire was forged by one man, Tlacaelel (Nahuatl for "manly heart"), who lived from 1397 to 1487.
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
Much has been said about a lack of protein in the Aztec diet, to support the arguments on the existence of cannibalism (M. Harner, Am.
Some of their surviving writings are crucial in our knowledge of the Aztecs.
A study by Montellano (Medicina, nutriciуn y salud aztecas, 1997) shows a mean life of 37 (+/- 3) years for the population of Mesoamerica.
The Aztec built their city of Tenochtitlan on that site, building a great artificial island, which today is in the center of Mexico City.
According to an Aztec source, in the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli, 34 captives were sacrificed in the gladiatorial sacrifice to Xipe Totec.
Surrounded, outnumbered, and apparently doomed, Cortйs and three others managed to work their way through to the chieftain of the Aztecs and killed him.
Recent archeological evidence (INAH 2005) in some of the bodies found under the "Catedral Metropolitana," from the basement of Aztec temples, show some cuttings indicating the removal of muscular masses.
Like in modern Mexico, the Aztecs had strong passions over a ball game, but this in their case it was tlachtli, the Aztec variant of the ulama game, the ancient ball game of Mesoamerica.
Miguel Leуn-Portilla, the most renowned translator of Nahuatl, comments that it is in this poetry where we can find the real thought of the Aztecs, independent of "official" Aztec ideology.
Aztec civilization sustained millions of people and developed from a history of thousands of years in complete isolation from European and Asian cultures.
The Aztec were said to be guided by their god Huitzilopochtli, meaning "left-handed hummingbird."
The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521, when after long battle and a long siege where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox, Cuauhtйmoc surrendered to Hernбn Cortйs (aka "Cortez").
Aztec legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl (the feathered snake) with the mythical city of Tollan, which they also seem to have identified with the more ancient Teotihuacan.
According to him, the Aztec economy would have been unable to support feeding them as slaves, so the columns of prisoners were "marching meat."
By the time the Aztecs came to recognize what warfare meant in European terms, it was too late.
The Aztec military had an equivalent to military service with a core of professional warriors.
Cortйs, with his army of up to 500 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala, and eventually from Texcoco, who were resisting Aztec rule.
Aztec chronicles reported human sacrifice began as an institution in the year "five knives" or 1484, under Tizoc.
The appropriateness of the term "slavery" for this Aztec institution has been questioned.
The Aztec created artificial floating islands or chinampas on Lake Texcoco, on which they cultivated crops.
To the Aztec, the Toltecs were the originators of all culture; "Toltecayotl" was a synonym for culture.
Most cultures of Mesoamerica gave some kind of offerings to the gods, and the sacrifice of animals was common, a practice for which the Aztecs bred special dogs.
Human sacrifice was widespread at this time in Mesoamerica and South America (during the Inca Empire), but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities.
Aztecs waged "flower wars" to capture prisoners for sacrifices they called nextlaualli ("debt payment to the gods"), so that the sun could survive each cycle of 52 years.
The Aztec empire is not completely analogous to the empires of European history.
The abundance of tributes led to the emergence and rise of a third class that was not part of the traditional Aztec society: pochtecas or traders.
The Aztec strategy of war was based on the capture of prisoners by individual warriors, not on working as a group to kill the enemy in battle.
A hegemonic power, the Aztecs sacrificed human beings on a massive scale in bloody religious rituals, enslaved subject peoples, and, by Spanish accounts, practiced cannibalism.
The most archaic form of the Anubis cult viewed the god as was as the guardian of the deceased, saving them from destruction wrought by purification or carrion eaters.
Some Aztecs also anticipated the return of the white-skinned god Quetzalcoatl from the east, an expectation which may have contributed to the success of the militarily overmatched Spanish forces.
When Aztec boys attained adult age, they stopped cutting their hair until they took their first captive; sometimes two or three youths united to get their first captive; then they would be called iyac.
Their use of the word Azteca was like the modern use of Latin American, or Anglo-Saxon: a broad term that does not refer to a specific culture.
Aztec culture is generally grouped with the cultural complex known as the nahuas, because of the common language they shared.
The Aztecs had a great diversity of maize strains, with a wide range of amino acid content; also, they cultivated amaranth for its seeds, which have a high protein content.
The Aztecs had three special breeds of dogs with no hair, of which only one survives.
Aztecs had no coins, so most trade was made in goods, but cacao beans (used to make chocolate) were so appreciated, they were used as an equivalent of coins.
Poetry was the only occupation worthy of an Aztec warrior in times of peace.
Aztec also used maguey extensively; from it they obtained food, sugar (aguamiel), drink (pulque), and fibers for ropes and clothing.
According to Levins (2004), the rarity, reputation, expense, and visual attractiveness of the pineapple made it an item of celebrity and the "ultimate exotic fruit."
Aztec also had domestic animals, like turkey and some breeds of dogs, which provided meat, although usually this was reserved for special occasions.
Another figure used is from Bernal Dнaz del Castillo, who traveled with Cortйs, participated in the conquest of the Aztecs in 1521, wrote his account of the conquest 50 years after the fact.
Thousands of Aztec warriors surrounded the Spanish, who promptly brought Montezuma out in an attempt to pacify his people.
Under Tlacaelel's guidance, human sacrifice became an important part of the Aztec culture, not only because of religious reasons, but also for political reasons.
The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear—it is the heart of modern Mexico City—but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec.
Human sacrifice was widespread at this time in Mesoamerica and South America (during the Inca Empire), but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities.
Aztec teachers propounded a Spartan regime of education—cold baths in the morning, hard work, physical punishment, bleeding with maguey thorns and endurance tests—with the purpose of forming a stoical people.
Francisco Lopez de Gуmara (1510–circa 1566) gives another account in which he has Aztecs eat prisoners with a special sauce.
The nucleus of the Aztec Empire was the Valley of Mexico, where the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance was built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco.
Duran says that according to tradition, Quetzalcoatl had to be welcomed with “all the wealth” that the Aztecs then possessed (1994: 497).
The Aztecs were famous for their agriculture, cultivating all available land, introducing irrigation, draining swamps, and creating artificial islands in the lakes. They developed a form of hieroglyphic writing, a complex calendar system, and built famous pyramids and temples.
Art was an important part of Aztec life. They used some forms of art such as music, poetry, and sculpture to honor and praise their gods. Other forms of art, such as jewelry and feather-work, were worn by the Aztec nobility to set them apart from the commoners. The Aztecs often used metaphors throughout their art.
Chocolate made from cacao beans was Mesoamerica's gift to the world, and was consumed often by Aztec nobles. Aztec commoners ate two meals a day. They ate the first meal after a few hours of morning work, usually a maize porridge with chilies or honey or perhaps tortillas, beans and sauce.
The Maya, Inca, and Aztecs built great civilizations in Mexico and in Central and South America between 1,800 and 500 years ago. The first of these was the Maya civilization. About 2,800 years ago, people known as the Maya lived in farming villages on the Yucatan Peninsula and the highlands to the south.