Hi, it’s Katrina!
From having one of the most advanced capital cities in the world to writing poetry, here
are 10 fascinating facts you probably didn’t know about the Aztecs.
10.
The Lost City of Aztlan
The Aztec people are famous for their capital city of Tenochtitlan, but they were not originally
from there.
According to their legends and stories, their ancestors came from the lost city of Aztlan
which was a luxurious and wonderful place where everyone was immortal and happy.
They consisted of seven tribes and each lived in their own cave and tended to their floating
gardens.
Food was plentiful and the gods were happy with people, leading many to believe that
this may have been the real city of Atlantis.
However in the Codex Aubin, the Aztecs in Aztlan lived under a tyrannical elite group,
so the escaped and moved south to the basin on May 24, 1064- a very important date in
Aztec history.
Regardless of why they left Aztlan led by their god of war, the sun, and human sacrifice
Huitzilopochtli (huit-zilo-poch-tli), archaeologists have been searching for the lost city in the
north, but so far have been able to find it.
There was probably more than one migration, and it is hard to say whether this was a real
location, or maybe it never existed at all and is just a place that exists in legends.
9.
The Mexica
The term “Aztec” came into popular use by Spaniards after the initial discovery of
the civilization.
While some of these indigenous people did call themselves “Azteca,” inspired by
the name of their ancestral home of Aztlan, they were mostly known as the Mexica.
Around 1250, the Mexica arrived in the Valley of Mexico.
It was a very long and difficult migration.
When they arrived, this place had already been occupied for thousands of years most
likely due to the wealth of natural resources.
They settled on the city of Culhuacan, a prestigious city, and they would help the town in battles.
In gratitude, the King of Culhuacan gave them one of his daughters to worship.
Instead, they sacrificed her to their god, Huitzilopochtli, and so they were banished
to wander in the marshes.
Huitzilopochtli appeared to their leaders and told them to look for a sign, a great
eagle perched on a cactus killing a snake.
The modern Mexican flag features a coat of arms depicting this image.
After a time they came upon Tenochtitlan, where they saw the sign, and were finally
able to settle.
The application of the term “Aztec” to all Mexica peoples seems to have first appeared
in European historical records from the 16th century.
Its first use in an influential European text was in a work about the Aztecs that was published
in 1780 called La Historia Antigua de Mexico by the Creole Jesuit teacher of New Spain,
Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray.
During the 19th century, the term “Aztec” became even more popular, after being used
by my favorite explorer, Alexander Von Humboldt, who used Clavijero’s work as a source.
Finally, in 1843, the word became a mainstay of the English language, with the publishing
of William Prescott’s book The History of the Conquest of Mexico.
The term “Aztec” as it’s often used today and throughout European history is slightly
misleading, and modern anthropologists and other scholars tend to have varying definitions
of the word, which they apply as they personally see fit.
So you can too!
8.
One of the World’s Biggest Cities
Once they found Tenochtitlan, the certainly made the most of it.
It was officially founded around 1325 and became the Aztec capital by the late 15th
century.
At its peak around 1519, the population was several times the size of London, with around
400,000 residents, making it one of the world’s largest cities at the time, as well as the
largest residential concentration in Mesoamerican history.
When Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes saw the city in 1519, he was pretty impressed.
In a letter to King Charles I of Spain, he described the architecture and many canals
as “spectacularly beautiful.”
One of the conquistadores, named Bernal Diaz del Castillo, later recounted that when the
Spanish arrived at the capital, they were in disbelief.
He wrote, “Some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a
dream?”
It was very rich and had a thriving marketplace, organized streets and canals, as well as large
temples, schools, and even ball courts.
As impressed as the Spanish were by Tenochtitlan, they still wanted to teach them a lesson.
In 1521, much of the city was destroyed, including hundreds of temples, as well as the palace
of Montezuma II, a landmark building which contained over 300 rooms.
Now much of modern-day Mexico city lies over its remains.
7.
Education
When it came to schooling, the Aztecs, or Mexica, were far ahead of their time.
Although the civilization placed great emphasis on the importance of parents teaching their
children, they were one of the first societies to introduce compulsory education for children,
regardless of class.
This meant that nobles, commoners, and even slaves went to school.
The society’s education system was at least partially based on the huehuetlatolli, a collection
of Mexica behavioral teachings and legends.
All children were to learn about religion, doing penance, physical work, keeping watch
at night and drawing blood from different parts of the body.
(Remember, they always had to keep Huitzilopochtli happy.
Public schools were separated by gender and class, with nobles attending separate institutions.
At the Calmecac School, priests taught boys of nobility about music, history, art, and
leadership skills.
Boys of lower strata attended the Cuicacalli School, where they learned primarily about
becoming warriors and were trained for possible military service.
Education for girls focused largely on cooking, weaving, art and other domestic duties.
6.
Chocolate
To the Aztecs, chocolate was considered a gift from Quetzalcoatl, the god of wisdom.
Chocolate originated in Mesoamerica and was so valuable, cacao seeds were used as a form
of currency for small purchases.
(Cotton cloth was exchanged for larger purchases.)
In addition to chocolate’s religious significance as a gift from Quetzalcoatl, the cocoa tree
was seen as a bridge between heaven and Earth.
Before a human was sacrificed to appease the gods, chocolate was offered.
At children’s coming-of-age ceremonies, cocoa beans were given to priests’ assistants.
Couples exchanged cocoa beans during marriage ceremonies and drank a symbolic cup of chocolate.
The Aztecs prepared chocolate very differently to what we’re used to in modern times.
It was often served as a bitter, frothy drink infused with spices and crushed-up cacao seeds.
The seeds were often roasted and the drink commonly contained a foaming agent, toasted
corn, and water, as well as vanilla and/or chili.
There was an oily layer of cocoa butter at the top of the drink, which the Aztecs used
to protect their skin from the sun.
They also made wine and other drinks from the white pulp around the seeds of the cocoa
pod.
Chocolate wasn’t customarily sweetened until it was taken back to Europe during the 16th
century by the Spanish.
There, it also became a popular drink, but was sweetened with sugar that they brought
back from their other colonies.
5.
Polygamy
Aztec men were permitted to practice polygamy, but in doing so, they were bound by strict
rules.
A man only had a marriage ceremony with his first wife, who was considered the “main”
wife.
All other wives were recognized in the official records, but were considered secondary, or
less important, than the first wife.
Despite this lower ranking, extra wives were still considered a mark of great status and
were highly regarded within the culture, as they contributed to the family’s wealth.
Husbands were expected to treat all their wives with equal respect, and although men
were considered the head of the household, women were treated well in Aztec society and
had some power within their marriages.
Adultery by either party was punishable by death, and divorce was only allowed under
special circumstances.
4.
Disease and Their Downfall
As you probably already know, Europeans brought swords, horses, warfare, and genocide to the
New World.
Times back then were tough, but the Europeans had something on their side that they didn’t
even realize.
Germs!
While Hernan Cortes was often admired for his military prowess at the time, and alliances
with other Native Americans who also wanted to destroy the Aztecs, one of the lesser-known
ways the Europeans eradicated the Aztecs was through disease.
However unintentional, this certainly aided their desires of conquest.
The Spanish were successfully driven away during one of their initial attacks on Tenochtitlan.
However, they came back in August of 1521.
While there were 508 Spaniards, there were actually 200,000 allies from other Aztec tributary
states.
It was not hard for him to find allies to fight and during the siege, much of the population
died from hunger and smallpox.
In the five years following the Spanish invasion of the “New World,” an estimated 20 million
or more indigenous people perished from diseases like mumps, measles, and smallpox.
The fall of the Mexica Empire was largely made possible (and faster) by disease.
It is interesting to note that after the fall of the Aztecs and Tenochtitlan, most of the
other Mesoamerican cultures remained intact.
The tribes allied with the Spanish had much to gain and the Aztecs were not missed.
3.
They Sold Their Children
In Aztec society, it was common for impoverished people to sell their children into slavery,
or for people to even sell themselves into slavery.
These practices were often as a last resort after someone went bankrupt and saw no other
way out.
In addition to hard work, the income from selling oneself or one’s children would
provide, perhaps, a bleak light at the end of the tunnel - in other words, the eventual
possibility of buying back their freedom.
Some people remained slaves their entire lives.
While this was not an ideal existence, slaves had some rights within Aztec society compared
to others- they were allowed to marry, have children, and own land.
2.
Detailed Records
The Aztecs had an advanced writing and recordkeeping system.
Their alphabet was a form of picture writing that was based on their language, Nahuatl.
Writing was a specialized skill that required training and was done mostly by scribes and
priests, which could be men or women.
They made calendars, wrote poetry, and kept detailed astronomy, historical, and tax records,
as well as information about religious ceremonies and sacrifices.
Texts were often compiled into a type of book called a codice.
While we always tend to think of war and sacrifice when we think of the Aztecs, there was also
song and dance, which were not a part of religious ceremonies.
Known as the “flower songs”, they have their own style and it is kind of a miracle
that they were written down and survive to this day.
Paper made from bark or deer skin was used for keeping records.
Charcoal was used for writing, which was later dyed with vegetables and other substances.
Before the arrival of the spaniards, almost everything relied on drawings and pictographs
but it was important for them to write down oral history, not just keeping track of taxes
and tribute!
1.
Sacrifice and Burial Customs
Life and death went hand in hand in Aztec society.
Aztecs of high stature, including merchants, were typically cremated.
Their belief was that cremation would transform the soul of a dead warrior in a way that would
send them straight to one of their religion’s 13 versions of heaven.
Dogs were sometimes killed and cremated alongside the important deceased person for the purpose
of guiding them into the afterlife.
When upper class members of Aztec society died, their wives and slaves were also often
buried alive to serve them in the afterlife.
Most commoners were buried underneath or near their family home.
For those of you that are here for the sacrifice, Historians believe that the Aztecs sacrificed
thousands of people annually, as they saw this as a way to appease the gods, especially
Huitzilopochtli, god of war and the sun, and Tlaloc, the rain god.
Those who were sacrificed included a wide range of people, including prisoners of war,
members of Aztec society, and even children.
The priests would create towers and towers of skulls and leave them outside which would
ensure the continued existence of humanity…
To them the bones were signs of life, and regeneration like the first flowers of spring.
Sacrifices, as well as other tragic and “heroic” deaths, such as perishing in battle, were
viewed as superior to simply dying of old age, which would send you straight to the
underworld.
Women who died during childbirth were also hailed as heroes.
People who passed away in these so-called “noble” ways went to one of the religion’s
13 paradises.
When the Spanish arrived and saw all this in 1519, while they were impressed with the
large, thriving city, they were pretty shocked by this thirst for blood and used it as a
justification to destroy them.
Thanks for watching!
Hope you learned something new today!
Would you like to learn more about ancient Mesoamerican civilizations?
Let me know in the comments!
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