The Aztecs

by Michael E Smith

  The Central Mexican Plateau. Lands above 2,000 m in elevation are called the tierra fria, or cold lands. This zone includes the central Valley of Mexico and adjacent valleys to the north, east, and west. Rainfall varies from levels adequate for farming to levels that will not support maize agriculture. Average temperatures are much cooler than the other zones, and frost is a problem for farmers between October and March. The shorter growing season makes agriculture more risky than at lower elevations and limits the number and variety of crops that can be grown.

  The Aztec Environment

  Central Mexico, the home of the Aztecs, is a mountainous area, with much of the land surface taken up by steep wooded slopes. The highest mountain in Mexico, Pico de Orizaba (5,700 m elevation), sits at the eastern edge of the region. Human settlement in central Mexico has always been concentrated in the large highland valleys, whose fertile volcanic soils and abundant resources made them home to a series of complex ancient cultures beginning before 1000 BC and leading up to Aztec civilization.

  The Valley of Mexico

  The Valley of Mexico was the heartland of Aztec civilization, and in 1519 it was home to approximately one million Aztecs. It is a large internally drained basin ringed by volcanic mountains that reach over 3,000 m in elevation. Millennia of soil erosion from the mountainsides have produced deep, rich soils in the Valley and a system of shallow, swampy, saline lakes in its center (figure 1.4). These salty lakes furnished various types of food to the Aztecs, including fish, turtles, insect larvae, blue-green algae, and salt. The outcast Mexica peoples chose an island in the central lake (Lake Texcoco) to found their town Tenochtitlan, which later grew into the huge imperial capital. The southern arm of the lake system, Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, was higher in elevation than Lake Texcoco and consequently less saline. The freshwater swamps of this arm proved to be ideal for the construction of chinampas or raised fields, a highly productive form of agriculture used to feed the large Aztec population (see chapter 3).8

  Figure 1.4 The island capital Tenochtitlan in Aztec times, showing the causeways and the two volcanoes in the background (copyright © 2010 National Geographic; courtesy of National Geographic Magazine, Nov. 2010)

  Surrounding the lakes is a band of alluvial plains with deep, rich soils. Where springs or rivers could be tapped for canal irrigation, the flat alluvium became a highly productive zone. Most of the Aztec cities in the Valley (except for Tenochtitlan) were located in this environmental zone (figure 1.5). Beyond the flat alluvium are piedmont foothills that lead up to the volcanic mountains ringing the Valley of Mexico. The soils on these gentle slopes are rich and easy to work using hand tools, but they are shallow and prone to erosion. The Aztecs made use of stone terrace walls to check erosion and create fields in this area. Few large settlements were located in the foothills, but this zone was crowded with dispersed rural houses of peasant farmers. A major outcrop of obsidian, the volcanic glass that was important to Aztec technology, is located in the foothills of Otumba in the Teotihuacan subvalley (see chapter 4).

  Figure 1.5 Map of Aztec sites in central Mexico (drawing by Ellen Cesarski)

  The steep mountain slopes above the piedmont were not farmed and had little settlement. These areas were covered with a pine and oak forest exploited for wood for lumber, firewood, and charcoal production. Deer and various smaller mammals were hunted in these forests, although much of the game had been depleted by hunters of pre-Aztec cultures. A few shrines have been found on mountaintops above the treeline (4,000 m). In the southeast corner of the Valley the two towering volcanoes Popocatepetl (5,450 m) and Ixtacihuatl (5,290 m) are covered with snow year round. Mount Popocatepetl has been active at various points over the centuries, with a period of significant ash-fall during the 1990s.

  Surrounding Valleys

  The highland valleys and plains that surround the Valley of Mexico were home to the remaining two million Aztecs. The Toluca Valley to the west and the Puebla Valley to the east have environments similar to the Valley of Mexico. The lands north and south are considerably different.

  Northern plains. Unlike the eastern, southern, and western borders, the northern edge of the Valley of Mexico does not have a steep mountain range to set it off from adjacent areas. The climate to the north becomes increasingly drier, and the northern border of Mesoamerica is soon reached. The agricultural potential of this area, now part of the Mexican state of Hidalgo, is poor and one of the major crops for the Aztecs of this region was the hardy maguey plant, cultivated for fiber and syrup. The Toltec capital Tula was located in this northern zone, as were several geological sources of obsidian. In Aztec times, parts of the northern plains were populated with speakers of the Otomi language.

  East and west valley. The Toluca and Puebla valleys are at a similar elevation and have environments and climates comparable to the Valley of Mexico. Like the central Valley, the foothills were terraced and the alluvial areas irrigated during Aztec times. The Toluca Valley, to the west of the Valley of Mexico, is a large, flat plain in the modern state of Mexico. The headwaters of the Lerma River are in this valley. During the Aztec period, Nahuatl speakers shared the valley with other groups including speakers of the Otomi, Mazahua, and Matlatzinca languages. The Puebla Valley, east of the Valley of Mexico, is located in the modern states of Tlaxcala and Puebla. Several Aztec city-states in the northern part of this area (including Tlaxcalla and Huexotzinco) successfully resisted attempts by the Triple Alliance (Aztec) Empire to conquer them. These Nahuatl-speaking peoples remained independent until the arrival of the Spaniards.

  The southern valleys. South of the Valley of Mexico, elevation drops off more quickly and the valleys of the modern state of Morelos and the southern part of Puebla lie about 1,000 m lower than the other central Mexican valleys. A warmer climate permits cultivation of a number of tropical crops such as cotton and many fruits. Otherwise, this area has similar environmental zones to the rest of central Mexico (figure 1.6). The Nahuatl-speaking Aztec peoples built terraces on hillsides and irrigation canals in the valleys, making Morelos one of the most fertile areas of central Mexico. Beyond the agricultural productivity of Morelos is its archaeological richness; Aztec sites are abundant and well preserved here.

  Figure 1.6 Typical central Mexican countryside (in southern Puebla). The field in the foreground is planted in maize (photograph by Michael E. Smith)

  The Social Landscape

  The natural environment of central Mexico is unique within Mesoamerica, and its qualities go a long way toward explaining why the area was a center for advanced civilizations for over two thousand years. The close juxtaposition of many diverse environmental zones encouraged communication and exchange among groups and enabled settlements to obtain readily a wide variety of goods. Unlike most highland areas in Mesoamerica, central Mexico has large expanses of flat valleys and plains. Rainfall is adequate for maize agriculture, though not abundant. This environment easily supported small agricultural populations for many centuries, but larger numbers of people, with more complex institutions such as cities and states, required higher levels of food production. Fortunately, many central Mexican regions could be made more productive with only modest investments of labor. Barren hillsides could be transformed into fertile plots by construction of terrace walls; valley plots could be improved with canal irrigation; and swamps could be turned into high-yielding farms by adoption of the ancient Maya technique of raised field agriculture (chinampas).9

  The Aztecs did in fact adopt all of these innovations in farming. They were carried out in response to two dramatic developments during the final centuries before Spanish conquest: an explosion of population and an expansion of city-states and empires across the region. One result of these changes in agriculture, demography, and politics was the spread of Aztec peoples across the face of the land. By the time the Spaniards arrived in 1519, central Mexico had been transformed into a social landscape filled with villages, towns, and cities set within a greatly modified agricultural co
untryside. Although I do not wish to invoke any sense of environmental determinism, it is clear that the unique characteristics of the central Mexican environment were crucial in order for this social and ecological transformation to occur.

  Sources of Information

  The Aztecs are long gone, yet we know quite a bit about them today. Our knowledge comes from two sources: ethnohistory, the study of written documents, and archaeology, the study of material objects or artifacts. At first glance, the use of this information seems straightforward. What could be clearer than a firsthand Spanish description of an Aztec town or ritual, or an archaeological interpretation of an Aztec temple or cookpot? Yet as we look closer at the evidence, the picture begins to blur.

  The conqueror Hernando Cortés sought to glorify his accomplishments by inflating the sizes of the towns he conquered, and he justified his destruction of Aztec culture by exaggerating its more savage elements. Similarly, a 500-year old pot does not have a label telling us whether it was used to store grain, to serve wine, or to cook human flesh. The archaeologist must infer its use and significance from fragmentary evidence.

  In other words, scholars cannot simply leap from primary evidence – written or material – to believable interpretations of Aztec culture. We must consider the origin and nature of the evidence, we must apply rigorous methods to its study, and we must report the evidence and our methods objectively so that others may judge our interpretations on their merit.10 Let us now take a look at the sources and methods used by ethnohistorians and archaeologists to create our understanding of Aztec civilization.

  Ethnohistory

  The use of documents and other written materials to study the anthropology of past cultures is known as ethnohistory. Ethnohistorians typically use the writings of explorers, soldiers, missionaries, diplomats, and others to reconstruct cultures at the time of contact with the west. Unlike many of the cultures studied by ethnohistorians, those of Mesoamerica were literate. For the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples, the scope of ethnohistory is therefore broadened to include all written texts by and about these cultures. Ethnohistoric documents on the Aztecs can be divided into four types: native pictorial documents, reports of the Spanish conquerors, compilations of early colonial chroniclers, and Colonial-period administrative documents.

  Pictorial Codices

  The Aztecs used one of the five known writing systems of ancient Mesoamerica; the others are Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Epi-Olmec. Although Aztec writing was capable of expressing a range of words and ideas, scribes chose to limit the scope of writing to a limited repertoire of names and concepts. Most Aztec texts comprised pictorial images of persons, places, and things augmented with limited glyphic elements. Texts served as mnemonic devices – the readers (typically nobles, priests, and scribes) used the images as clues or keys and filled out the interpretation with their own personal knowledge. Manuscripts or codices (singular, codex) were written on bark paper or animal skins (see chapter 11). Only a few pre-Colonial examples have survived, but scribes continued to paint manuscripts in the Aztec style for several generations after the Spanish Conquest, and several types of these still exist.

  Pictorial histories depicted significant events in the history of a dynasty or city-state. In the most common form, a continuous series of year-glyphs was painted across the page, and depictions of events were drawn next to the year in which they occurred or were connected to the year by a line. Aztec history was related in oral form, with the historian using these manuscripts as a framework. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan, an early colonial, Nahuatl-language narrative that describes the events illustrated in a now-lost pictorial history, gives an idea of the content of these histories:

  2 House [1481] was when the ruler Axayacatl died. Then Tizoc was inaugurated as ruler of Tenochtitlan. Also, there was an eclipse of the sun.

  3 Rabbit [1482]. At this time the Colhuacan ruler called Tlatolcaltzin died. Then his son, called Tezozomoctli, was inaugurated as ruler of Colhuacan.

  4 Reed [1483]. At this time, in Tenochtitlan, the foundation was laid for the house of the devil Huitzilopochtli [i.e., the Templo Mayor], started by the ruler Tizoc.11

  An example of a pictorial history codex is provided in chapter 2 (figure 2.11 and box, pp. 54 and 55 below).

  Ritual almanacs helped priests to manage the ritual calendar, a sacred 260-day cycle (figure 1.7; see box; see also figure 11.1). These depictions of gods and rituals were used for divination and to keep records of ceremonies and cycles of time. Tax records were lists of payments due by individuals to their lords and by city-states to the Aztec Empire (figure 7.5), and maps were records of land held by individual families.

  Figure 1.7 Page from an Aztec ritual almanac, the Codex Borgia (1976:f.62). This shows a 13-day period known as a trecena; the 13 day names are arranged across the bottom and right, starting with the day 1 jaguar in the lower right. This trecena is ruled by the god Quetzalcoatl, who is seated on a throne. A supplicant and a variety of cult items and offerings are shown in front of the deity (redrawn from Seler et al. 1904–09 by Baert Georges; reproduced with permission)

  For sheer quantity of information, the Codex Mendoza is probably the most important Aztec pictorial document. This three-part manuscript was commissioned in the 1540s by the Spanish viceroy (Antonio de Mendoza) to show the king of Spain something of Aztec culture. The manuscript was painted in Aztec style, and then a scribe wrote short descriptions (in Spanish) of each element. The first part of the Codex Mendoza is a pictorial history showing the conquests of the Mexica emperors. The second part is a record of the tax paid by each province of the Aztec Empire (figure 7.5). These two sections are based on pre-Hispanic manuscript formats and are similar to other pictorial histories and tax records. The third part of the Codex Mendoza is an innovation without any known pre-Hispanic antecedents – an account of the Aztec life cycle from birth to death (figures 4.4, 4.9, 6.1, 6.2, 11.6).

  The Codex Mendoza has had a colorful history. It contains a note from the scribe stating that he did not have sufficient time to complete the job to his satisfaction because the royal galleon was about to sail for Spain. French pirates hijacked the ship, and the Codex ended up in the possession of an aide to the French king. After a number of transfers, it came to rest at Oxford University, where it remains today.12

  Reports of the Conquerors

  Hernando Cortés and several of his soldiers recorded accounts of the conquest of the Aztecs. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, whose description of the approach to Tenochtitlan opens this chapter, wrote a particularly vivid account of his experiences. Cortés's lengthy reports to the king of Spain, Charles V, were filled with information on the Aztecs.

  As helpful as these documents are to modern scholars, they are biased in several ways and must be treated with caution. The Spaniards, Cortés in particular, were trying to justify and glorify their actions, and they slanted their accounts accordingly. Cortés gained greater glory by inflating the size of the armies he defeated, or the size of the cities he converted. Furthermore, Cortés and his army were criticized by priests and others for their wanton destruction of the Aztec people and their property, and he tried to justify his actions by portraying the Aztecs as terrible savages in great need of civilizing and conversion by the Spaniards. So long as these biases are taken into consideration, however, the lengthy reports of Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, and others are essential sources of information on the Aztecs.13

  Accounts of the Chroniclers

  The term “chronicler” refers to anyone who wrote a description of Aztec culture in the decades immediately following the Spanish Conquest. This is a broad category that includes many authors and diverse types of written accounts. A brief look at four of the more important chroniclers – Durán, Sahagún, Alva Ixtlilxochitl, and Chimalpahin – gives an idea of the nature of these sources. The chroniclers provide some of the richest and most detailed accounts of Aztec culture.

  Friar Diego Durán. The Dominican friar Diego Durán was b
orn in Spain around 1537. He was brought to New Spain (central Mexico) as a young boy and spent his youth in Texcoco and Mexico City before entering the priesthood in 1556. Durán traveled extensively in central Mexico, where he developed a curiosity about ancient Aztec culture. As research for his three books on the Aztecs, Durán read the earlier accounts of the conquerors, traveled widely to interview natives and Spaniards, and consulted Aztec pictorial manuscripts.

  Durán was quite energetic in seeking out knowledge on Aztec culture, and his respect for and objectivity towards Aztec customs and beliefs was unusual among his contemporaries. For example, he describes the practice of human sacrifice almost dispassionately and then goes on to discuss the famous racks of human skulls that were set up outside of temples:

  From pole to pole, through the holes, stretched thin rods strung with numerous human heads pierced through the temple. Each rod held twenty heads. These horizontal rows of skulls rose to the height of the poles of the palisade and filled it from end to end. One of the conquerors assured me that they were so numerous that they were impossible to count, so close together that they caused fright and wonder. These skulls were all that remained of those who had been sacrificed . . . I asked whether they were set up flesh and all, and everyone said no; after the flesh had been eaten, only the skull was brought to the temple. Some were left with their hair on, and they remained until the hair fell off.15

  Friar Durán interviewed Mexica nobles and commoners and consulted pictorial histories to write the most complete historical account of the Mexica people.

  Friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún was born in Spain in 1499 and traveled to New Spain as a Franciscan monk in 1529. He helped found the College of Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, where he instructed young Mexica nobles in Spanish and Latin and in turn learned Nahuatl from them. Like Durán, Sahagún was keenly interested in the precontact culture and strived to learn as much as he could about Aztec history, customs, and especially religion. He began to collect systematic information on these topics, employing a team of Indian assistants and artists. They interviewed surviving Mexica nobles, asking the same questions of a series of different informants. Answers were cross-checked, and informants were reinterviewed to settle conflicting accounts and to amplify previous replies. All the interviews were conducted in Nahuatl, which helped to ensure that Sahagún's account preserved much of the Aztec point of view.