Daily Life of the Aztecs

by Jacques Soustelle

  At the time of which we are speaking, the double temple of Tlaloc and Uitzilopochtli was not alone. By its size and

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  its height it was the dominant member of a veritable religious city studded with pyramids and enclosed by a serpent-headed wall (coatepantli) which must have measured some 440 yards in length from east to west, and 330 in width. This wall ran along the side of the central square and then by the palace of Motecuhzoma, following the present Calle de la Moneda. Eastwards it went by the modern Calle de Carmen and the Correo Mayor, westwards by the streets of the Monte de Piedad and of Santo Domingo. To the north it gave upon a canal parallel to that which bordered the square and the imperial palace, as we have seen. The wall had three or perhaps four gates; they were fortified and 'all the rooms were filled with weapons of different kinds.' 48 They were guarded by a garrison of picked men. The south gate was the starting-point of the causeway to Iztapalapan and Coyoacán, the north of the causeway to Tepeyacac, and from the west gate started the causeway to Tlacopan.

  Sahagún 49 lists no fewer than 78 buildings or classes of building forming part of the templo mayor, that is to say, the religious quarter enclosed by the coatepantli; but one wonders whether there is not some exaggeration here, or rather some mistake -- whether the good father has not included buildings under this heading that were in fact outside the wall, elsewhere in the city. One's suspicion is strengthened by the fact that some of the buildings that he mentions have the same name as some of the districts of Tenochtitlan or even of Tlatelolco, and that in the same list he speaks of the houses for fasting and meditation which were attached to the local temples in the calpulli. But however that may be, we can nevertheless try to establish the different categories that were to be found among the buildings inside the wall.

  To begin with the temples in the full sense of the word: other great gods had their dwellings close to Tlaloc and Uitzilopochtli -- there was Tezcatlipoca, 'the smoking mirror', whose temple raised its pyramid by the southern edge of the enclosure, opposite the imperial palace; Tezcatlipoca, the protean god of the night, of war and of youth, who was

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  also called Yoalli Eecatl, 'the night wind', Yaotl, 'the warrior' and Telpochtli, 'the young man'; and there was Quetzalcoatl, 'the precious-feathered serpent', the hero who brought civilisation, the god of the wind. His temple was 100 yards east of the great pyramid, and in a line with its chief stairway. Unlike all the others, it was a round building, having the form of a cylinder raised upon a pyramidal base. The way in was by a door carved and painted to resemble the open jaws of a serpent. 'Some way from the great pyramid,' writes Bernal Díaz, 'there was a smaller tower which was also a house of idols: or rather it was a positive hell, for in the doorway was one of those terrifying mouths that one sees in paintings. They say that hell has such mouths, with huge teeth, to swallow down the damned . . . hell was always the name of that house, for me.' 50

  Once can easily form an idea of the appearance of the temple of Quetzalcoatl by thinking of the round tower of Calixtlahuaca, in the region of Toluca, in the Matlaltzincas' country, which was built under the rule of the Aztecs. 51 Cylindrical constructions are rare in Mexico, which is more the country of the pyramid and the sharp-cut angle, and when they were built it was generally for the wind-god, who was thought to prefer them, because they did not spoil the current of the air. As to the snake's mouth entrance, an impressive example of this is to be seen in the doorway of the Aztec temple at Malinalco. 52

  We can also place the temple of the mother-goddess Ciuacoatl, 'snake-woman', and the Coacalco, 'at the temple of the serpent': they stood side by side in the north-west corner of the enclosure. The Coacalco was a pantheon: 'It was here that lived the gods of the cities (altepeteteo) that the Mexicans had conquered. They made the gods prisoner and brought them back and set them in this temple; and it was here that they were kept, in the Coacalco.' 53 Indeed, the Aztecs were most eclectic in matters of religion, and they surrounded their national god with the greatest possible number of other gods, from every part of the empire.

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  Lastly, we know that the temple of the sun stood at the south-west end of the group, opposite the palace of Axayacatl.

  A great many subsidiary buildings were attached to the temples -- places for prayer, penance or sacrifice. One of these was the quauhxicalco, 'the place where there is the quauhxicalli' or bowl for the sacrificed heart of the victims; and here the emperor and the priests fasted and did penance by thrusting agave-thorns into their legs and offering the blood to the gods. Others were the tzompantli, where the skulls of the sacrificed men were shown. And there was the temalacatl, a huge round of stone laid flatways upon a low pyramid, where courageous prisoners, tied to it by a loose rope, fought their last fight against the Aztec warriors. The calmecac were at the same time monasteries and schools. The priests lived in them, austere men, worn out by fasting, severe in their black robes and long hair; and it was here too that the young men of the ruling class learnt the rites, the writing and the history of their country. Each temple had its own calmecac, where the priests and their pupils lived together.

  There were many springs that came up inside the enclosure, and in addition, as Díaz points out, the aqueduct from Chapultepec ran in by a roofed-over channel to fill a pool. By night the priests of the fire bathed in the Tlilapan, 'the dark water': another spring, Toxpalatl, provided drinkingwater not only for the priests but also for the generality. The high-priest of the Coacalco, and he alone, bathed in the stream or pool that was called Coaapan. 54

  But the religious quarter also contained some more secular buildings. To begin with there was the tlachtli, the court for the ball-game that was an amusement of the upper classes and at the same time a kind of ritual mime. The long parallel walls of the court stretched in an eastward direction, and it lay to the west of the temple of Quetzalcoatl, between it and the outer wall. A very beautiful statue has been found on this site, Xochipilli, 'the prince of flowers', the god of youth, music and games. The ball-game was esteemed by all the civilised nations of ancient Mexico: the people of

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  Tenochtitlan had taken it from their neighbours in the valley, who, in turn, had had it from the Toltecs, who were passionately addicted to the game.

  There were several buildings called tlacochalli or tlacochcalco, 'house of the javelins', which served as arsenals, not only for the possible defence of the temple, but for general military operations. They were guarded by soldiers, and a high military official, the tlacochcalcatl, was responsible for them.

  Two houses were used as inns 'for the lords of the Anahuac, for those who came from distant cities. And Motecuhzoma honoured them highly, giving them presents, splendid cloaks, precious necklaces or magnificent bracelets.' 55 And finally there was the Mecatlan, a building specially for the school of the tlapizque, the musicians who played the flute or other wind-instruments on ceremonial occasions, and for their rehearsals.

  This, in all its living complexity, was the shape of the vast collection of houses, high and low, of towers, walls and roofs, embroidered with bas-reliefs, brilliant with whiteness and colour. Here was the birth-place of the city, when it came into being around a reed-woven hut; and it was here that the city was to perish, under the thunder of guns and the roar of the blazing temples.

  But as the city and the state had grown, so too their rulers, like their gods, had exchanged poverty for wealth, the reed hut for the palace. It seems that each emperor was determined to build his own house. The palace of Auitzotl, to the north of the great teocalli, was still standing when the Spaniards came to Mexico; so was the palace of Axayacatl, where they stayed. This one, as we have seen, was opposite to the western side of the wall of serpents. As for Motecuhzoma II, he lived in the huge palace called 'the new houses' (Cusas nuevas), whose size and luxury plunged the adventurers into astonished admiration.

  This palace, which was to the east of the square, occupied a rectangle each of whose sid
es measured some 220 yards. This, too, was a town in itself, with many gateways through which one could go into it, either on foot or by boat. 'I

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  went several times to the emperor's residence,' says a witness, 56 'merely to look at it: each time I walked about until I was quite tired, but even so I never saw the whole of it.' It must be conceived as an arrangement of buildings, some, if not all, of two storeys, grouped round oblong or square interior courts with gardens in them.

  The sovereign's apartments were on the upper floor, according to the Codex Mendoza, which also shows us the rooms kept on the same floor for the kings of the associated cities, Texcoco and Tlacopan. The ground-floor housed what one might now term the prime movers in public authority and government 57 -- the supreme civil and criminal courts and the special tribunal that judged dignitaries accused of crimes or of serious misdemeanours, such as adultery; then the council of war, which was attended by the chief military commanders; the achcauhcalli, the place for the officials of the second rank, who carried out the judicial orders; the petlacalco or public treasury, where there were large stocks of maize, beans, grain and other victuals, as well as clothes and all kinds of merchandise; and the 'hall of the calpixque', the officials responsible for the exchequer. Other parts were used as prisons, either for prisoners of war or for ordinary criminals.

  But besides these there were a great many halls and courts which were attuned to that luxurious and sophisticated way of life that the Mexican emperors had grown used to -- a way of life that the higher dignitaries imitated, no doubt, as far as their means would allow them. The young men would come from the local schools in the evening to sing and dance, while skilful singers and musicians were ready in another room, in case the emperor might have some desire to be gratified: they were ready with drums and flutes, bells and rattles, everything their master could ask for. Here, also, were the craftsmen whose delicate fingers chiselled the jade or melted gold or built up the feather mosaics piece by piece; farther on there was the totocalli, 'the house of birds', which resounded with the song of all the winged jewels of the tropics; elsewhere jaguars and pumas roared from their wooden cages. The rarest flowers from all the regions had

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  been planted in the gardens, and medicinal herbs; and there were great sheets of water with ducks, swans and egrets.

  'Motecuhzuma,' says Cortés, 'had a palace in the town of such a kind, and so marvellous, that it seems to me almost impossible to describe its beauty and magnificence. I will say no more than that there is nothing like it in Spain.' 58 These are very strong words from a Spanish hidalgo addressing himself to Charles V. But the descriptions of Bernal Díaz, which have a simplicity that vouches for their truth, are quite as enthusiastic. 59

  Later on we shall speak of the details which allow one to form some idea of the manner of life of the rulers of the Mexican state; for the present it is enough to have shown Authority by the side of Religion in our general picture of the city, and to imagine the extent of the amazement and wonder of a country-man, an Indian from the coast or from the mountains, coming to Mexico and gazing upon the forest of the teocalli pyramids or the succession of façades and terraces of the imperial palace. The effect of magnificence that all these must have produced was rendered all the greater because of the innumerable bas-reliefs, statues and sculpture of all kinds, mostly religious but sometimes profane, which adorned the buildings, peopled the sanctuaries and the great halls, and confronted the beholder upon the walls and in the squares. In spite of the wholesale destruction in the sixteenth century, what is left of it in the national museum astonishes one by its abundance, its size and its perfection.

  The central square of Tenochtitlan, like those of the other districts, had also to serve as a market-place. 'This town has many squares,' says Cortés, 'on which there are always markets, and in which they buy and sell.' 'But,' he adds, 'there is another, twice the size of the town of Salamanca, completely surrounded by arcades, where every day there are more than sixty thousand souls who buy and sell, and where there are all kinds of merchandise from all the provinces, whether it is provisions, victuals or jewels of gold or silver.'

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  This obviously means the market place of Tlatelolco. The people of Tlatelolco had always been known for their devotion to trade, and after the town had been annexed it became the chief business centre of Mexico. 'When we reached the great square called Tatelulco,' says Bernal Díaz, 'as we had never seen anything like it, we stood amazed by the infinity of people and goods, and by the method and regularity of everything.' The author of the Relation abréGée states that 20,000 to 25,000 buyers and sellers came there every day, and that every fifth day there was a great market attended by 40,000 or 50,000.

  All accounts speak of the extraordinary variety of the enormous market in the same way, and all agree as to its orderliness. Each kind of merchandise had its own customary and defined place, in street-like rows, 'in just the same way as it happens in my own country, at Medina del Campo,' writes Bernal Díaz, 'when they have the fair.' In one place there would be jewels of gold and silver for sale, and precious stones and the many-coloured feathers brought from the Hot Lands; in the next row there would be slaves, resigned and waiting for their purchasers, some untied, some wearing heavy wooden collars; farther on, men and women bargaining over cloaks, loin-cloths and skirts, made of cotton or the cloth obtained from the fibre of aloes.

  Shoes, ropes, the skins of jaguars, pumas, foxes and deer, raw or tanned, were piled up in the places kept for them: and there was a quarter reserved for the feathers of eagles, sparrow-hawks and falcons. Maize, beans, oilbearing seeds, cocoa, peppers, onions, a thousand kinds of green-stuff; turkeys, rabbits, hares, venison, ducks and the little mute hairless dogs that the Aztecs so loved to eat; fruit, sweet potatoes, honey, syrup from maize-stalks or the juice of the agave; salt; colours for dyeing and writing, cochineal, indigo; earthenware of every shape and size, calabashes, vases and dishes of painted wood; flint and obsidian knives, copper axes; builder's wood, planks, beams, firewood, charcoal, resinous torches; paper made of bark or aloes; cylindrical bamboo pipes, charged and ready for smoking, all the produce of the lakes, from fish, frogs and

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  crustaceans to a kind of caviare of insect-eggs, gathered from the surface of the water; matting, chairs, stoves . . .

  'What more can I say?' cries Bernal Díaz. 'There were even several boats for sale, which, saving your reverence, were filled with human excrement; they were moored in the marshes not far from the market, and they were used for tanning skins. I say this, although I know very well that it will make a certain kind of person laugh.' On every hand there was this great accumulation of provisions, an unheardof plenty of all manner of goods; and up and down between the stalls the dense crowd, unhurrying, grave; not a noisy crowd, but one that hummed or mumured, as Indian crowds do to this day. In this market-place, says Cortés, 'there are places like apothecaries' shops, where they sell medicines ready to be taken, ointments and poultices. There are barbers' shops, where one can be washed and trimmed; there are houses where, upon payment, one may eat and drink.' And there were women who cooked on their stoves in the open air, and offered the customers their stews or spiced maize-porridge, or sweetmeats made of honey with those excellent maize-cakes called tlaxcalli, the Mexican tortilla; or savoury tamales, whose steamed maize crust was stuffed with beans, meat and pimentoes.

  One could wander all day long in this festival of trade, taking one's meals there and meeting one's friends and relations; and many did, strolling up and down the alleys lined with tottering mounds of fruit or many-coloured clothes all spread out. One could talk at length to an Indian woman squatting behind her vegetables or amuse oneself with the savage aspect of an Otomi come down from the hills to sell a few hides; or one could gaze enviously upon a pochtecatl, a merchant, just back from the fabled regions of the south-east, with his parrot-feathers, his jewels of translucent jade and his air of wealth.
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  The impassive guardians of the market, the tianquizpan tlayacaque, paced up and down the vast square, silently overseeing the crowd and the tradesmen. If any dispute arose, a buyer protesting that he was cheated, for example, or someone seeing his stolen goods exposed for sale, then

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  instantly everybody concerned was taken off to the court that sat without interruption at one end of the market, where three judges continually took turns and gave their verdict on the spot. If a wrongdoer were fined he would send for his family, and they might be seen coming, gasping under the load of quachtli, the lengths of cloth that were used for money. And the crowd, satisfied, would return to its round, moving like a nation of ants between the covered galleries that lined the square, at the foot of the tall pyramid of the temple of Tlatelolco. 60

  THE PROBLEMS OF A GREAT CITY

  So huge a town and so numerous a population must have set its rulers problems undreamed of by its founders, two centuries earlier. The question of feeding it presented no difficulty, judging by the plenty in the market-places; and in fact innumerable boats perpetually converged upon it, loaded with provisions. It may be observed, in passing, that water-transport was by far the most effective kind, in a country that did not possess a single pack-horse, cart-horse, cart or any other land-vehicle, nor any creature that could take the horse's place.

  But the grave problem of water was exceedingly difficult to resolve. Nature has so made the valley of Mexico that it suffers from two opposing disadvantages: it suffered then, as it does today, from either too much water or not enough -flood or drought. In the rainy season, unbelievably violent storms fill the bottom of this huge basin in a few minutes with a mass of water that can only escape very slowly. In the dry season there is great difficulty in supplying the city with drinking water and water for the gardens. Evaporation was gradually lowering the water-level, and already the part of the lake round Mexico was quite shallow: though indeed at that time the climate of the valley must have been better than it is today, upon the whole, and less subject to violent extremes. The drying-up of the city's own immediate lagoon as part of the struggle against the danger of flooding, has done nothing to improve the climate, either. 61