Daily Life of the Aztecs

by Jacques Soustelle

  The change was very great, and it had come about in a very short time: tribal democracy had been replaced by an aristocratic and imperialistic monarchy.

  THE RULING CLASS

  The ruling class, the top level of the social stratification, was itself divided into several categories according to function, importance and standing. Thus a high-priest was the equal of a general, but both would look down upon a poor 'parish priest' or a village tax-gatherer. Yet all of them stood apart from what Spaniards called the plebeians, the

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  maceualtin (maceualli in the singular), who had neither authority nor office.

  The word tecuhtli -- 'dignitary', or 'lord' -- was applied to the upper level of the ruling class when the army, administration or judiciary was concerned: it was used for the chief generals, officials of the highest rank in Mexico (the head of the exchequer, for example) and in the provinces, the chiefs of the districts of the capital, and the judges who dealt with the most important cases in the large towns. If the former ruler of a city that had been absorbed by the empire remained in his place under the authority of Tenochtitlan, he was a tecuhtli. The emperor himself was a tecuhtli; and the glorious title was often borne by the gods -- Mictlantecuhtli, 'the lord of the world that is under the ground', for example, or Xiuhtecuhtli, 'the turquoise lord', the god of fire.

  The priests, for their part, were only rarely distinguished in this way. As we shall see, they had their own hierarchy, which was no less splendid and respected than that of the other divisions.

  In the early days, the tecuhtli was elected, or rather nominated, seeing that the choice of the electors nearly always fell on a member of the same family for any given appointment. The succession to the headship of a district, for example, came about 'not by inheritance, but, at his death, by the election of the most honourable, wise, capable and aged man . . . If the dead man has left a son who is fit for the position, he is chosen: it is always a relation who is elected, providing that there is one and that he is suited for the post.' 3

  By the time of Motecuhzoma II, however, the only offices that were really filled by election were the very highest -- those of the emperor and of the four 'senators' who attended him. In all other cases it was either a straight-forward appointment of his own servant by the emperor or a nomination on the part of the districts or the cities -- a nomination which held good only if it were confirmed by the central authority.

  In practice it was generally a son or a nephew or even a brother of the local tecuhtli who succeeded him in his

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  village, town or district; but although the outward show of tradition was respected, in fact this was no longer an election but a presentation, and in the last resort it was the emperor who appointed the man of his choice. Power no longer came from below, but from above: the new machine of the state had absorbed the last traces of the democratic beginnings.

  A tecuhtli was always a man of importance, whether he governed a village, a town or a city. It was the tecuhtli whom the Spaniards (bringing with them a Jamaican word) termed the 'cacique'. He had distinguishing clothes and jewels: his name carried the respectful termination -tzin: he lived in a teccalli, a palace modest or luxurious as the case might be, maintained by the people of the village or the town who owed him 'wood and water', as the expression went, and domestic service. Land was set aside for him and worked on his account; the income from it, which he received, might be called his salary. Apart from this, the emperor allowed him 'victuals and pay', stuff, clothes and provisions, in return for which he was obliged to present himself before the emperor whenever he was called for.

  What were his functions? In the first place, he represented his people before the higher authorities: he was to 'speak for the people under his care' 4 and to defend them, if it was necessary, against excessive taxation or any encroach-ment upon their land. Secondly, he judged law-suits, appeal lying to Mexico or Texcoco. Then, as a military commander, he led the contingents that he was required to furnish in war. Finally, he was there to maintain order, to oversee the cultivation of the fields, particularly those which were set aside to produce the tribute, and to see that this tribute was paid to the calpixque of the imperial administra-tion.

  To accomplish all this, especially if his district were important, he in his turn had the right of appointing local officials, so long as he paid them himself out of the produce of his lands and his allowances. The tecuhtli, his family and his children, paid no taxes.

  There used to be a great difference, in the France of earlier days, between the manner of life of the country

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  squires in Brittany or Gascony and that of the great lords around the king, and a great difference in their real importance: in the same way the tecuhtli of a distant Mexican village was of no great account compared with one of those in Motecuhzoma's train. But whereas the French noble was sure of leaving his title to his descendants, the tecuhtli was not. He held it only for himself and for his lifetime, and at his death the double process of local nomination and central confirmation might give his office to a distant relative, or even to someone entirely outside his family. And in fact, many cities, particularly in the neighbourhood of Mexico, had had a tecuhtli directly appointed by the emperor.

  Each district or calpulli in the capital had its own chief, the calpullec, who was elected for life, preferably from the same family, by the inhabitants, and confirmed by the emperor. He had a council of elders, the ueuetque, who were probably the oldest and best-known heads of families, and 'he never did anything without taking the opinion of the elders.' 5 His duties were in every way like those of the tecuhtli of a village or a city: he was particularly required 'to be able to protect and defend' his fellow-citizens. But his chief task was the keeping of the register of the communal land belonging to the calpulli, which was shared out in parcels among the various families. As we shall see, each family had the usufruct of its piece and could farm it and take the harvest under certain conditions: the duty of the calpullec and his council was to see that these conditions were respected, and to record all the alterations of the sharing of the land in their books, by means of emblematic pictures and hieroglyphs.

  By reason of his office, the calpullec had to meet quite heavy expenses. The frequent district councils met in his house, and he was expected to offer the elders food and drink: even today, in a Mexican village, if an Indian who has an official position does not do the thing handsomely he loses face; it was the same then. In compensation, the head of the district did not pay taxes, and the people of his calpulli, taking it in turn, did the work of his land and of his house.

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  There is no doubt that here we are in contact with a very old institution in the Mexican tribe: the calpulli is the true nucleus, and its chief and elders represent the earliest form of the Aztec territorial organisation. It is equally sure that at the time of which we are speaking the calpullec, although he was still a highly honoured figure, found his authority growing less and less real as it was nibbled away on all sides.

  He was elected to his office by his fellow-citizens, but he only retained it by the sovereign's favour. In theory he was at the head of all local activities, but he had to yield the temple to the quacuilli, the district priest, who belonged to the ecclesiastical chain of command, and the 'house of the young men' to the military instructors appointed from above. Torquemada 6 says that he was obliged to go to the palace every day to take his orders: 'he waited for the Uey calpixqui, who was the mayordomo mayor, to speak to him and tell him what the great lord (the emperor) ordered and commanded.' There were officials under him whose duty it was to oversee groups of twenty, forty or a hundred families for the payment of taxes and the organisation of collective labour, such as cleaning or public works. At least theoretically they were under him; but one has a distinct impression that they really belonged to what one may call a bureaucratic administrative system which was outside his control. 'The number of civil servants (oficial
es) that this nation had for every little thing was so great and all the registers were so well kept that there was nothing wanting in either the accounts or the rolls (padrones); for there were clerks and minor officials (mandoncillos) for everything, even the sweepers. The whole city and its districts were divided up, for the man who was in charge of a hundred houses chose and appointed five or six other agents under him and shared the hundred houses between them so that each, looking after twenty or fifteen, could direct and command (the inhabitants) in order to provide the taxes and the men necessary for the public works: and so the officials of the city (oficiales de la repύblica) were so many in number that it was impossible to count them. '7

  This picture of Mexican officialdom, which is strangely

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  reminiscent of the administrative system of the Inca empire of Peru, leaves one little illusion as to the amount of independence that the calpullec could enjoy, with the Uey calpixqui above him and the bureaucracy below. He was a traditional chief, a survivor from a former day, and he now found himself incongruously attached to a centralised administration which belonged not to the local communities but to the state.

  Finally, although it may be conceded that at the beginning he had some military powers, they had almost all been taken away. In practice the contingents from the various quarters were grouped in four corps, agreeing with the four great regions of the city, Teopan, Moyotlan, Aztacalco and Cuepopan; and these corps were under commanders far more imposing than the local chiefs. In a country that was perpetually at war the army offered brave and ambitious men a career particularly rich in honours and power.

  It goes without saying that in Tenochtitlan every man, whatever his origin, either was a warrior or wished to be one. The officials had been, or were going to become, warriors: the priests, at least when they were young, went off to war in order to take a prisoner; and some of them, the tlamacaztequiuaque, were both priests and fighting-men: 8 as for the traders, as we shall see, their calling had none of the tameness that it has with us, but was more like an armed reconnaissance or a colonial expedition.

  A boy-child was dedicated to war at his birth. His umbilical cord was buried together with a shield and some little arrows, and in a set speech he was told that he had come into this world to fight. 9 The god of the young men was Tezcatlipoca, who was also called Yaotl, 'the warrior', and Telpochtli, 'the youth'; and it was Tezcatlipoca who ruled over the telpochcalli, 'the houses of the young men', where the boys went when they were six or seven. There was one in each district, and the education that they gave was essentially an education for the war in which the Mexican boy longed to shine. When they were ten, the boys had their hair cut with a lock left on the napes of their necks; the lock was called a piochtli, and they were not allowed to cut it off

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  until they had managed to make a prisoner in battle, even if it meant two or three joining their efforts to do so.

  The warrior who had accomplished this first exploit carried the title of iyac from then onwards. 'I am an iyac,' said Tezcatlipoca; 10 so the young warrior already rivalled his god. He cut off his lock and let his hair grow so that it fell over his right ear. But he had still only risen a single rank, and if he did not do better in the two or three succeeding campaigns he would be obliged to retire and give up soldiering. He would have to devote himself to his piece of land and his family, a dismal fate; he would never be allowed to wear dyed and embroidered clothes, nor jewellery. He would only be a maceualli.

  But if on the other hand he were favoured by the gods, if (as a Mexican would have said) he had been born under a fortunate sign, he would go on as a fighting-man. When he had taken or killed four of the enemy he would have the title of tequiua, 'one who has (a share of the) tribute'; that is to say, he would reach that upper category of men who participated in the allotment of the revenues. He would become a commander and he would join the councils of war: he would have the right to wear certain feather headdresses, and bracelets made of leather. The higher ranks would be open to him and he might become a quachic, 11 a quauhchichimecatl, 'chichimec-eagle', or an otomitl, so called from the old, rough, warlike tribe that lived in the mountains north of Mexico. Lastly, he might become a member of one of the two higher military orders, that of the 'jaguarknights', Tezcatlipoca's soldiers, 12 who wore the skin of a jaguar in battle, and that of the 'eagle-knights', whose helmet was an eagle's head, and who were the soldiers of the sun. 13

  In the eleventh month of the year, Ochpaniztli, the emperor himself distributed the honours and rewards. 'They all stood in even ranks before Motecuhzoma, who was seated upon his eagle-matting (quauhpetlapan): indeed he sat upon eagle's feathers and the back of his seat was jaguar'a skin . . . Everyone stood before him and saluted him: at his feet he had all kinds of weapons and badges of distinction,

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  shields, swords, cloaks, loin-cloths. They stood before him and saluted him: and each in turn received his gifts. Then they went aside to adorn themselves and put on their decorations. It was to the great chiefs that he (the emperor) gave these splendid ornaments . . . When they had all been equipped in this way they formed their ranks again in front of Motecuhzoma . . . And the decorations that they had received were their rewards, and they served to bind them (to the service) . . . And the women who watched, the old women, the beloved women, shed burning tears, and their hearts were filled with sorrow. They said, "Here are our beloved children: and if in five or six days the word Water and burning is said (that is to say, war) will they ever return? Will they ever find their way back? Indeed, they will be gone for ever."' 14

  But these lamentations, which were traditionally allowed, do not seem to have diverted the warriors from their no less traditionally honoured and glorified career. For them death in battle, or better still, death on the stone of sacrifice, was the promise of a happy eternity; for a warrior who was killed in the field or on the altar was sure of becoming one of the 'companions of the eagle', quauhteca, one of those who accompanied the sun from its rising to the zenith in a procession that blazed with light and was splendid with joy, and then of being reincarnated as a humming-bird, to live for ever among the flowers.

  At the summit the military hierarchy merged with that of the state. One of the emperor's titles was tlacatecuhtli 'lord of the men', that is to say 'of the warriors', and his primary function was that of commanding not only the Mexican armies but those of the allied cities. The most important of the great dignitaries who were about him had offices that were essentially military, at least to begin with: in time of war, four of them commanded the contingents that were supplied by the four regions of the capital.

  Of these 'four great ones' two stand out by reason of the honours that they received; the tlacateccatl, 'he who commands the warriors', and the tlacochcalcatl, 'the man of the javelin-house'. The titles seem to imply that the first had a

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  military command and that the second was responsible for the arsenals (tlacochcalli) in which the weapons were kept. Generally they were near relations of the sovereign, and it was often from them that the emperor was chosen: Itzcoatl, Axayacatl, Tizoc and Motecuhzoma II were tlacochcalcatl at the time of their election, and Auitzotl was tlacateccatl. They had a splendid and magnificent dress -- embroidered cloaks, jewels, plumes. Their houses and their way of life were based on the emperor's. They were among the first to receive when presents were given and the spoil of subjected provinces shared out. They had both great standing and great wealth.

  This was also the case according to their rank with all the soldiers who distinguished themselves. As they rose in the hierarchy their fame grew, and as they earned the right to wear more and more splendid ornaments and clothes so at the same time they received gifts in kind and the rents of various estates. They were not only free from the duty of farming their own shares of land as ordinary men had to do, but they were given other shares, mostly in conquered country, which were worked for them.

  They wer
e wealthy men, with their fine houses, many servants, brilliant clothes and jewels, well-filled store-houses and coffers. But it must be remembered that this was a wealth that came only after honourable achievements and as a consequence of them. A man was wealthy because he was honoured, not honoured because he was wealthy. Besides, honourable achievement was the only means to wealth, for a man of the ruling class.

  The Spaniards believed these military chiefs to be a nobility that attended upon the emperor -- the equivalent of the European nobles at the court of the king of Spain or of France. But they were clearly mistaken; for the court of the Aztec emperor was made up not of hereditary magnates with great estates or inherited wealth, but of military or civil officials who enjoyed privileges that were attached to their office.

  This ruling class continually renewed itself, taking recruits from the general body of the people; and this was

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  its great strength. Any warrior who managed to capture his four prisoners became a tequiua and thus a member of the upper classes, whatever his origin. Furthermore, the emperor filled the higher ranks by promotion according to merit, and often at the end of a battle or a war he would make a whole batch of superior officers: Motecuhzoma II made two hundred and sixty at once after his victory over the men of Tutotepec. 15

  Tezozomoc states that all the plebeians who had distinguished themselves in the war against Coyoacán were promoted to the highest ranks after the submission of the city, and that at the same time each was given the income of one estate or more. 16 Moreover even those very important offices of tlacochcalcatl and tlacateccatl, which have already been mentioned, were so filled that one at least was held by a soldier who had risen from the ranks -- criado en las guerras, as Sahagύn has it. 17