Daily Life of the Aztecs

by Jacques Soustelle

  Suppose that a pochtecatl should find himself growing rich, and decide to give a banquet. He would invite his equals and his betters in the commercial world; but he would have to put up with a great deal of offensiveness on their part -they would pull his goods about, flatly accusing him of having stolen them, and all this would have to be accepted with humble tears. It was only after he had undergone this treatment that he was allowed (or indeed obliged) to show his generosity in the feast that he offered -- a feast of such proportions that the guests, and even the inhabitants of the whole quarter, could eat and drink for two days, and then carry the leavings home.

  But apart from these exceptional occasions the traders

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  'did not parade their wealth, but on the contrary, they were lowly and humble. They did not wish to be thought rich, nor to have the reputation of wealth; they desired neither honours nor fame, and they walked humbly, without raising their eyes. They went in worn-out cloaks, and they feared honour and renown above all.' 55

  This humility that they put on, this desire to remain unnoticed, was the currency in which they paid for their social rise -- the coin with which they bought pardon for their real and ever-growing importance; for the ruling class would bear their rivalry only if they avoided all open conflict. If the pochteca grew haughty in their richness, the emperor 'sought some transparent excuse to bring them down and put them to death, not that they were guilty, but out of hatred for their arrogance and pride; and he shared out their goods in presents to the old warriors.' 56 In other words, death and deprivation hovered over the head of the trader who forgot his Rôle and made the mistake of showing off his wealth.

  Nevertheless, their rise was sure. Their children could already go to the calmecac with the children of the dignitaries. During the month that was sacred to Uitzilopochtli the merchants were allowed to sacrifice slaves that they had bought to the great national deity, after the warriors had sacrificed the prisoners that they had taken in battle. Thus the pochtecatl imitated the tecuhtli, although it was on a somewhat lower level. If a trader died when he was on his voyage, his body was burnt, and he was presumed to have joined the sun in heaven, as if he had been a warrior killed on the battlefield. The god of the pochteca was worshipped together with the other great deities, and he had a special hymn. 57 And finally, if it is true that the traders had to pay a tax levied on their goods, they were nevertheless exempt from manual labour and personal service.

  In a society basically concerned with war and religion, therefore, a recently-formed mercantile class was steadily climbing towards the top. It still had a very long way to go, and it was obliged to be very careful to avoid a violent hostile reaction. But this class supplied the increasing

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  luxury of the others, and it had become indispensable: its wealth became an instrument of greater and greater power as the ruling class progressively abandoned the frugality of the earlier generations, never to return.

  Although it is necessarily guess-work, one can speculate upon what would have happened if the foreign invasion had not cut short all development by destroying the whole of Mexican society and the state itself. Perhaps these 'merchant lords', who already had such important privileges, their own courts and the badges of honour that Auitzotl had granted them, would have become the chiefs of a bourgeoisie that would either have become part of the ruling class or would have displaced it and taken its power.

  But perhaps on the other hand the aristocracy would have reinforced its position by crushing any further attempt at rising. All that can be said is that there was nothing rigid about the structure of the Mexican community in 1519; it was in a state of flux, and perhaps the most mobile element in it was the class of pochteca. The class represented the principle of personal capital as opposed to that of income attached to office, of wealth as opposed to renown, of luxury as opposed to austerity. It was repressed, and it took to deceit and hypocrisy; but already the grandees condescended to go to the merchants' feasts and accept their presents, 58 much as the French nobles of the Ancien Régime mixed with the wealthy tax-farmers. Even very important dignitaries married their daughters, at least as secondary wives: this was the case with Nezaualpilli, king of Texcoco, whose favourite was 'the woman they called the lady of Tula, not that she was of noble lineage, for she was only a merchant's daughter.' 59

  THE CRAFTSMEN

  The farther down the social level, the more scanty the information. Neither the native historians nor the Spanish chroniclers have troubled to describe the life of the lower orders.

  The craftsmen formed a numerous class with its own quarters and organisations, below that of the pochteca but

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  in some respects allied to it. Not very much is known about the useful but unexciting guilds such as those of the quarrymen or salters, which are sometimes mentioned, but in passing and without detail. The only groups that were much noticed were those outstanding ones devoted to the so-called minor arts of the goldsmith, the jeweller and the maker of feather-mosaics. These craftsmen were known by the name of tolteca, 'the Toltecs', for the origin of their crafts was assigned by tradition to the ancient Toltec civilisation, the civilisation of the god-king Quetzalcoatl and the marvellous city of Tula.

  Quetzalcoatl 'discovered great treasures of emeralds, of fine turquoises, gold, silver, coral, shells and (the plumes of) quetzal, tlauhquechol, zaquan, tzinizcan and ayocan . . . (in his palace) he had mats of feathers and precious gems and silver' wrote the Aztec editor of the annals of CuauhtitLán. 60 And Sahagύn goes farther -- 'They were called Toltecs, which means exquisitely skilled workmen . . . they were all craftsmen of the first order, painters, lapidaries, feather-workers . . . They found mines of those gems which in Mexico they call xiuitl, that is to say, turquoise . . . also gold and silver mines . . . and amber, crystal, and the stones called amethysts, pearls, and all kinds of stones that they made into jewels.' 61 'They knew a great deal; nothing was difficult for them. They cut the green stone (chalchiuitl), they melted the gold (teocuitlapitzaia) . . . and all these crafts and sciences came from Quetzalcoatl.' 62

  As we have just seen, the generic term for their techniques was toltecayotl, 'the matter of the Toltecs' or 'the Toltec thing', and from this these artisans drew their honourable name.

  Besides, their claim to an illustrious origin was by no means entirely without foundation. The nomadic Aztec tribe that in 1325 had only just settled in the marshes certainly had no such craftsmen among its members, and those who subsequently became members of the tribe can only have been drawn from the survivors from earlier times. Ixtlilxochitl 63 states that the people of the little towns of the lake such as Colhuacán or Xochimilco preserved the

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  ancient arts of Tula after that city's fall, as well as its language and customs. The lapidaries, for example, were held to descend directly from the men of Xochimilco. 64

  A strange air of foreignness hung about these craftsmen. For the other Mexicans, who were members of a particularly homogeneous tribe, they were men of a remote, different and even mysterious origin. It was said that the featherworkers, who made the exquisite feather-mosaics for the great men, their head-ornaments, plumes and insignia, were the original people of the country. They and their god Coyotlinaual, 'he who is disguised as a wolf', had founded Amantlan, their village, about the temple where his image stood, beautiful with gold and plumes and dressed in the skin of a wolf.

  In the historical period this village of Amantlan was never anything but a district in the capital, but there are traces that seem to show that it was absorbed by Mexico as the result of a war. The hymn in honour of the great Mexican god, Uitzilopochtli icuic, has these lines, 'Our enemies the men of Amantlan (Amanteca toyaohuan), gather them together for me: they shall be in their houses, the enemies.' And the Aztec commentator states explicitly 'Their houses shall be burnt down' -- that is, 'They shall be conquered'. 65 This old sacred poem, therefore, retains a vestige of the period at which t
he Amanteca were not part of the city, but were still enemies upon whose heads the wrath of I Uitzilopochtli was to be called down.

  The goldsmiths too, the teocuitlahuaque, had their aura of mystery; and although they were also called Toltecs their customs, strangely enough, seem to link them with another nation, far more remote and exotic in the eyes of the Aztecs. Their great god was Xipe Totec, 'who was the god of the people of the coast, properly speaking the god of Tzapotlan', 66 who carried a golden shield in his hand 'like those of the men of the coast'. 67 He was worshipped in a temple called Yopico, 'the Yopi ground': and Yopi was the name of a people whose country lay on the west side of the mountains, stretching from them to the Pacific between the Mexicans and the Mixtecs -- a people who were able to

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  remain largely independent of the Aztec empire. These Yopi, who were also called Tlappaneca, 'painted men', because they dyed their bodies, were classed as barbarians -that is, they did not speak the Mexican language. 'They lived in a poor and sterile country, famine-struck, harsh and rugged; but they knew the precious stones and their virtues,' says Sahagύn. 68 Consequently they were considered rich, in spite of the poverty of their soil. The working of gold was brought to central Mexico at a late period, and some of the finest examples of the art have been found in the Mixtec country; so bearing this in mind, one is led to suppose that the goldsmiths, with their god from the coast in his golden cloak, 69 brought with them a southern influence that was essentially foreign to the original Aztec culture.

  At the date of which we are speaking they were quite certainly embedded in the Mexican community, but still as a distinct body, with their own customs. The featherworkers of Amantlan associated with almost nobody except the traders of Pochtlan, their neighbours; with them, however, they feasted at a common table. The featherworkers, like the pochteca, were allowed to sacrifice a slave after the prisoners of war in the month Panquetzaliztli: the whole guild clubbed together to buy the victim. In the month Tlaxochimaco they held their own feast, in honour of their local god and of the four other gods and two goddesses of their guild, and they vowed to devote their children to the same trade that they followed.

  These workmen, with their simple tools, their exquisite taste and their infinite patience, could produce masterpieces: Albrecht Dürer saw some of the presents given by Motecuhzoma to Cortés and by him sent to Charles V, and he wrote, 'These objects are so valuable that they have been set at a hundred thousand florins. In all my life I have never seen anything that rejoiced my heart so much; I have found an admirable art in them, and I have been astonished by the subtle spirit of the men of these strange countries.'

  Some of these craftsmen worked directly for the emperor in the palace, as Bernal Diaz describes them; 70 others worked at home, receiving the stones, feathers or metal

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  from the great men or the traders and working them up into jewels or ornaments. Each workshop consisted only of one family: the feather-workers' wives, for example, spun and embroidered, made rabbits'-hair blankets or devoted themselves to the dyeing of the feathers. The children stayed with their parents to learn their trade.

  The social standing of the tolteca was modest; they made no claims to power or wealth. But it was not without a certain esteem. Young dignitaries did not think it beneath them 'for their exercise and recreation, to learn some arts or accomplishments, such as painting, engraving on stone, wood or gold, or the working of gems.' 71 It seems that the artist was very well paid. It is true that the case is exceptional, but on one occasion each of the fourteen sculptors who made the statue of Motecuhzoma II received clothes for himself and his wife, 10 loads of calabashes, 10 loads of beans, 2 loads each of peppers, cocoa and cotton, and a boatload of maize, before he began; and when the work was finished, 2 slaves, 2 loads of cocoa, some crockery and salt, and a load of cloth. 72 It is likely that at the various stages the craftsmen received very considerable remuneration. But on the other hand they were subject to tax, although, like the traders, they were not obliged to provide personal service or agricultural labour. Furthermore, their guilds enjoyed what may be termed the right of corporate personality, and their chiefs represented them before the central authority and the law.

  Here again, then, we are dealing with a class whose privileges raise them above the plebeian mass. But the distinction between them and the traders is that in this case we find no trace of that more or less repressed tendency to rise in the social scale, nor of any of the tension that existed between the ruling class and the traders, nor the habits of concealment of the pachteca. The craftsman had nothing to hide: he did not have to ask pardon for his importance, for he neither had nor claimed it. He had his own place in this complex society, and he seems to have meant to stay there; for whereas the trading class was dynamic, that of the artisans was static, happy to remain

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  in the position where its immunities and the general respect for its abilities had placed it, one step higher than those with no privileges, just above the common people.

  THE COMMON PEOPLE

  The Aztec word maceualli (maceualtin in the plural) stood, in the sixteenth century, for any person who did not belong to any of the social categories that have just been mentioned and yet who was not a slave -- the 'common people' or the 'plebeians', as the Spaniards often translated it. It appears that in the beginning this word simply meant 'worker'. It comes from the word maceualo, 'to work to acquire merit', from which is derived maceualiztli, which does not mean 'work', but 'an act meant to acquire merit' -it is the word used to describe those dances which were performed before the images of the gods in order to acquire merit in their eyes. 73 It is obvious that it had no pejorative sense. Literature is full of examples in which the meaning of maceualtin is just 'the people', without any implication of inferiority. Yet it is certain that in time the word did take on a slightly contemptuous ring: the maceualli was thought to be common: maceuallatoa meant 'to speak boorishly', and maceualtic meant 'vulgar'. 74

  In a great city, although there might be some thousands of officials, merchants and craftsmen, there were a very great many more maceualtin -- the vast majority of the population. They were full citizens, members of the tribe and the district, but they were liable to certain inescapable duties: their position can best be shown by a list of their rights and corresponding obligations.

  As a Mexican and a member of a calpulli of Tenochtitian or Tlatelolco, the maceualli had a right to a life-interest in the plot upon which he built his house and in the piece of land that he cultivated. His children could go to the local school. He and his family took their ritual and traditional part in the ceremonies of the district and the city; and when the authorities handed out food and clothes he had his share. If he were courageous and intelligent he could rise out of his class and become honoured and wealthy. He had

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  a vote in the election of the local chiefs, although in the last resort their appointment depended upon the emperor.

  But in so far as he remained a plebeian, and if he did nothing to distinguish himself in the first years of his life in the world, he was subject to grave obligations. To begin with there was military service; although no Mexican thought of this as a burden, but rather as something that was both an honour and a religious rite. And then the maceualli was inscribed on the rolls of the urban officials and at any time he could be called upon for communal work -- cleaning, maintenance, the building of roads, bridges and temples. If the palace needed water, or wood for its fires, a fatigueparty of maceualtin was ordered at once. Furthermore, our maceualli was required to pay taxes, which were assessed within each district by the chief and the elders of the council, together with officials who supervised the payment.

  Yet it must be admitted that compared with the maceualtin of the subject-towns or even more of the countryside, the maceualli who belonged to any of the three confederate cities at the head of the empire, Mexico, Texcoco and Tlatelolco, was in a privileged category.
He paid taxes: but on the other hand he must have been largely compensated for this by his share in the distribution, very like the Roman dole, of clothes and provisions that were provided by the tribute of the provinces. His tribe was the ruling nation, and in his degree he benefited from the system: it was the provincial who paid. It was the peasant, with his unpolished speech and manners, who was the real plebeian: it was always his labour that was requisitioned, always his harvest that was laid under contribution. He bore the whole weight of the social edifice. Nevertheless this population of free men, in the town and in the country, had a status which was not without a certain dignity, however humble it may have been; a status, moreover, which prevented no man from rising above the common level if his personal courage or good fortune enabled him to do so. No one could take the land he worked away from a maceualli, nor expel him from his calpulli, except as a punishment for serious crimes or offences. Apart from natural disasters or war, he did not

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  run the risk of starving, nor of dying far from his accustomed surroundings, his neighbours and his gods.

  As for the chances of success and improvement, it has already been shown that they were quite considerable: the army and the less accessible priesthood could lead to the highest offices; and the protection of a great man opened the way to a great number of employments, less brilliant, it is true, but still respectable and no doubt lucrative -ushers, guards, messengers, minor officials of all kinds. Or the emperor's favour or the kindness of a noblewoman might completely change a plebeian's life. This happened to a man named Xochitlacotzin, a gardener in the suburbs of Mexico, in the reign of Motecuhzoma II: although he was a plebeian he would not give way to the emperor, who was delighted by his integrity and made him a lord, observing that he looked upon him as a kinsman. 75