Daily Life of the Aztecs
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power. 'When they speak of the Mexicans in this country it is as who should say the Romans' ( Díaz, p. 179). The lord Olintecutli spent an evening telling the Spaniards of the greatness of Mexico, the wealth and the military power of the emperor. 'Cortés and all the rest of us were astonished when we heard of it.' (Ibid. p. 230). The fame of Motecuhzoma stretched beyond the limits of the empire, into the country of the northern 'savages'. Father Soriano, in an unpublished manuscript (see Jacques Soustelle, La Famille otomí-pame du Mexique central, [ Paris 1937] and Documents sur les Langues pame et jonaz du Mexique central in the Journal de la SociéTé des Américanistes, [ Paris 1951] vol. XL pp. 1-10) states that the Pames worshipped Motecuhzoma. Even now, throughout the region formerly inhabited by the Chichimecs of the Sierra Gorda the word 'moctezuma' means the ruins of ancient cities. Motecuhzoma is also still to be seen in native stories, in which he appears both as a great king and as a benevolent magician, the possessor of magical powers, such as that of changing himself into an eagle, of flying, etc. ( Nahuatl Tale of Motecuhzoma and of the Snake, collected in 1942. R. and I. Weitlaner , Acatlán y Hueycantenango, Guerrero, in México Antiguo [ Mexico 1943] vol. VI p. 174).
3. See p. 233.
4. This is the expression used by Mendieta in his Historia Eclesiástica indiana, book V, Ist part, ch. XLI.
5. This is the case, for example, with the documents numbered 108 to 118 in the Aubin-Goupil collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. See E. Boban, Documents pour servir à l'histoire du Mexique ( Paris 1891) vol. II, pp. 287 ff.
6. Sahagún, vol. IV p. 163.
7. The list of provinces, with the account of the taxes paid by each, is given in the Codex Mendoza, edited by J. C. Clark, ( London 1938). See also R. H. Barlow,
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The Extent of the Empire of the Culhua Mexica ( University of California Press, Berkeley, 1949).
17. Now Tuxpan, State of Veracruz, and Tuxtepec, State of Oaxaca.
18. Michoacán (in Nahuatl 'the country of the owners of fish', or 'of fishermen') had as its capital Tzintzuntzan, on the shore of the great lake of Pátzcuaro. The Mexicans had tried in vain to conquer it: the emperor Axayacatl was heavily defeated at Taximaroa. ( Tezozomoc, edited by Ternaux-Compans, [ Paris 1853] pp. 279-283).
19. It was thus for example that the province of Cuetlaxtlan, on the Gulf of Mexico, rebelled against Axayacatl in the year chicnaui acatl, 'nine -- reed', or 1475. ( Codex Telleriano-Remensis ed. Hamy, [ Paris 1899] p. 37). The Cuetlaxtecs shut the Mexican tax-gatherers into a house and set fire to it ( Tezozomoc, vol. I p. 176).
20. The coa (Aztec uictli) was the Indians' ploughing implement: it was a digging-stick that broadened, above its point, into a kind of spade. It is still used in some parts.
21. 'For, said they (the Mexicans), their calling was not to work, but to fight and to make weapons.' ( Tezozomoc, vol. II p. 67).
22. Tolocan, now Toluca, capital of the State of Mexico. Tlachco, now Taxco, in the State of Guerrero.
23. Ornaments which the Mexicans fixed to the lower lip.
24. This feast was called Atamalqualiztli '(feast at which) boiled tamales are eaten'. In the course of this ceremony, 'manca in atl, uncan temia in cocoa ihuan in cueyame ihuan in yehuantin moteneua mazateca uncan quintoloaya in cocoa zan yoyoltiuia' -- a vessel was set down full of water containing snakes and frogs, and the people called Mazatecs swallowed them alive. ( Codex Florentino, ed. Anderson and Dibble [ Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1951] vol. II p. 163).
25. Tepoztlán, in the present State of Morelos, was a little town conquered by the Mexicans under Auitzotl. Its inhabitants, who spoke Nahuatl, worshipped the
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god Tepoztecatl, 'he of Tepoztlán', whose temple still exists. (cf. R. H. K. Marett, Archaeological Tours from Mexico City [ Oxford University Press, 1933] p. 90). This god is set down as one of the gods of drunkenness ( Codex Florentino, vol. I p. 24).
17. For example, the Mimixcoa icuic, 'song of the Mimixcoa' (the cloud-snakes), Codex Florentino vol. II p. 209, and the song of Amimitl, ibid. p. 210. These texts are both, the one partially and the other wholly, drawn up in the Chichimec language.
18. See the admirable statue of a maceualli in Salvador Toscano , Arte precolumbino do México y de la América Central, ( Mexico 1952) p. 284.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE CITY
1. Glyph is the usual term for the 'characters' of Aztec or Mayan writing.
2. Hermann Beyer, The original meaning of the Mexican coat of arms, in México Antiguo, vol. II ( Mexico 1929) pp. 192-193.
3. Lawrence Ecker, Testimonio otomí sobre la etimología de 'Mexico' y 'CoyoacU+001F71n', in México Antigua, vol. V ( Mexico 1940) pp. 198-201. See also C. A. Castro, Testimonio Pame Meridional sobre la etimología de 'México', in Tlatoani, No. 2 ( Mexico 1952) p. 33.
4. Father Antonio del Rincón, Arte Mexicana ( Mexico 1595). Reprinted by A. Peñafiel ( Mexico 1885). P. 81 "'Mexicco: Ciudad de México, i.e. en medio de la luna'".
5. Alfonso Caso, El Ombligo de la Luna, in Tlatoani, no. 5-6 ( Mexico 1952) p. 74.
6. This is the name for Mexico in the Codex of Huichapan, a post-cortesian manuscript in the Otomí language which is preserved in the Mexican national museum of history and anthropology. This codex has been described by Alfonso Caso, Un Códice en otomí, in the Proceedings of the XXIII International Congress of Americanists ( New York 1930) pp. 130-135, and by Jacques Soustelle, La Famille otomí-pame du Mexique central, ( Paris [Institut d'Ethnologie] 1937) pp. 213214. Even now the Otomi use the word bondo or bonda for the city of Mexico, and the word dezânâ for the Mexican language (Nahuatl).
7. This manuscript belongs to the Bibliothèque Nationale (Aubin-Goupil collection). It was published in Paris under the title Histoire mexicaine. The picture mentioned here is on p. 48.
8. The Codex Mendoza is a historical document of the very first importance; it was drawn up by native scribes at the command of the viceroy don Antonio de Mendoza ( 1535- 1550) to be sent to Charles V.
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The ship which was carrying it to Spain was seized by French privateers, and the codex came into the possession of André Thévet, the king's cosmographer, whose name is to be seen upon the page that is quoted here. The codex is now in the Bodleian library at Oxford, and it was edited in 1938 by James Cooper Clark ( London, Waterlow and Sons).
9. According to tradition, the Mexicans came from a mythical place, an island in the middle of a lake, whose name Aztlán (whence Azteca, the Aztecs) evokes an idea of whiteness.
10. This account is taken from pp. 62-66 of the Crónica Mexicayotl, a collection of chronicles written in Nahuatl after the conquest, published in Mexico (Imprenta Universitaria) in 1949.
11. A pictographic manuscript with Nahuatl captions, belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale (AubinGoupil collection). It has been published by the Journal des Américanistes ( Paris 1949). The scene mentioned here is on p. 13.
12. This is the expression used by the emperor Cuauhtemotzin. See Ordenanza del Señor Cuauhtémoc, published by Silvia Rendon ( Tulane University of Louisiana, New Orleans, 1952).
13. In 1925, Hermann Beyer described the spear-thrower which was still in use at that time for wildfowling in the region of Texcoco, in the magazine México Antiguo, vol. II. On the subject of the god Atlaua, see the hymn Atlahoa icuic, which was sung in his honour ( Codex Florentino, in Nahuatl with English translation, edited by Anderson and Dibble [ Santa Fé, New Mexico, 1951] vol. II p. 213) and Seler's remarks in Sahagún, Historia general de las Cosas de Nueva España, ( Mexico 1938) vol. V p. 170.
On Amimitl, see the hymn to this god ( Codex Florentino, the same edition, p. 211) and Seler's remarks on p. 104 of the same edition of Sahagún. Amimitl and Atlaua were the gods of the lake-dwellers
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of Cuitlahuac, a village on the sweet-water lake, whose inhabitants lived primarily upon fish and wildfowl. The Historia de los Mexicanos, p
or sus pinturas, a document based upon precortesian native manuscripts and drawn up after the conquest (published by Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Nueva Colección de documentos para la historia de México, vol. III [ Mexico 1891] pp. 228-263) states that Amimitl was the chief god of the men of Cuitlahuac, and that he was identified with an arrow of the Chichimec hunting-god Mixcoatl. The hymn to Amimitl is in a dialect of Nahuatl that the Mexicans scarcely understood any more and which they described as 'Chichimec', as may be seen by the Aztec note to the text in the Madrid manuscript -'This song of Amimitl is completely Chichimec (barbarous) and it is not really known what it means in our Nahuatl language.'
As to Opochtli, he was the god of a small coastal town, Uichilat, whose people were Chichimecs; and he was a water-god. His particular weapons were the darts meant for duck-hunting and the thrower. The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, which gives these details, adds that this water-god was, like Uitzilopochtli, left-handed (opochtli, 'left' or 'lefthanded man'; uitzilopochtli, 'the left-handed hummingbird' or 'humming-bird from the left') and that the two gods fueron muy amigos, were great friends. Still according to the same source, the village where this water-god was worshipped took the name of Uitzilopochco, 'Uitzilopochtli's place', after the coming of the Mexicans. It is the present town of Churubusco.
In each of these three cases, we have to do with the deities of 'lake-dwelling savages', deities whose chief Rôle was the protection of wildfowling on the lake.
14. Tezozomoc, Histoire du Mexique. Translation by H. Ternaux-Compans ( Paris 1853) vol. I p. 15.
15. Crónica Mexicayotl, pp. 71-73.
16. Codex Florentino, Anderson and Dibble, vol. II p. 77.
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17. On the fall of Tlatelolco, see particularly Tezozomoc, op. cit., pp. 221-247; Ixtlilxochitl, Historia Chichimeca, ( Mexico 1892) pp. 251-252; Crónica Mexicayotl, pp. 117-120; Codex Azcatitlan, p. 19. This last manuscript shows the great temple of Tlatelolco, with the body of Moquiuixtli lying broken on its steps.
18. See particularly A. F. Bandelier, On the social organisation and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans in the XII Annual Report of the Peabody Museum pp. 557-699, and George C. Vaillant, Aztecs of Mexico ( Garden City, New York, 1947) pp. III ff. Bandelier's ideas are based upon a very debatable assimilation of the Mexicans with the North American Indians, and they are now quite out of date; Vaillant, one of the best American archaeologists, has nevertheless a tendency to follow the same errors, though in a much attenuated form.
19. Tezozomoc, p. 10.
20. On the calpulli, see particularly Manuel M. Moreno, La Organización politica y social de los Aztecas ( Mexico 1931).
21. This map is in the Bibliothèque Nationale (AubinGoupil collection). See E. Boban, Documents pour servir ὰ l'histoire du Mexique. Catalogue raisonné de la collection de M. E. Eugène Goupil ( Paris 1891) vol. II pp. 318-321.
22. In the Crónica Mexicayotl, pp. 74-75, Uitzilopochtli speaks of fourteen calpulli and gives the order to divide them into four sections, Moyotlan, Teopan, Tzaqualco [sic] and Cuepopan.
23. On this point, see Vaillant, p. 134, who adopts the figure of 60,000 homes and allows them five persons on the average, or 300,000 inhabitants. The 'anonymous conqueror' ( Narrative of some things of New Spain, translated into English by M. H. Saville [ New York 1917]) is the source of this estimate. Torquemada, Veinte i un Libros rituales i Monarchía indiana, ( Madrid 1723) vol. I p. 295. It must also be remembered that
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whole families lived on boats, as is the case now in some Asiatic countries. See Sahagún, vol. IV p. 220.
24. The conquerors reached the edge of the lake at Mizquic and spent their last night on the coast at Iztapalapan. 'And seeing so many towns and villages built in the water and other great towns on the dry land . . . we were struck with astonishment, and we said that these were enchantments, like those that the book of Amadis speaks of, because of the great towers, the temples and the pyramids which rose from the water; and some soldiers even wondered whether it were not a dream,' writes a witness ( Bernal Díaz del Castillo , Historia verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España [ Mexico 1950] vol. I p. 330).
25. Hernan Cortés, Cartas de Relación ( New York 1828) p. 109.
26. Ibid. p. 158.
27. This is the famous 'sad night' of June 30, 1520, during which the invaders were expelled from the city by the emperor Cuitlahuac.
28. Díaz del Castillo, pp. 355-356.
29. Hernan Cortés, pp. 146-147.
30. Relation abrégée sur la Nouvelle Espagne et sur la grande ville de Temixtitan [sic] Mexico, écrite par un gentilhomme de la suite de Fernand Cortés, published by H. Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, relations et Mémoires originaux pour servir ὰ l'histoire de la découverte de l'Amérique ( Paris 1838) vol. X p. 93.
31. Cortés, p. 108.
32. Díaz del Castillo, vol. I p. 332.
33. See the reproduction of this map in Ignacio Marquina, Arquitectura prehispὰnica ( Mexico 1951) p. 182.
34. On this important monument some six miles from Mexico, see Marquina, p. 164, and the very complete work published by the department of monuments in the ministry of public education: Tenayuca, ( Mexico, 1935).
35. See the plan of the central square and the buildings which surrounded it in Marquina, plate 54.
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36. 'Could we make a better choice than our beloved son Uitziliuitl? Although he is still young, he will be able to govern us and defend the temple of Uitzilopochtli,' Tezozomoc, vol. I p. 18. 'Do not forget that all your ancestors . . . thought it their duty to govern and to judge impartially, and to defend the temple of Uitzilopochtli.' Speech addressed to Itzcoatl, ibid. p. 46.
37. Chimalpopoca, 'the smoking shield', reigned from 1414 to 1428 over a city that was still dependent upon Atzcapotzalco. He was murdered upon the orders of the ruler of Atzcapotzalco.
38. Motecuhzoma, 'he who grows angry (like a) lord', had the appellation of Ilhuicamina, 'he who shoots arrows against the sky'. He is sometimes called Ueue, 'the elder', to distinguish him from the second emperor of the name. He reigned from 1440 to 1469.
39. Tezozomoc, pp. 151-153.
40. Tizoc, 1481- 1486. Auitzotl, 1486- 1503.
41. Codex Telleriano-Remensis, a pictographic manuscript with Spanish annotations which belongs to the Bibliothèque Nationale. Reproduced with an introduction by E. T. Hamy ( Paris 1899) pp. 38 and 39.
42. See particularly Marquina, p. 186.
43. Many of these details can be restored by comparison with the pyramid of Tenayuca, which has already been mentioned, and with the Aztec temple of Huatusco, State of Veracruz, whose sanctuary has survived almost untouched. See Vaillant, Aztecs of Mexico, pl. 51, and Marquina, photo 60. Another Aztec temple in good condition is that of Teopanzalco ( Cuernavaca): cf. George C. Vaillant, Enlivening the Past, in Natural History vol. XXXI ( New York 1931) p. 531.
For the Mayan monuments, see Sylvanus G. Morley, The Ancient Maya, ( Stanford, California, 1946) p. 348.
The Codex Ixtlilxochitl in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris shows the two sanctuaries at the top of the pyramid of the great temple, with their distinctive
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ornamentation. Boban, atlas, pl. 71. The great temple of Texcoco was also crowned with two sanctuaries: Ixtlilxochitl, Historia Chichimeca, p. 184.
44. The fifteenth month, which was consecrated particularly to Uitzilopochtli, was called Panquetzaliztli, 'the feast of the banners of quetzal-plumes'.
45. On the Toltec monuments of Tula, see Marquina, op. cit., p. 145, and Alberto Ruz Lhuillier, Guia arqueológica de Tula, ( Mexico 1945). On the ToltecoMaya monuments of Yucatán, see Morley, pp. 325 ff.
46. Ruz Lhuillier, p. 36.
47. Tezozomoc, p. 193. Díaz (pp. 359-360) concurs: he states that there were even law-suits between the conquerors and the representatives of the Spanish crown to decide how the treasure should be divided.
48. Relation abréGée sur la
Nouvelle Espagne. . . p. 98.
49. Sahagún, vol. I pp. 218 ff. Nahuatl text in Codex Florentino vol. II pp. 165-180. Cortés (p. 152) writes that the chief 'mosque' (temple) had no less than 'forty very high and well-built towers'.
50. Díaz del Castillo, pp. 360-361.
51. See José García Payón, La Zona arqueológica de Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca y los Matlatzincas ( Mexico 1936). In the State of Veracruz, the same author has studied the temple of the wind-god at Cempoala, which has the same circular shape. See Marquina, pp. 472-473.
52. Marquina, photo 78.
53. Codex Florentino, vol. II p. 168.
54. Díaz del Castillo, p. 361, 'And not far from there (the temple of Quetzalcoatl) there was a large reservoir which received the water by a covered channel from the aqueduct which came into the town from Chapultepec.' On the various springs and the priests' baths. see the Codex Florentino, vol. II pp. 167, 171, 174, 178,