Aztec History and Culture

Time 2020-12-20 14:04:43

Web Name: Aztec History and Culture

WebSite: http://www.history-aztec.com

ID:140462

Keywords:

History,Aztec,Culture,

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The story of Aztecs rise from a nomadic tribe of Nahuatl-speakingIndians to become the conquerors of the Valley of Mexico and the proudpossessors of one of the New World's three indigenous civilizations isan important segment of a vast American epic: the arrival of the firstman on the American continent and his progress, and that of his successors, in creating a culture and ultimately a highly developed civilization. Part of the Aztec story belongs to pre-history and part of it to relatively modern history.Some time in the dim past the most accurate estimates place itanywhere from fifteen to twenty-five thousand years ago men of theMongoloid race, in search of food, made their way across the frozenBering Strait from Asia to the North American continent. Huntingand fishing in small bands, they spread out over North America, pushing their way down into Central America, and farther down into SouthAmerica until they occupied both continents in varying degrees ofpopulation density.By the time the white man arrived in the New World, he founda wide variety of social patterns and customs in evidence among thesepeoples, whom he mistakenly called Indians. These patterns rangedfrom crude, primitive societies to those capable of observing the movements of the heavenly bodies with more precision than the Europeanswho came to these shores.But it was not until relatively recent times that anthropologists,archaeologists, and historians began to talk of Indian civilizations. Menlike Means, Morley, Kidder, Vaillant, Thompson, Spinden, Maudslay,Caso, and a host of other eminent scientists and scholars have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge from excavations and studies, especially the accounts of the early Spanish missionaries in the New World.From this body of knowledge a pattern emerged, and historiansand philosophers began to speak of the Aztec civilization, the Mayacivilization, and the Inca civilization. Historians and philosophers couldno longer ignore America and its three indigenous world outlooks, asHegel had done.What made it possible for these three great civilizations to emerge theAztec in the Valley of Mexico, the Maya in Guatemala, Honduras and Yukatan, andInca in Peru and Bolivia? In each case the domestication of a staple food supply seemsto have been a deciding factor; among the Aztec and Mayas it was maize or corn and amongthe Incas the white potato.The scene of the Aztec triumph was the Central Valley of Mexico. Several centuriesbefore Christ, agricultural tribes had already settled here, and by the time of Christhad established their great religious center at Teotihuacan. Archeologists place the advent, rise, and fall of this great civilization roughly from the second century to the tenthcentury A.D. About this time a new group moved into the Valley andsettled in Tula, Hidalgo. They are known to us as the Toltecs. TheseIndians belonged to Nahua group and seem to have come from thenorth or northwest into the Valley. Soon their culture and artistry spreadto many parts of Mexico, reaching even as far as Yucatan and otherMaya areas, However, as early as the eleventh century A.D., anotherrelated tribal group, the Chichimecs, were already in contact with theToltecs, and by the thirteenth century they had gradually replaced theToltecs as the dominant tribal group in the Valley.The Aztecs were among the last of the tribes to enter the Valley.They, too, were of the Nahua group. The tribal records of the TenochcaAztecs indicate that they began their wanderings in A.D. 1168, comingdown from their legendary home in Aztlan, referred to as the "SevenCaves," or the "Place of Reeds." Evidence seems to indicate that theAztecs, "the Crane People." migrated from the north and northwest,passing through Michoacan. Linguistically speaking, they were alliedto the North American Shoshonis and to the Michoacan Tarascans.They arrived in the central valley and asked for permission to settle atChapultepec in 1248. For some years they appear to have been almostenslaved by other tribes of the Nahua race. By the fourteenth centurythey had made two settlements on the islands in the lakes, one at Tenochtitlan. now called Mexico City, whose traditional founding date is given as 1325, and another at Tlaltetalco. By the fifteenth century,Tenochtitlan had become the center of Aztec growth, conquest, andexpansion. The great struggle for prisoners of war had heen initiated.As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Aztec capital,Tenochtitlan, dominated all other cities and had reached the heightof its power and magnificence.In 1519, the first white men, the Spaniards, under the leadership ofHernan Cortes pushed their way into the Valley of Mexico and lookedwith wonder and amazement upon the Aztec capital as it glittered inthe high, thin mountain air. The date was November 8, 1519, according to one of Cortes Lieutenants, Bernar Diaz del Castillo. Old BernalDiaz, some forty years later, recorded his impressions of the first viewof the approach to the city:During the morning, we arrived at a broad causeway and continuedour march toward Iztapalapa, and when we saw so many cities andvillages built into the water and other great towns on dry land and thatstraight and level causeway going toward Mexico, we were amazed andsaid that it was like the enchantments they tell us of in ihe legend ofAmadis, on account of the great towers and cues and buildings arisingfrom the water and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers evenasked whether the things we saw were not a dream. [Bernar Diaz del Castillo, Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, New York, Farrar, Strauss & Cudahy, 1956.]The amazement of the Spaniards increased as they entered thecity and were received with true regal splendor by the Emperor Moctezumain full regalia. But it was a sad event, for the Aztecs way of lifewas no longer to follow its own course. An alien world had come toimpose its views upon these people and their civilization. Had the Aztecdestiny run its course? The answer belongs to speculation, not to history.But the dominance of these people in the Valley of Mexico was henceforth delimited by the dates 1325 and 1519.What was the implementing force that drove these Indians to becomethe masters of a threat part of Central America, to develop a civilizationsui generis, unique among the peoples of the world? One word maybest answer the question-religion. It was a profound knowledge ofthe Aztecs chat prompted Alfonso Caso to entitle his first version ofEl pueblo del Sol, "La religion de los aztecas."Religion touched the daily life of every man. woman, and childin the Aztec world. It drove them to conquest and expansion,to buildgreat temples, to compute and measure time, to offer hundreds of thousands.in bloody sacrificial rites to their gods. It was, as Caso points outin the book, both the impetus and nemesis of their civilization.Today there are perhaps a million Aztec-Nahua-speaking residents of Mexico,the descendants of the great empire which Cortes and his Lieutenants first saw 490 years ago.They and their ancestors have given many words and phrases not only to modern Spanish but toEnglish as well. While Aztec art, architecture, engineering, astronomy, and perhapseven concepts of war were not original with thesepeoples, they came to be, as Alfred L. Kroeber said, the "administrators,legatees, dominators and disseminators" of this culture. We are fortunate to beenabled to look deeply into religion and way of life which lay behind all their achievements,as developed by one of the master scholars of aboriginal life in the Americas.

TAGS:History Aztec Culture 

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Culture, History and Religion of the Aztec Indians before the Spanish Conquest. The story of rise and fall of the Aztec Civilization.

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