Los Aztecas

The Aztec were a band of hunter-gatherers living on a small island in northwestern Mexico, when their god, Huitzilopochtli (wee tsee loh POCH tlee), told them to leave their homeland.

Los Aztecas

He said, "Go where the cactus grows, on which the eagle sits happily…there we shall wait, there we shall meet a number of tribes and with our arrow or with our shieldwe shall conquer them."

They journeyed through deserts and over steep mountains.

                                                                                                                              

They were hungry and thirsty, hoping at every turn to see the promised sign: an eagle sitting on a prickly pear cactus, eating a snake.

After 200 years of wandering, the Aztec came upon the promised sign. They found the eagle and a small, swampy island in Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. They named their new home Tenochtitlan,(tay nawch tee TLAN) " Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus." There they started to build a powerful empire.

The future did not look good for the Aztec. Because the land on their island was mostly swamp, they couldn't grow crops such as corn for food or cotton for clothing. They learned to collect and eat algae from the lake.

These are the floating gardens around their central cities.

From other more powerful tribes, the Aztec learned to be skilled warriors.                                           

They began to build a huge empire that would one-day cover the southern third of Mexico and extend into what is today Guatemala.The Aztec Empire covered an area about 375 miles wide and 315 miles long.

One of the greatest rulers of the empire was Ahuitzotl (ah WEE soh tl).

Ahuitzotl also oversaw the completion of the pyramid of the Great Temple, which he dedicated to the god Huitzilopochtli.

When Ahuitzotl died in 1502, his nephew, Moctezuma , became the new ruler. 

Under his rule, which lasted until 1520,the empire reached its greatest size, with a population of about 25 million people.

Merchants sold many of their goods in city markets

throughout the empire.  The marketplace was an important

center in Aztec cities. 

We also know Aztec craftworkers produced beautiful feather headdresses,

stone sculptures

…and jewelry set with precious stones.                                                                                     

Perhaps the most important Aztec artifacts that archaeologists have discovered are the Aztec codices

( a kind of book, with pages made from tree bark).

                                                                              

The pages open and close like folding screens and include brightly colored hieroglyphs( pictures that stand for words). 

At one time there were hundreds of these books.

Fighting for the gods    The everyday lives of all classes of Aztec society

revolved around religion.  These are just a few of the more than 1,000 Aztec gods.

Corn

                                     

        

Water

                                        

     

Fire

                             

     

Food

                     

      

Mother

                               

           

Wind

                                    

Moon

                            

          

Sun

                          

    

Flowers

                                                

            

The two most important gods in the Aztec world were  Tlaloc (tla LOHK), the god of rain,

and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and of war who they feared becausethey thought he could destroy the world whenever he wanted.

 

The Aztec held many religious ceremonies throughout the year.  At these occasions, Aztec priests offered sacrifices to the gods to help ensure good harvests.

Human sacrifice was common.  When the Temple of the Sun in Tenochtitlan was dedicated to the sun and rain gods, the Aztec sacrificed as many as 10,000 people !

The reasons for the human sacrifices are still not clear.  Many historians believe that the Aztec used these human sacrifices to frighten their enemies.  Most of the people sacrificed by the Aztec were captives of war.  The Aztec believed that sacrificing an enemy warrior especially pleased their gods.  Some think that the Aztec arranged wars just to capture sacrifices for the gods.

As the number of people in the empire grew, the Aztec required more land to grow crops and more tribute to support the expanding government. To meet this demand for resources, they conquered more and more tribes.

A very religious man, Moctezuma beileved that Cortez was actually the Aztec god Quetzacoatl.

Cortez sailed from Cuba in February 1519. Soon, Cortez landed in present-day Mexico, and he brought with him about 400 soldiers,100 sailors, and--most importantly—between 10 and 20 horses.

Thus, when Cortez arrived at Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519, Moctezuma greeted him warmly and even kissed his hand

Since Cortez' behavior was somewhat less regal than that which would be expected of a god, Moctezuma began to be suspicious of him. Hoping that a sizeable gift would make the Spaniards go away, he presented Cortez with gold and jewels. Unfortunately for Moctezuma,his gift had the reverse effect, it incited the Spaniards' greed. Cortez seizedMoctezuma as a hostage: to gain wealth from a large ransom, and to forestall an Aztec attack.

It took Cortez almost a year, but he built up his forces and conquered every part of the Aztec empire--except Tenochtitlan. Finally, in May 1521,Cortez was ready for the final assault on theAztec capital. The Spanish attacked the besieged city almost daily, and the end came on August 13. When it was all over, over 40,000Aztecs lay dead, killed by weapons and disease, and the once-mighty Aztec Empire lay in ruins.

Cortez began to build Mexico City over the ruins of Tenochtitlan

Tenochititlan before Cortez

El Templo Mayor today