1345 AD - 1521 AD

EMPIRE OF THE  TENOCHCA 

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The exact origins of the Aztec people are uncertain, but they are believed to have begun as a northern tribe of hunter-gatherers whose name came from that of their homeland, Aztlan (or “White Land”). The Aztecs were also known as the Tenochca (from which the name for their capital city, Tenochtitlan, was derived) or the Mexica (the origin of the name of the city that would replace Tenochtitlan, as well as the name for the entire country). The Aztecs appeared in Mesoamerica – as the south-central region of pre-Columbian Mexico is known – in the early 13th century. Their arrival came just after, or perhaps helped bring about, the fall of the previously dominant Mesoamerican civilization, the Toltecs. The Aztecs spoke classical Nahuatl. Although some contemporary Nahuatl speakers identify themselves as Aztecs, the word is normally only used as a historical term referring to the empire of the Mexicas.

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When the Aztecs saw an eagle perched on a cactus on the marshy land near the southwest border of Lake Texcoco, they took it as a sign to build their settlement there. They drained the swampy land, constructed artificial islands on which they could plant gardens and established the foundations of their capital city, Tenochtitlán, in 1325 CE. Typical Aztec crops included maize (corn), along with beans, squashes, potatoes, tomatoes and avocados; they also supported themselves through fishing and hunting local animals such as rabbits, armadillos, snakes, coyotes and wild turkey. Their relatively sophisticated system of agriculture (including intensive cultivation of land and irrigation methods) and a powerful military tradition would enable the Aztecs to build a successful state, and later an empire.

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Sometime around 1100 CE the city-states or altepetl which were spread over central Mexico began to compete with each other for local resources and regional dominance. Each state had its own ruler or tlatoani who led a council of nobles but these small urban centres surrounded by farmland soon sought to expand their wealth and influence so that by 1400 CE several small empires had formed in the Valley of Mexico. Dominant among these were Texcoco, capital of the Acholhua region, and Azcapotzalco, capital of the Tepenec. These two empires came face to face in 1428 CE with the Tepanec War.

 

The Azcapotzalco forces were defeated by an alliance of Texcoco, Tenochtitlan (the capital of the Mexica) and several other smaller cities. Following victory a Triple Alliance was formed between Texcoco, Tenochtitlan and a rebel Tepanec city, Tlacopan. A campaign of territorial expansion began where the spoils of war - usually in the form of tributes from the conquered - were shared between these three great cities. Over time Tenochtitlan came to dominate the Alliance, its ruler became the supreme ruler - the huey tlatoque ('high king') - and the city established itself as the capital of the Aztec empire.

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By the early 16th century, the Aztecs had come to rule over up to 500 small states, and some 5 to 6 million people, either by conquest or commerce. Tenochtitlán at its height had more than 140,000 inhabitants, and was the most densely populated city ever to exist in Mesoamerica. Bustling markets such as Tenochtitlan’s Tlatelolco, visited by some 50,000 people on major market days, drove the Aztec economy. The Aztec civilization was also highly developed socially, intellectually and artistically. It was a highly structured society with a strict caste system. At the top were local rulers (teteuhctin), then came nobles (pipiltin), commoners (macehualtin), serfs (mayeque), and finally slaves (tlacohtin). The strata seem to have been relatively fixed but there is some evidence of movement between them, especially in the lower classes.

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Not only the political and religious capital, Tenochtitlán was also a huge trading centre with goods flowing in and out such as gold, greenstone, turquoise, cotton, cacao beans, tobacco, pottery, tools, weapons, foodstuffs (tortillas, chile sauces, maize, beans, and even insects, for example) and slaves. The Spanish invaders were hugely impressed by the city's splendour and magnificent architecture and artwork, especially the Templo Mayor pyramid and massive stone sculptures. Dominating the city was the huge Sacred Precinct with its temples and monumental ball court. Tenochtitlan's water management was also impressive with large canals criss-crossing the city which was itself surrounded by chinampas - raised and flooded fields - which greatly increased the agricultural capacity of the Aztecs. There were also anti-flood dykes, artificial reservoirs for fresh water, and wonderful flower gardens dotted around the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Aztec faith shared many aspects with other Mesoamerican religions, like that of the Maya, notably including the rite of human sacrifice. In the great cities of the Aztec empire, magnificent temples, palaces, plazas and statues embodied the civilization’s unfailing devotion to the many Aztec gods, including Huitzilopochtli (god of war and of the sun) and Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”), a Toltec god who served many important roles in the Aztec faith over the years. The Aztec calendar, common in much of Mesoamerica, was based on a solar cycle of 365 days and a ritual cycle of 260 days; the calendar played a central role in the religion and rituals of Aztec society.

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The empire continued to expand from 1430 CE and the Aztec military - bolstered by conscription of all adult males, men supplied from allied and conquered states, and such elite groups as the Eagle and Jaguar warriors - swept aside their rivals. Aztec warriors wore padded cotton armour, carried a wooden or reed shield covered in hide, and wielded weapons such as a sharp obsidian sword-club (macuahuitl), a spear or dart thrower (atlatl), and bow and arrows. Elite warriors also wore spectacular feathered and animal skin costumes and headdresses to signify their rank. Battles were concentrated in or around major cities and when these fell the victors claimed the whole surrounding territory. Regular tributes were extracted and captives were taken back to Tenochtitlan for ritual sacrifice. In this way the Aztec empire came to cover most of northern Mexico, an area of some 135,000 square kilometres.

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The empire was kept together through the appointment of officials from the Aztec heartland, inter-marriages, gift-giving, invitations to important ceremonies, the building of monuments and artworks which promoted Aztec imperial ideology, and most importantly of all, the ever-present threat of military intervention. Some states were integrated more than others while those on the extremities of the empire became useful buffer zones against more hostile neighbours, notably the Tarascan civilization.

 

The Aztec empire, which controlled some 11,000,000 people, had always had to deal with minor rebellions - typically, when new rulers took power at Tenochtitlan - but these had always been swiftly crushed. The tide began to turn, though, when the Aztecs were heavily defeated by the Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo in 1515 CE.  With the arrival of the Spanish, some of these rebel states would again seize the opportunity to gain their independence. 

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The first European to visit Mexican territory was Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, who arrived in Yucatan from Cuba with three ships and about 100 men in early 1517. Cordobars reports on his return to Cuba prompted the Spanish governor there, Diego Velasquez, to send a larger force back to Mexico under the command of Hernan Cortes. In March 1519, Cortes landed at the town of Tabasco, where he learned from the natives of the great Aztec civilization, then ruled by Moctezuma (or Montezuma) II. In November 1519, Cortes and his men arrived in Tenochtitlan, where Montezuma and his people greeted them as honored guests according to Aztec custom (partially due to Cortes’ physical resemblance to the light-skinned Quetzalcoatl, whose return was prophesied in Aztec legend).

 

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Defying the authority of Velasquez, Cortes founded the city of Veracruz on the southeastern Mexican coast, where he trained his army into a disciplined fighting force. Cortes and some 400 soldiers then marched into Mexico, aided by a native woman known as Malinche, who served as a translator. Thanks to instability within the Aztec empire, Cortes was able to form alliances with other native peoples, notably the Tlascalans, who were then at war with Montezuma.

 

Though the Aztecs had superior numbers, their weapons were inferior, and Cortes was able to immediately take Montezuma and his entourage of lords hostage, gaining control of Tenochtitla. The Spaniards then murdered thousands of Aztec nobles during a ritual dance ceremony, and Montezuma died under uncertain circumstances while in custody. Cuauhtemoc, his young nephew, took over as emperor, and the Aztecs drove the Spaniards from the city. With the help of the Aztecs’ native rivals, Cortes mounted an offensive against Tenochtitlan, finally defeating Cuauhtemoc’s resistance on August 13, 1521. In all, some 240,000 people were believed to have died in the city’s conquest, which effectively ended the Aztec civilization. After his victory, Cortes razed Tenochtitla and built Mexico City on its ruins; it quickly became the premier European center in the New World.

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RELIGION

Mythology and religion, as with most ancient cultures, were closely intertwined for the Aztecs. The very founding of Tenochtitlán was based on the belief that peoples from the mythical land of plenty Aztlán (literally 'Land of White Herons' and origin of the Aztec name) in the far northwest had first settled in the Valley of Mexico. They had been shown the way by their god Huitzilopochtli who had sent an eagle sitting on a cactus to indicate exactly where these migrants should build their new home. The god also gave these people their name, the Mexica, who along with other ethnic groups, who similarly spoke Nahuatl, collectively made up the peoples now generally known as the Aztecs.

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Aztec culture had complex mythological and religious traditions. The most alarming aspect of the Aztec culture was the practice of human sacrifice, which was known throughout Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest. A hegemonic power, the Aztecs sacrificed human beings on a massive scale in bloody religious rituals, enslaved subject peoples, and, by Spanish accounts, practiced cannibalism.

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The Aztec pantheon included a mix of older Mesoamerian gods and specifically Mexica deities. The two principal gods worshipped were Huitzilopochtli (the war and sun god) and Tlaloc (the rain god) and both had a temple on top of the Templo Mayor pyramid at the heart of Tenochtitlan. Other important gods were Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent god common to many Mesoamerican cultures), Tezcatlipoca (supreme god at Texcoco), Xipe Totec (god of Spring and agriculture), Xiuhtecuhtli (god of fire), Xochipilli (god of summertime and flowers), Ometeotl (the creator god), Mictlantecuhtli (god of the dead) and Coatlicue (the earth-mother goddess).

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This sometimes bewildering array of gods presided over every aspect of the human condition. The timing of ceremonies in honour of these deities was dictated by a variety of calendars. There was the 260-day Aztec calendar which was divided into 20 weeks, each of 13 days which carried names such as Crocodile and Wind. There was also a Solar calendar consisting of 18 months, each of 20 days. The 584 day period covering the rise of Venus was also important and there was a 52 year cycle of the sun to be considered. The movement of planets and stars were carefully observed (albeit not as accurately, though, as the Maya had done) and they provided the motive for the specific timing of many religious rites and agricultural practices.

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The sun, not surprisingly, had great significance for the Aztecs. They believed that the world went through a series of cosmic ages, each had its own sun but finally each world was destroyed and replaced by another until the fifth and final age was reached - the present day for the Aztecs. This cosmic progression was wonderfully represented in the famous Sun Stone but also crops up in many other places too. 

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The gods were honoured with festivals, banquets, music, dancing, decoration of statues, burning of incense, the ritual burial of precious goods, penances such as blood-letting, and animal sacrifices. Humans, both adults and less often children, were also frequently sacrificed to metaphorically 'feed' the gods and keep them happy lest they become angry and make life difficult for humans by sending storms, droughts etc. or even just to keep the sun appearing every day. Victims were usually taken from the losing side in wars. Indeed, the so-called 'Flowery Wars' were specifically undertaken to collect sacrificial victims. The most prestigious offerings were those warriors who had shown great bravery in battle. The sacrifice itself could take three main forms: the heart was removed, the victim was decapitated, or the victim was made to fight in a hopelessly one-sided contest against elite warriors. There were also impersonators who dressed in the regalia of a specific god and at the climax of the ceremony were themselves sacrificed.

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For the Europeans, human sacrifice was the most abhorrent feature of Aztec civilization. Human sacrifice was widespread at this time in Mesoamerica and South America (during the Inca Empire), but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities.

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Most cultures of Mesoamerica gave some kind of offerings to the gods, and the sacrifice of animals was common, a practice for which the Aztecs bred special dogs. Objects also were sacrificed; they were broken and offered to their gods. The cult of Quetzalcoatl required the sacrifice of butterflies and hummingbirds. Self-sacrifice was also quite common; people would offer maguey thorns, tainted with their own blood. Blood held a central place in Mesoamerican cultures; in one of the creation myths, Quetzalcoatl would offer blood extracted from a wound in his own penis to give life to humanity, and there are several myths where Nahua gods offer their blood to help humanity. In the myth of the fifth sun, all the gods sacrifice themselves so humanity could live.

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In the usual procedure of human sacrifice, the victim would be painted with blue chalk (the color of sacrifice) and taken to the top of the great pyramid. Then the victim would be laid on a stone slab, his abdomen ripped open with a ceremonial knife (an obsidian knife could hardly cut through a rib cage) and his heart taken out and raised to the sun. The heart would be put in a bowl held by a statue, and the body thrown on the stairs, where it would be dragged away. Afterwards, the body parts would be disposed of various ways: the viscera were used to feed the animals in the zoo, the head was cleaned and placed on display in the tzompantli, and the rest of the body was either cremated or cut into very small pieces and offered as a gift to important people. Evidence also points to removal of muscles and skinning (José Luis Salinas Uribe, INAH, 2005).

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Other kinds of human sacrifice existed, some of them involving torture. In these, the victim could be shot with arrows, burned, or drowned. For the construction of the Templo Mayor, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 84,400 prisoners in four days. Some scholars, however, believe that it is more probable that only 3,000 sacrifices took place and the death toll was drastically inflated by war propaganda.

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Another figure used is from Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who traveled with Cortés, participated in the conquest of the Aztecs in 1521, wrote his account of the conquest 50 years after the fact. In the description of the tzompantli, he writes about a rack of skulls of the victims in the main temple and reports counted about 100,000 skulls. However, to accommodate that many skulls, the tzompantli would have had a length of several kilometers, instead of the 30 meters reported. Modern reconstructions account for about 600 to 1,200 skulls. Similarly, Díaz claimed there were 60,000 skulls in the tzompantli of Tlatelolco, which was as important as that of Tenochtitlan. According to William Arens (1979), excavations by archeologists found 300 skulls.

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Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590), the Franciscan missionary, Juan Bautista de Pomar (circa 1539–1590), and Motolinía reported that the Aztecs had 18 festivities each year. Motolinía and de Pomar clearly state that only in those festivities were sacrifices made. De Pomar interviewed very old Aztecs for his “Relación de Juan Bautista Pomar” (1582) and is considered by some to be the first anthropologist. He was very interested in Aztec culture. Each god required a different kind of victim: young women were drowned for Xilonen; sick male children were sacrificed to Tlaloc (Juan Carlos Román: 2004 Museo del templo mayor); Nahuatl-speaking prisoners to Huitzilopochtli; and an Aztec (or simply nahua, according to some accounts) volunteered for Tezcatlipoca.

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Not all these sacrifices were made at the main temple; a few were made at Cerro del Peñón, an islet of the Texcoco lake. According to an Aztec source, in the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli, 34 captives were sacrificed in the gladiatorial sacrifice to Xipe Totec. A bigger figure would be dedicated to Huitzilopochtli in the month of Panquetzaliztli. This could put a figure as low as 300 to 600 victims a year, but Marvin Harris multiplies it by 20, assuming that the same sacrifices were made in every one of the sections or calpullis of the city. There is little agreement on the actual figure.

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Aztecs waged "flower wars" to capture prisoners for sacrifices they called nextlaualli ("debt payment to the gods"), so that the sun could survive each cycle of 52 years. It is not known if the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice before they reached the Anahuac valley and acquired and absorbed other cultures. The first human sacrifice reported by them was dedicated to Xipe Totec, a deity from the north of Mesoamerica. Aztec chronicles reported human sacrifice began as an institution in the year "five knives" or 1484, under Tizoc. Under Tlacaelel's guidance, human sacrifice became an important part of the Aztec culture, not only because of religious reasons, but also for political reasons.

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As Laurette Sejourne (1911–2003) the French ethnologist comments, the human sacrifice would also put a strain in the Aztec culture. They admired the Toltec culture, and claimed to be followers of Quetzalcoatl, but the cult of Quetzalcoatl forbids human sacrifice, and as Sejourne points, there were harsh penalties for those who dare to scream or faint during a human sacrifice. When Hernan Cortés marched from the coast to Tenochtitlan, he forbade human sacrifice among his Indian allies, and later Spanish occupiers later eliminated the practice.

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CULTURE

Aztec civilization sustained millions of people and developed from a history of thousands of years in complete isolation from European and Asian cultures. Aztec agriculture, transportation, economy, architecture, arts, and political institutions bear extraordinary witness to the creative and collaborative capability of humankind, and of the universal inclination to find transcendent meaning to human life. Spanish conquerors and later occupiers largely ignored Aztec cultural achievements, and through a policy of subjugation by Spanish colonial authorities, and the inadvertent introduction of diseases for which they had no immunity, the Aztec civilization of Mesoamerica was almost completely eradicated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slaves

Slaves or tlacotin (distinct from war captives) also constituted an important class. This slavery was very different from what Europeans of the same period were to establish in their colonies, although it had much in common with the slave system in the classical European world of ancient Greece and Rome. The appropriateness of the term "slavery" for this Aztec institution has been questioned. First, slavery was personal, not hereditary: a slave's children were free. A slave could have possessions and even own other slaves. Slaves could buy their liberty, and slaves could be set free if they were able to show they had been mistreated or if they had children with or were married to their masters. Typically, upon the death of the master, slaves who had performed outstanding services were freed. The rest of the slaves were passed on as part of an inheritance.

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Another rather remarkable method for a slave to recover liberty was described by Manuel Orozco y Berra in La civilización azteca (1860): if, at the tianquiztli (marketplace; the word has survived into modern-day Spanish as "tianguis"), a slave could escape the vigilance of his or her master, run outside the walls of the market and step on a piece of human excrement, he could then present his case to the judges, who would free him. He or she would then be washed, provided with new clothes (so that he or she would not be wearing clothes belonging to the master), and declared free. In stark contrast to the European colonies, a person could be declared a slave if he or she attempted to “prevent” the escape of a slave (unless that person were a relative of the master), that is why others would not typically help the master in preventing the slave's escape.

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Orozco y Berra also reports that a master could not sell a slave without the slave's consent, unless the slave had been classified as incorrigible by an authority. (Incorrigibility could be determined on the basis of repeated laziness, attempts to run away, or general bad conduct.) Incorrigible slaves were made to wear a wooden collar, affixed by rings at the back. The collar was not merely a symbol of bad conduct: it was designed to make it harder to run away through a crowd or through narrow spaces. When buying a collared slave, one was informed of how many times that slave had been sold. A slave who was sold four times as incorrigible could be sold to be sacrificed; those slaves commanded a premium in price. However, if a collared slave managed to present him- or herself in the royal palace or in a temple, he or she would regain liberty.

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An Aztec could become a slave as a punishment. A murderer sentenced to death could instead, upon the request of the wife of his victim, be given to her as a slave. A father could sell his son into slavery if the son was declared incorrigible by an authority. Those who did not pay their debts could also be sold as slaves.

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People could sell themselves as slaves. They could stay free long enough to enjoy the price of their liberty, about 20 blankets, usually enough for a year; after that time they went to their new master. Usually this was the destiny of gamblers and of old ahuini (courtesans or prostitutes).

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Toribio Motolinía (1490–1569), author of History of the Indians of New Spain, reports that some captives, future victims of sacrifice, were treated as slaves with all the rights of an Aztec slave until the time of their sacrifice, but it is not clear how they were kept from running away.

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Recreation

Although one could drink pulque, a fermented beverage made from the heart of the maguey, with an alcoholic content equivalent to beer, getting drunk before the age of 60 was forbidden under penalty of death.

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The Aztecs had strong passions over a ball game, but this in their case it was tlachtli. The game was played with a ball of solid rubber, about the size of a human head. The city had two special buildings for the ball games. The players hit the ball with their hips. They had to pass the ball through a stone ring. The fortunate player who could do this had the right to take the blankets of the public, so his victory was followed by general running of the public, with screams and laughter. People used to bet on the results of the game. Poor people could bet their food; pillis could bet their fortunes; tecutlis (lords) could bet their concubines or even their cities, and those who had nothing could bet their freedom and risk becoming slaves.

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Art and Architecture

The Aztecs were themselves appreciative of fine art and they collected pieces from across their empire to be brought back to Tenochtitlán and often ceremonially buried. Aztec art was nothing if not extensive and ranged from miniature engraved precious objects to massive stone temples. Monumental sculptures were a particular favourite and could be fearsome monstrosities such as the colossal Coatlicue statue or be very life-like such as the famous sculpture of a seated Xochipilli.

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Organized in guilds and attached to the main palaces, artisans could specialize in metalwork, wood carving or stone sculpture, with materials used such as amethyst, rock crystal, gold, silver, and exotic feathers. Perhaps some of the most striking art objects are those which employed turquoise mosaic such as the famous mask of Xuihtecuhtli. Common forms of pottery vessels include anthropomorphic vases in bright colours and of special note was the finely made and highly prized Cholula ware from Cholollan.

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Aztec art depicted all manner of subjects but especially popular were animals, plants and gods, particularly those related to fertility and agriculture. Art could also be used as propaganda to spread the imperial dominance of Tenochtitlan. Examples such as the Sun Stone, Stone of Tizoc, and Throne of Motecuhzoma II all portray Aztec ideology and seek to closely correlate political rulers to cosmic events and even the gods themselves. Even architecture could achieve this aim, for example, the Templo Mayor pyramid sought to replicate the sacred snake mountain of Aztec mythology, Coatepec, and temples and statues bearing Aztec symbols were set up across the empire.

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Education 

Until the age of 14, the education of children was in the hands of their parents. There was a collection of sayings, called huehuetlatolli ("The sayings of the old") that represented the Aztecs' ideals. It included speeches and sayings for every occasion, the words to salute the birth of children, and to say farewell at death. Fathers chided their daughters to be very clean, but not to use makeup, because they would look like ahuianis. Mothers taught their daughters to support their husbands, even if they turn out to be humble peasants. Boys were admonished to be humble, obedient, and hard workers.

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Male children went to school at age 15. There were two types of educational institutions. The telpochcalli taught history, religion, military fighting arts, and a trade or craft (such as agriculture). The calmecac, attended mostly by the sons of pillis, was focused on turning out leaders (tlatoques), priests, scholars/teachers (tlatimini), and codex painters (tlacuilos). They studied rituals, the reading of the codex, the calendar, songs (poetry), and, as at the telpochcalli, military fighting arts.

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Aztec teachers propounded a Spartan regime of education—cold baths in the morning, hard work, physical punishment, bleeding with maguey thorns and endurance tests—with the purpose of forming a stoical people.

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There is contradictory information about whether calmecac was reserved for the sons and daughters of the pillis; some accounts said they could choose where to study. It is possible that the common people preferred the tepochcalli, because a warrior could advance more readily by his military abilities; becoming a priest or a tlacuilo was not a way to rise rapidly from a low station.

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Girls were educated in the crafts of home and child-raising. They were not taught to read or write. There were also two other opportunities for those few who had talent. Some were chosen for the house of song and dance, and others were chosen for the ball game. Both occupations had high status.

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Poetry

Poetry was the only occupation worthy of an Aztec warrior in times of peace. A remarkable amount of this poetry survives, having been collected during the era of the conquest. In some cases, we know names of individual authors, such as Netzahualcoyotl, Tolatonai of Texcoco, and Cuacuatzin, Lord of Tepechpan. Miguel León-Portilla, the most renowned translator of Nahuatl, comments that it is in this poetry where we can find the real thought of the Aztecs, independent of "official" Aztec ideology.

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In the basement of the Templo Mayor there was the "house of the eagles," where in peacetime Aztec captains could drink foaming chocolate, smoke good cigars, and have poetry contests. The poetry was accompanied by percussion instruments (teponaztli). Recurring themes in this poetry are whether life is real or a dream, whether there is an afterlife, and whether we can approach the giver of life.

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Zan te te yenelli                                                   Is it you?, are you real?

aca zan tlahuaco                                                 some had talked nonsense

in ipal nemoani                                                   oh, you, by whom everything lives,

In cuix nelli ciox amo nelli?                              Is it real?, Is it not real?

Quen in conitohua                                              This is how they say it

in ma oc on nentlamati                                      do not have anguish

in toyollo....                                                           in our hearts

zan no monenequi                                              I will make disdainful

in ipal nemoani                                                   oh, you, by whom everything lives,

Ma oc on nentlamatiin toyollo                         in our hearts!

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—Netzahualcoyotl, lord of Texcoco

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The Aztec people also enjoyed a type of dramatic presentation, although it could not be called theatre. Some were comical with music and acrobats; others were staged dramas of their gods. After the conquest, the first Christian churches had open chapels reserved for these kinds of representations. Plays in Nahuatl, written by converted Indians, were an important instrument for the conversion to Christianity, and are still found today in the form of traditional pastorelas, which are played during Christmas to show the Adoration of Baby Jesus, and other Biblical passages.

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MUSIC

Aztec music is an art form waiting to be discovered. Very little research has gone into the study of Aztec musical instruments, rhythms and practice, largely because there is next to nothing "written down" from the days before the Spanish. A few original Aztec (percussion) instruments are still used in local community festivals even today, and many more are in museums. There are a good number of illustrations of instruments in codices and carved in stone sculptures, a few "Aztec" melodies heard in remote Mexican villages have been recorded and transcribed – though no one knows for sure if they’re genuinely pre-Hispanic in origin - and then we have the descriptions handed down to us from the Spanish soldiers and friars after the conquest. But much remains guesswork.

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Music in the empire was used in all aspects of life. They used it as a way of passing on culture, sharing an understanding of religion, and making a deeper connection with the events of everyday life. Children who were sent to school were required to learn a plethora of songs that held importance to their culture. Even the nobles often had their own band, songwriters and studios at their homes.

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Music in Society

Aztec musical thought was of a high philosophical level. Musical sounds, song and dance movements were of religious meaning and often accompanied ritual acts, such as offerings and sacrifices. Music and dance were understood as a sacrificial gift to the gods. Interestingly, there was no Aztec word for music. Music was the “art of song” (cuicatlamatiliztli) and musicians did not play but “sang” on their instruments. To dance was “to sing with the feet”. Musical practice flourished among various groups of the Aztec society. There was music performed by the commoners in each household and in local township festivities, but also in certain ceremonies in the heart of the Aztec temple precinct, such as in the “sowing of the rattles” (ayacachpixollo). The commoners had various kinds of rattles and small whistles, which were used in household worship. A group of old men, which were the leaders of the local townships, played drums. Different whistles were used by the hunters to attract game.

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When a child was sent to school, music and the playing of instruments was an important subject to be learned.  Students between 12 and 15 would learn songs that were important in their culture. Elders in the home would teach children the songs they needed to know.

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Within the Aztec temple precinct music was performed by priests, who cared for the musical worship of the gods in sacred courtyards and on top of the pyramids. They sounded trumpets during sacrifices and to announce the times of penance, large rattle-sticks and rattling incense ladles in processions, slit-drums during nightly rituals accompanying astronomical observations on top of the temples, turtle shells, gourd rattles, and bone rasps in ceremonies of grief, flutes, whistles, and many other instruments.

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There were also sacred temple chants directed towards the deities and temple dances performed by priests and the representatives of the gods, who carried metal bells and conch tinkles as part of the ritual garment. As part of the large ceremonies held every 20 days, theatrical performances of mythological or historical content and ritual games were performed. Unfortunately, not much information is present on the role that music played in the ritual ballgame. According to archaeological finds, eagle whistles, small flutes, ceramic drums, and slit-drums were used.

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Instruments

Drums played a big part in the music of the Aztecs.  A variety of drums were used, including the ayotl (drum made from turtle shell), teponaztli (horizontal log drum, played with mallets) and huehuetl (upright skin drum, similar to what we're most familiar with).  The huehuetl was played with the hands and not drum sticks. Drums would accompany music or be used alone, for example to lead warriors into battle.  Both these drums (teponaztli and huehuetl) were considered special sacred instruments.  It was believed, in fact, that two gods were banished to the earth in the form of these two drums.

 

Other drums include:

• Xochihuehuetl - ceramic drums
• Teocuitlahuehuetl – small metal drums made of gold

• Tecomapiloa - small slit-drums which were provided with a hanging gourd as additional resonator and carried in processions with a strap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rattles were also common, and would be filled with beads or pebbles.  Rattle sticks were also used.

 

Different types of rattles:

• Yoyotl - rattles made from dried seed pods

• Cuechtli, cuechcochcacalachtli - row rattles composed of conch tinkles

• Cacalachtli - different types of ceramic rattles

• Ayacachtli, ayacachicahuaztli - gourd rattles

• Chicahuaztli, ayauhchicahuaztli, ayauhquahuitl, nahualquahuitl - wooden rattle sticks with box-shaped resonators

• Omichicahuaztli - bone rasps made of human femurs and deer shoulder blades with vertical incisions, scraped with a shell above a skull resonator

• Ayotl, ayocacallotl - turtle shells beaten with deer antlers. Like the slit-drums, these instruments rested on a ring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To add the melody to the music, flutes of various kinds were very popular.  The flute was called the huilacapitztli.  Rattles and flutes are still very popular in Mexico today.

 

Different types of flutes include:

• Acapitztli - reed flutes

• Topitz - bone flutes

• Tlapitzalli, tlapitzayaxochimecatl - ceramic tubular duct flutes with four finger holes

• Chalchiuhtlapitzalli - tubular flutes made from green stone, usually jadeite and green marble

• Huilacapitztli, zozohuilotl, zozoloctli, quauhtotopotli, quauhtlapitzalli, tecciztotontli, chichtli - many different types of ceramic globular flutes and whistles. Noteworthy are the skull whistles, which belong to the so called air-spring whistles. Their elaborate acoustical mechanism produces a distorted sound reminding of the atmospheric noise generated by the wind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Various other horns and trumpets were used, such as the conch (tecciztli) and snail horn (quihquiztli).

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Types of Music

The Mexica people had various different types of music.  Many of the songs were sacred hymns.  These hymns would commemorate the deeds of great rulers, or, of course, the gods.  The gods Ometeotl, Tlaloc, Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca were all honoured in song.  The sacred hymns would often tell stories about things that the gods had done.  These hymns would also be used to ask the gods for rain or success in battle, or to thank the gods for their gifts.  These songs could be sung at special occasions, accompanied by special ritual dances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another genre of Aztec music was the cantares.  Linguist John Bierhorstcalled these "ghost songs".  They would often recount the great deeds of the past, but they had more of a mystical purpose than the sacred songs.  These songs were specifically sung at times of battle.  Specially trained singers, dancers and actors would take part in the ritual ceremony.

The spirit world was symbolically portrayed, and the participants would work themselves into a trance as they sang and danced for hours on end.  It was believed that there was a special connection with the ancestors and gods at this time.  The warriors would lose their inhibitions and be almost hypnotically drawn to the battle.  The battles of the past, and human sacrifices, would be acted out in front of the people.

Of course, Aztec music also included the more lighthearted songs, and songs of everyday life.  Love songs, and songs of energy and excitement were played.  The cantares were only for religious ritual, but there were plenty of more universal songs.

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The poetic and symbolic nature of the Nahuatl language and writing systems was certainly carried over into their music.  The allusions and symbols would often be so obscure that we would understand very little of a direct translation today.  Writing soon after the Spanish conquest, Diego Durán said that the songs would at first seem like nonsense, but once he discussed the words and learned what they meant, he came to admire the poetry and wording.  Both the religious and non-religious songs had this brilliant word play.

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Singing and Dancing

Apart from the music of the priests, there was a court music performed by professional musicians and singers, who resided in the palace of the Aztec ruler, in a place called the “house of the Cloud Serpent” (mixcoacalli). The court musicians performed the music of large circular dances, in which often hundreds of dancers took part. They also played for their ruler, such as during daily banquets, which were accompanied by acrobats and dwarfs, and were ordered to play for the wealthy merchants in their private feasts.

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