Aztecs

The term Aztec comes from Aztlan, the place where the Aztecs first lived. The Aztecs had a strange culture with bizarre practices and beliefs.Aztecs were originally several Chichimec tribes who migrated into Mexico basin. The Aztec capital. Tenochtitlan, was founded on one of those islands in the first half of the 14th century. Around 1427 the Aztecs rebelled against Azcapotzalco, then the strongest statelet in the valley, and themselves became the most powerful people in the valley.Aztecs had practice of human sacrifice to keep the sun alive. They created wealth for themselves by taking tribute from the peoples they and their allies conquered..

Like the Maya, the Aztecs saw the world as having four directions, 13 heavens and nine hells. Those who died by drowning, leprosy, lightning, gout, dropsy or lung disease went to the paradisiac gardens of Tlaloc. the god who had killed them; warriors who were sacrificed or died in battle, merchants killed while traveling far away, and women who died giving birth to their first child all went to heaven as companions of the sun; everyone else traveled for four years under the northern deserts, in the abode of the death god Mictlantecuhtli, before reaching the ninth hell, where they vanished altogether.

In the mid 15th century the Aztecs formed the Triple Alliance with two other valley states, Texcoco and Tlacopan, to wage war against Tlaxcala and Huejotzingo, east of the valley. The prisoners they took would form the diet of sacrificed warriors that their god Huizilopochtli demanded to keep the sun rising every day For the dedication of Tenochtitlan's Templo king Abuizotl had 20,000 captives sacrificed. The Triple Alliance brought most of central Mexico from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific (though not Tlaxcala) under its control. The total population of the empire's 38 provinces may have been about 5 million. The empire's purpose was to exact tribute of resources absent from the heartland. Jade, turquoise, cotton, paper, tobacco, rubber, lowland fruits and vegetables, cacao, precious feathers were needed for the glorification of the Aztec elite and to support the many nonproductive servants of its waroriented state. Immediately following the Aztec defeat to Spanish forces, the colonial New World was established under the auspices of the Catholic Church.



 

The basic unit of Aztec society was the calpulli, consisting of a few dozen to a few hundred extended families, owning land communally. The king held absolute power but delegated important roles such as priest or tax collector to members of the pilli (nobility). Military leaders were usually tecuhtli, elite professional soldiers. Another special group was the pochteca, militarized merchants who helped extend the empire, brought goods to the capital and organized large markets, which were held daily in big towns. At the bottom of society were pawns (paupers who could sell themselves for a specified period), serfs and slaves.

Aztec Calendar