The Aztecs

by Michael E Smith

  The Aztec Past and the Mexican Present

  Mexican national culture today owes much of its heritage to the Aztecs and other ancient Mesoamerican peoples. This is perhaps most obvious in the realms of food and economics. The maize and bean duo is ubiquitous in the diet of urban Mexicans, if not as prominent as it is in that of rural Indians. The maize tortilla is the national staple, and tortillerías are found in just about every rural village and urban neighborhood today.33 Many popular foods, from tacos and tamales to chili peppers and pulque, can be traced directly to the Aztecs. Today, families most often make mole and other sauces in an electric blender, but almost every central Mexican household also owns a stone mortar and pestle with the same form and called by nearly the same names as their Aztec predecessors (the modern term for mortar in Mexican Spanish, molcajete, derives from the ancient Nahuatl term molcaxitl). The Spanish language as spoken in Mexico has been influenced by Nahuatl in several ways. Many Nahuatl terms have been incorporated into Spanish, and the characteristic lilting cadence that distinguishes the Spanish spoken in central Mexico from that of other areas can be attributed to Nahuatl influence.

  Aztec markets continued to flourish after the Spanish Conquest, and periodic markets are still a vibrant part of modern Mexican culture. Found in both rural and urban areas, the weekly market remains a major provider of food and other goods and has yet to be superseded by the expanding numbers of discount stores and supermarket chains. Most large Mexican towns and cities support one or more municipal marketplaces that are open daily, with the weekly markets serving individual neighborhoods. Traditional craft items, such as textiles, pottery, and carved wood, are widely used not only in Indian villages but also in many middle-class Mexican homes. Furthermore, they are also popular with the many tourists who visit Mexico each year. These craft items are rarely found in the chain stores but are commonplace in the municipal and periodic markets, as well as in special tourist markets.

  In the middle of Mexico City, where the central precinct of Tlatelolco once stood, is the Plaza of the Three Cultures. These three cultures – Aztec, Spanish, and modern Mexican – together symbolize the Mexican nation and its heritage. In Tlatelolco all three are physically present in close juxtaposition: Aztec pyramids from the Tlatelolco sacred precinct, the Early Colonial church of Santiago Tlatelolco, and modern high-rise apartment buildings (figure 13.12). The symbolism of the Plaza of the Three Cultures is important for modern Mexicans, and in 1964, President Alfredo López Mateos dedicated a plaque in Tlatelolco that reads, “On 13 August, 1521, Tlatelolco, heroically defended by Cuauhtemoc, fell into the power of Hernando Cortés. It was neither a triumph nor a defeat, but the painful birth of the Mestizo nation that is Mexico today.”

  Figure 13.12 Plaza of the Three Cultures in Tlatelolco: Aztec, Colonial Spanish, and modern Mexican (photograph by Louise Burkhart; reproduced with permission)

  The Mexican people have always looked back to the Aztecs with pride and admiration. Just as the Aztec dynasties used their Toltec heritage to establish their legitimacy, the Mexican government today turns to Aztec civilization as a source of authenticity and continuity with the past. The national symbol of Mexico is taken directly from Aztec history: the eagle holding a snake, perched on a cactus (figure 13.13). In the fourteenth century this symbol marked the sacred place where Huitzilopochtli told the Mexica to build Tenochtitlan, and as the national capital, Mexico City remains a sacred place today.

  Figure 13.13 The national symbol of Mexico, from the Mexican flag. This image is taken from the Mexica account of the founding of Tenochtitlan (image by Robesus.com; reproduced with permission)

  One aspect of Mexico's veneration of the Aztec past is the attention given to archaeology by the national government. In Mexico archaeologists do not just study ancient cultures; rather they uncover the national heritage for the benefit of the entire nation. Most archaeological research in Mexico is conducted by the federal government, through the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. The enormous resources poured into the Templo Mayor excavations show the level of government commitment to documenting the Aztec past. As the central monument of Tenochtitlan, the Templo Mayor today symbolizes the grandeur of Aztec civilization. The results of these and other excavations, and the results of ethnohistoric research, have worth for people worldwide, however, not just for Mexicans. This information occupies a prominent place in the collective human story.

  A Wider Perspective

  Modern technology and communication have made the world smaller and have greatly reduced the variety of cultures on our planet. We seem to be moving toward a single, homogeneous, global commercial culture. This process began with the European age of exploration, and it continues at a rapid pace today. In order to comprehend the nature of our species, our strengths and weaknesses, it is essential to understand the great diversity of peoples and cultures that once lived on earth. The evolution from egalitarian farmers to state-level societies – the Urban Revolution – was perhaps the most momentous social transformation in human history. The appearance of kings, laws, writing, money, and unequal social classes marked a watershed in human affairs. Once this threshold was reached, at different times in different regions, there was no turning back.

  We still live in states, the kind of society that first appeared with the Sumerians, Egyptians, Mayas, and Teotihuacan. We can learn much about ourselves by studying how institutions of government and social classes first arose, what life was like under the early states, how these civilizations adapted (or not) to their surroundings, and how they interacted with other peoples.34 With growing problems of ethnic conflict in the world today, the Aztecs provide an example of how states have dealt with issues of economic and political domination and ethnic interaction.

  The Aztecs are a prime example of an early urban state society. They forged a way of life suited to their conditions independently of Old World cultures, and gained economic and political success through their own unique accomplishments. Study of the Aztecs provides us a glimpse of the past of all humanity and helps us to view the present and the past from a broader perspective. This wider perspective is the goal of modern anthropology, and it is no surprise that Aztec studies today form a crucial part of the discipline of anthropology.

  The Nahua historian Fernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc was concerned that the history of the Aztecs never be forgotten. In Nahuatl he recorded the following passage shortly after AD 1600:

  Thus they have come to tell it,

  thus they have come to record it in their narration,

  and for us they have painted it in their codices,

  the ancient men, the ancient women.

  Thus in the future

  never will it perish, never will it be forgotten,

  always we will treasure it,

  we, their children, their grandchildren,

  brothers, great-grandchildren,

  great-great-grandchildren, descendants,

  we who carry their blood and their color,

  we will tell it, we will pass it on

  to those who do not yet live, who are yet to be born,

  the children of the Mexicans, the children of the Tenochcans.35

  After nearly five centuries we can answer Alvarado Tezozomoc confidently that the story of the Aztecs will never be forgotten. It lives on in their painted codices and the many other objects that survive; it lives on in the written descriptions of Spaniards and Nahuas; it lives on in the Mexican people today; it lives on in the ruins of Aztec houses and temples; and it lives on in the world of modern archaeological and historical scholarship.

  Notes

  I have emphasized sources published in English in these notes. In many cases, however, the only relevant publications are in Spanish, or in a few cases, in French, and these are included in the references. Readers wanting to pursue research on the Aztecs will have to use Spanish-language sources. Mychoice to emphasize sources in English may give a somewhat biased view of the scholarly litera
ture available on some topics.

  1 The Aztecs of Mesoamerica

  1. Cantares Mexicanos (1985:f.17r), translated from the Nahuatl by León-Portilla (1963:72).

  2. Some scholars object strongly to using the term “Aztec” at all. López Austin (2001:68), for example, states that “The use of the term ‘Aztec’ to denote the Mexica people is incorrect” and an “erroneous designation.” I have been looking unsuccessfully for an alternative term for many years. Given the lack of a native term for the Nahuatl-speaking peoples of central Mexico (Mexicas and others), I feel justified in using the word “Aztec” for this purpose. See discussion of the use of the term “Aztec” in Barlow (1945) and Berdan et al. (1996:4).

  3. Lockhart (1992).

  4. The social archaeology approach, as described here, has its origins in the work of the mid-twentieth century archaeologist V. Gordon Childe (1950). Colin Renfrew (1984) published an important synthesis. Influential applications to Mesoamerica include Blanton et al. (1993), Marcus and Flannery (1996), Sanders et al. (1979), and Smith and Berdan (2003). In contrast to my approach, a group of interpretivist archaeologists hijacked the phrase “social archaeology” to refer to studies that take a nonscientific view of the past. Preucel and Meskell (2004) is a manifesto of this approach, which is strongly represented in the Journal of Social Archaeology.

  5. Overviews of Mesoamerican cultures from ancient times to the present can be found in Carmack et al. (2007) and Evans (2008).

  6. Paul Kirchhoff (1943) published the first list of Mesoamerican traits. The modern interaction approach is exemplified by Carmack et al. (2007) and Smith and Berdan (2003).

  7. The best treatment of Mesoamerican environments in historical and modern times is still West and Augelli (1989). Paleoenvironmental research directed at reconstructing climate, land forms, erosion, and other features for the prehistoric past of central Mexico is still in its infancy; see Borejsza and Frederick (2010), Lozano-Garcia et al. (2005), McClung de Tapia et al. (2003), Metcalfe (2006), Piperno et al. (2007), and Siebe et al. (2004). See also the discussion of paleoclimates in chapter 3.

  8. See the glossary at the back of the book for definitions of key Aztec terms.

  9. In an influential article, William T. Sanders (1956) first pointed out these unique features of central Mexico, which he called the “central Mexican symbiotic region.” See also Sanders et al. (1979).

  10. Not all scholars believe that the past can be studied objectively and scientifically. Interpretivist archaeologists who follow the “construction” model of scholarship assert that the past is unknowable and the evidence vague. The researcher is free to construct any interpretation that cannot be contradicted logically. I reject this model; there are agreed-upon methods of scientific investigation and historical research that give us powerful means to demonstrate that some interpretations of the past are in fact far more reasonable and likely than others. On the other hand, the opposing “discovery” model of scholarship errs in the opposite direction by suggesting that researchers simply discover an objective and fixed truth that exists independent of a scholar's procedures or ideas.

  11. Anales de Cuauhtitlan, f.57 (Bierhorst 1992:116). I have modified the spellings of the Mexica kings to conform to the standard versions used in this book. Boone (2000a) is the most complete modern study of Aztec historical codices.

  12. The standard scholarly edition of the Codex Mendoza is that of Francis F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt; see Codex Mendoza (1992); this is available in an excellent paperback edition (Berdan and Anawalt 1997).

  13. Cortés (1986); Díaz del Castillo (1963).

  14. Durán (1971:79–80). This volume contains Durán's descriptions of religion and daily life and another book (Durán 1994), based on pictorial histories and interviews with Aztec historians, is the most complete historical account of the Mexica people. These two books are English translations of vols. 1 and 2 of the original Spanish publication (Durán 1967).

  15. The English edition of the Florentine Codex was translated and edited by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Sahagún 1950–1982). An earlier version of Sahagún's work, the Primeros Memoriales, is also important (Sahagún 1993, 1997). There is a large body of scholarship on Sahagún and his work; two useful collections are Klor de Alva (1988) and Schwaller (2003).

  16. Alva Ixtlilxochitl (1975–1977) is the major edition of this chronicler, whose work has not been translated into English. No complete edition of Chimalpahin's works exists, although Susan Schroeder has been working toward this goal (Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzinb01, b01). Keen (1971:196–201) provides useful information on Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Chimalpahin.

  17. Recent scholarship has uncovered a number of “lies” that Nahua nobles told the Spanish friars in the decades after the Spanish Conquest. For example, the claim that nobles did not pay tribute (taxes) in Aztec times, although widely reported in textbooks, has now been exposed as a self-serving lie (see chapter 6), as has the claim that the Mexica king Motecuhzoma thought that Cortés was the god Quetzalcoatl (see chapter 13).

  18. Gerhard (1993), Gibson (1964), Kellogg (1995), and Lockhart (1992) review many of these documents. English translations of key administrative documents may be found in Anderson et al. (1976), S. L. Cline (1993), and other works.

  19. Acuña (1984–1988). Central Mexico is covered in vols. 6–9. H. F. Cline's (1972) discussion of the Relaciones Geográficas includes an English translation of the original questionnaire.

  20. Acuña (1984–1988:v.6:201–202) (author's translation).

  21. The results of the overall survey project are described in Sanders et al. (1979), who provide references to the individual survey reports; see also Nichols (1996).

  22. Intensive site surface research at Aztec sites is described in Brumfiel b01, b01), Charlton et al. (1991), and Smith et al. (2009). See discussion in chapters 4 and 8.

  23. The Templo Mayor project is described in chapter 10. Other excavations of monumental architecture are discussed at greater length in chapters 2, 7 and 8. Marquina (1964) describes most of these sites; see also Smith (2008a).

  24. See Brumfiel (2005), Evans (1988), Smith (1992), Smith et al. (1999), and de Vega Nova and Mayer Guala (1991). These and other studies are discussed at greater length in the following chapters.

  25. These projects are described in Brumfiel (1992), Charlton et al. (2000), Parsons et al. (1982); see also Hodge (1998).

  26. Aztec cotton-spinning is discussed in chapter 4. For the functional interpretation of spinning bowls, see Fauman-Fichman (1999) and Smith and Hirth (1988).

  27. Quiñones Keber (1996) provides a perspective on the early development of Aztec art history. Florescano (1993) and McVicker (1989) discuss nineteenth-century collecting of Aztec art. The standard work on Aztec art by an art historian is Pasztory (1983). Recent important publications by art historians include Boone (2000b, 2007), Klein (2008), Leibsohn (2009), Quiñones Keber (1995), and Umberger (2007). Scholarly catalogues of major exhibitions of Aztec art are also important sources (e.g., Brumfiel and Feinman 2008; Matos Moctezuma and Solís Olguín 2002; Solís Olguín 2004).

  28. A good historical account of the evolution of Aztec scholarship has yet to be written. For developments prior to the twentieth century, see Boone (1987b), Keen (1971), and Quiñones Keber (1996). Important milestones in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the expansion of the National Museum of Anthropology and joint archaeological research by Franz Boas and Manual Gamio on the archaeology of the Valley of Mexico (Boas and Gamio 1921; Godoy 1977). Aztec excavations in the early twentieth century are described by Marquina (1964); the first edition of that work was published in 1951. The driving force in recent Aztec archaeology has been Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, whose contributions go far beyond his role as director of the Templo Mayor project. D. Carrasco et al. (2007) is an autobiography of Matos, told in an interview format. Chapters in López Luján et al. (2006) have additional information, and Matos Moctezuma (2008)
is a succinct recent autobiography. His publications, many prior to 1978, are assembled in Matos Moctezuma (2003–2006).

  29. English-language reviews of recent Aztec research have been published by Hodge (1998), Nichols and Evans (2009), and Smith (2003b).

  30. Seler (1963) for his interepretation of this and other parts of the Codex Borgia. The most comprehensive recent analysis of the ritual codices is Boone (2007); Nowotny (2005) is a recent translation of a major early work.

  2 The Rise of Aztec Civilization

  1. The best single textbook on Mesoamerican archaeology is by Susan T. Evans (2008). Other useful texts include Coe (1999), Coe and Koontz (2002), Hendon and Joyce (2004), López Austin and López Luján (1997), and Smith and Masson (2000). For central Mexico before the Aztecs, Sanders et al. (1979) is the best single source.

  2. The central Mexican Postclassic chronology is discussed in the papers in Fowler (1996). Division of the Late Postclassic period into two phases is described by Hare and Smith (1996) and Smith and Doershuk (1991).

  3. There are numerous excellent publications on Teotihuacan, although a good single-volume textbook in English remains to be published. Review articles by George Cowgill (1997, 2008) and René Millon (1988, 1992) cite many of the major sources. See also Manzanilla (1993), Matos Moctezuma (2009), and Millon (1973).