*
* Aztec ball game
January 3rd, 1520
Caught-out has been showing a lot of interest in our merchants lately. Aztec merchants are a funny lot. They have their own gods, their own laws and their own customs. They never wear expensive clothes and most of them are very secretive about what they trade and bring back here. No-one knows how rich they really are. My dreams tell me that they are very rich and very powerful. That’s why the nobles don’t like them. They’re frightened the merchants are actually richer and more powerful than they are.
Merchants are about the only people, except for tax collectors and warriors, who are allowed to travel away from Tenochtitlan. So merchants are very useful spies for Monty because they see what’s going on in all the places where they go to trade. As well as bringing wonderful things back from all parts of the country, they bring back lots of valuable information which Monty, the Woman Snake and the rest of the supreme council use to plan the next war. Monty is at war so often he needs new information all the time.
This is the month when the merchant traders have their big religious festival but I don’t think Caught-out is particularly interested in that.
January 5th, 1520
Caught-out seems extremely keen for me to take him to the market today. I wonder if he wants to find something out from the merchants too?
We have markets every few days in Tenochtitlan and thousands of people come to them. Caught-out kept asking me for something he called ‘money’. I didn’t know what he meant. Then Marina explained. Apparently Caught-out and his servants use this money stuff to get things they want at markets. Marina says it looks like small discs of gold and silver. It seems a funny way of doing business.
Why don’t they barter and swap things like we do? If someone wants a canoe, they give the person with the canoe a few blankets and the canoe becomes theirs. Other people swap expensive things like feathers for other expensive things like precious stones, or gold and silver, or slaves.
Who needs this money stuff? It sounds awfully complicated to me. If there’s a bit of a difference between the things that have been swapped, people make up the difference with cocoa beans, or some gold dust kept in the hollow quill of a goose feather. The system has worked perfectly well here for as long as anyone can remember. Trust a stranger to want to change it.
When we arrived at the market, Marina whispered to me that Caught-out and his servants had never seen a market this size. There are usually 20,000 people here, so I suppose we have got used to it, but the strangers said it was the biggest market they had ever been to.
You can get everything you want here from fruit and vegetables to the sharpest stone knives and the biggest selection of coloured feathers in the world.
Caught-out is very crafty, if you ask me. He wanted to know which merchant had most recently come back from the coast, so that he could find out what was happening in the country he’d come through on his way here.
It turned out that Stinkingrichl arrived last night from a long journey in that area, so Caught-out took Marina and spent a long time talking to him. I didn’t see him showing much interest in what Stinkingrichl had brought back, until he showed Caught-out pearls and gold. Then old ‘hairy-chop’s’ eyes really lit up. I wonder what he gave Stinkingrichl for those treasures?
Caught-out looked very pleased with himself when he left Stinkingrichl. I hung around a nearby stall trying to hear what they were talking about. I got so tired waiting I sat down, and jumped right up again with a terrible jabbing pain in my backside. I should have known better, it was a maguey cactus stall and I’d just sat on a stack of prickly cactus leaves!
The stall keeper wanted me to give him something for them, because he said no-one would want them after I’d sat on them. I told him I’d think about it and he gave me this bit of tree bark paper about his stall as a reminder.
January 22nd, 1520
Now that we’re in the last month of the year, Caught-out has noticed that grown-ups are going round pulling children by the neck. I could see him starting to get worked up about this, so I moved in quickly before he began making a fuss and told him that this is the month which celebrates growth. All the grown-ups are doing is helping the children grow. It’s as simple as that.
Caught-out didn’t look convinced, so Marina suggested that we paid a visit to a couple of schools, so that he could see how well Aztec children are educated and taught to behave. Caught-out liked the sound of that and today we started at my local telpochalli*.
I don’t have any kids of my own, because soothsayers and priests aren’t allowed to get married but I teach fortune-telling in this particular telpochalli, which is organized by the calpulli**
From the age of eight the boys start learning how to fight like warriors. They also have lessons in useful subjects like farming, fishing, pottery, building, carpentry, making canoes – the sorts of things they’ll need to know about when they become grown-up, although they all know what work they will be doing when they become men, because most ordinary Aztec men always do the same jobs as their fathers.
Unfortunately, while we were at the school, it was punishment time. Two of the boys had been fighting in class, so one of them was held by a teacher over a fire of burning chillies that made him cough and his eyes water, while the other one had cactus spines stuck into him to teach him a lesson.
I thought Caught-out might get the wrong idea about what was going on, but he seemed to understand the need to be strict with children; he even asked if he could have a go at sticking in some of the spines.
Caught-out didn’t seem very interested in girls’ education. Maybe it isn’t very important where he comes from. Marina told him that, as they grow up, girls learn all the things they need to know to run a home and look after a family: collecting fuel, cooking, cleaning, weaving, making clothes, looking after children – things that are much more important than fighting, according to Marina.
After lunch we went across town to visit the oldest and most famous school in Tenochtitlan which is only for the sons of upper-class families, like myself!
Boys go to this calmecac* when they are eight years old to be taught how to become future leaders. They sleep on hard floors and the food isn’t up to much; sometimes they have nothing to eat for a couple of days to toughen them up. The teachers stick cactus thorns into them so that they get used to pain. They will need to be able to draw their own blood so that they can please the gods. It’s nice to see the old traditions still going strong.
For lessons the boys are taught the history of the Aztecs; reading, writing and astronomy (my best subject at school). They are also taught about law and government for the time when they become leaders themselves. There are lessons in fighting and warfare too. Those were my worst subjects, but I knew that I wouldn’t be a warrior.
I went to the lessons for boys who were going to be priests, where we were taught why we need to make sacrifices to thank the gods for all they have done for us. But I wasn’t much good at sacrificing the small animals we practised on. I failed my practical sacrifice exams so I became a soothsayer because I was brilliant at dreaming!
In one of the classes we visited, the boys were having a writing lesson. I was very pleased to see that the boys still learn to write in the good old Aztec way, with pictures to show the words they are using. This sort of writing is bright and colourful, just as writing should be. It makes history and poetry fun to read and it’s helped generations of people like us record everything we’ve ever needed to know.
Caught-out didn’t show much interest in the picture writing lesson. I’ve seen the way he writes, it looks like tangled cactus thread – all joined up squiggles and circles. I don’t think he’s a great scholar really. But he was interested in the holes the boys had in their lower lips, noses and ear lobes. He knew they had been made to prepare the boys for wearing expensive gold plugs. He kept asking me if I knew who the boys’ fathers were, and where they lived. It doesn’t take ma
ny guesses to understand the reason. Sometimes I think the only reason he came to Tenochtitlan was to find gold.
*
* neighbourhood boys’ school
** neighbourhood clan
* school for male children of noblemen
February 9th, 1520
Useless Day number one
The five days at the end of each year are terribly unlucky. No-one does any business. The temples shut down and people fast and lay off the pulque. Everywhere goes quiet and people stay at home to avoid bad luck.
Boring, boring, boring – though at least it has stopped Caught-out prying into things that don’t concern him.
I wonder what the New Year will bring?
February 14th, 1520
New Year’s Day at last! The year Two Flint has arrived! I thought the five Useless Days would never end. But now life can begin again and we can all look forward to the eighteen months in the farmer’s calendar.
To celebrate, Monty took Caught-out and the rest of his hangers-on to watch the flying display. Needless to say Caught-out didn’t know the first thing about this and insisted on calling it volador; apparently that means ‘flyer’ in his language. My recurring nightmare is always about flying, so I don’t fancy it myself.
‘What the heck ’ hit the deck’, people were chanting as the four flying men, dressed as birds and attached to ropes, climbed a tall pole. A fifth man holding a drum was sitting up on the top of the pole. When the others reached him, he started beating the drum as fast as he could. You could feel the excitement growing in the crowd watching on the ground. Then the four birdmen jumped out from the top of the pole and began to swing round it as their ropes unwound.
Caught-out looked totally baffled by what was happening, so we had to explain that each of the men tries to ‘fly’ round the pole thirteen times before he reached the ground. If Caught-out was really the god Quetzalcoatl he would know why this was important. Four multiplied by thirteen makes fifty-two, and fifty-two is a magic number to us. Once every fifty-two years the two Aztec calendars – the farmers’ calendar and the holy calendar – finish on almost the same day. That’s when the world could end and evil spirits could take over from us.
If Caught-out doesn’t know that, then he cannot understand anything about the Aztec people and our way of life, so he cannot be our god. Why can’t Montezuma understand that Caught-out is just a man who wants our riches? But if I’m going to save myself from the walk up the pyramid, the one I’ve been trying to avoid ever since I had that first nightmare, I need to keep Caught-out and Monty happy.
March 7th, 1520
I can feel things starting to get tense in the palace.
Yesterday was the first day of the second month of the year. It’s called Flaying of Men and I know the ceremony it’s named after won’t please Caught-out. This month, after the prisoners are sacrificed, the priests take the skins off their bodies and go round wearing them for twenty days. I can just imagine what Caught-out would think of that.
In order to distract him from what the priests are dressing themselves in, I suggested he might like to add a few things to his own spring wardrobe from my new picture catalogue.
First he looked at the clothes for ordinary people, made from the rough cloth of cactus fibres: simple loin-cloths for men, wound round their middles and between their legs, and tied in place with a big knot or bow.
Caught-out kept muttering about things he called ‘buckles’ and ‘buttons’, but I hadn’t a clue what he was on about. Aztec clothes have plenty of their own decorations; they don’t need any foreign ones. Besides, ordinary people aren’t allowed to wear decorations or fancy clothes. The law on this is very strict. Any ordinary person found wearing something like cotton, for example, is sentenced to death.
Ordinary men can’t wear nice long flowing cloaks that hang down covering their legs, either. The only exception to this is if a man has legs that have been badly scarred in battle. If that’s the case the law lets him wear a long cloak to hide his old wounds. Otherwise if you wear a long cloak when you shouldn’t, it’s curtains.
The clothes for ordinary women looked pretty much like those I’ve known women wear all my life. There’s the usual long skirt tied at the waist, over which they wear a baggy tunic. Both of these garments are made from cactus-fibre cloth, of course!
Caught-out began to take a serious interest when he got to the pages of clothes for upper-class people, in lovely soft, smooth materials like cotton, which only the very rich could afford. I always think they must make much more comfortable loin-cloths than the ones made from rough cactus fibres.
There were cloaks of dyed cotton decorated with gorgeous brightly coloured feathers, precious stones and gold thread. For cold weather there were warm, cosy cloaks lined with rabbit fur. For hot weather there were brightly coloured sunshades with more gold and feather decorations.
There were pages and pages of displays of jewellery with necklaces, plugs and rings that could be stuck into noses, lips, ears or worn round necks and fingers. No wonder you can tell at a glance which people in Tenochtitlan are rich and powerful.
For footwear, only upper-class people can wear sandals. Everyone else goes round with bare feet. You can’t run a city or an empire without being able to tell who’s an ordinary person and who’s a nobleman. Perhaps that’s why Caught-out is here. Maybe he thinks he can take over our empire from Montezuma II now that he can see how well we Aztecs can organize life?
Monty didn’t help things by offering to order Caught-out all the finest clothes we’d been looking at. Monty knows this is the usual Aztec way of showing off his power and wealth, but I wouldn’t mind betting that Caught-out sees it the other way round. I’m sure he believes Monty is being generous because he thinks Caught-out is the powerful and important one.
No good will come of it – that’s what gives me sleepless nights.
April 3rd, 1520
The third month of the year is the time for the ceremonial planting of crops. It gave me a good opportunity to get Caught-out away from the city for a while. He’s been here five months now; Monty has been his prisoner for most of that time and the people are starting to get rebellious. Trouble is brewing in Tenochtitlan and I thought a visit to the fields might be a good idea.
The first thing Caught-out wanted to know was who owned the land we were visiting. I told him that the only people who actually owned their land were nobles who were given captured land by Monty, or whoever else was Great Speaker. These noble land-owners have slaves who do all the work for them. The rest of the land belongs to the clans and people ‘borrow’ it from them to grow crops and rear animals.
What Caught-out doesn’t seem to understand is that land is very precious. When our ancestors settled at Tenochtitlan, the island was almost all rock. It was very difficult to grow any food. All the fields we have now, around the city, around the shores of the lake and on the hillsides are man-made. Generation after generation of farmers have dug the fields and made them fertile, using the same wooden digging sticks and hoes that farmers have been using for a thousand years or more. Who says we can’t learn from history?
The laws about farming are very strict. They have to be, to make sure that the right crops are grown at the right time. Anyone who plants seeds before the government tells them to plant is punished.
The fields we went to look at had been created in the lake. The lake isn’t very deep, so it was possible to build up land to make fields where there was once only fish, frogs and water plants.
Caught-out didn’t understand this, so we paddled our canoes to a place where a new chinampa* was being made. He saw a rectangular shape, surrounded by a line of poles driven into the bed of the lake. A fence of woven branches had been fitted between the poles. Once these barriers were in place, the workers filled the space inside with mud scooped from the bottom of the lake. This was mixed with rotting plants and dead twigs so it builds up a thick layer of very fertile soil which rises above the level o
f the water until a new chinampa is created. Trees planted round the edge provide strength to the woven-branch walls and help to hold the field together.
For once Caught-out seemed impressed when he looked into the distance at the hundreds of fields that had been made in this way. The narrow canals between them, which the farmers use to move from field to field by canoe, fascinated him too.
Maize, sweet potatoes and tomatoes are the main crops we saw growing, but sunflowers, carrots and peppers are grown as well.
Caught-out was surprised that there weren’t more animals. I don’t know why – there were plenty of turkeys and dogs. But he made strange noises which sounded like ‘Moo-moo’ and ‘Baa-baa’.
One thing he did recognize were the canoes filled with ‘business’ that had been loaded from the barges floating beside the city. The farmers fetch piles of ‘business’ each week and paddle it back to their fields to spread it on the soil to make the crops grow. If they didn’t do this the soil would soon get tired and the crops wouldn’t be able to feed all the people. The crops gives us food. Our food makes the ‘business’. The ‘business’ feeds the soil. And the soil feeds the crops. It’s all very well arranged.
Caught-out didn’t seem very keen on eating his vegetables at supper last night. I can’t think why after a nice day out in the fresh air. He seems to be more grumpy and suspicious than ever.
*
* floating field
May 4th, 1520
The feeling in the city has got much worse in the last month. Caught-out and his army have been here six months and the people are getting fed up with them.
Now my dreams tell me that another army of strangers in floating mountains has arrived at the coast. Perhaps they have come to punish Caught-out.
It looks as if the hairy god, whoever he is, may be taken away after all. Brilliant!
The Lost Diary of Montezuma's Soothsayer Page 3