Aztec History and Culture

Aztec History and Culture

Sometime in the dim past the most accurate estimates place it anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five thousand years ago men of the Mongoloid race, in search of food, made their way across the frozen Bering Strait from Asia to the North American continent. Hunting and fishing in small bands, they spread out over North America, pushing their way down into Central America, and farther down into South America until they occupied both continents in varying degrees of population density.

By the time the white man arrived in the New World, he found a wide variety of social patterns and customs in evidence among these peoples, whom he mistakenly called Indians. These patterns ranged from crude, primitive societies to those capable of observing the movements of the heavenly bodies with more precision than the Europeans who came to these shores.

But it was not until relatively recent times that anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians began to talk of Indian civilizations. Men like Means, Morley, Kidder, Valliant, Thompson, Spin den, Maud slay, Case, and a host of other eminent scientists and scholars have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge from excavations and studies, especially the accounts of the early Spanish missionaries in the New World.

From this body of knowledge a pattern emerged, and historians and philosophers began to speak of the Aztec civilization, the Maya civilization, and the Inca civilization. Historians and philosophers could no longer ignore America and its three indigenous world outlooks, as Hegel had done.

What made it possible for these three great civilizations to emerge the Aztec in the Valley of Mexico, the Maya in Guatemala, Honduras and Yucatan, and Inca in Peru and Bolivia? In each case the domestication of a staple food supply seems to have been a deciding factor; among the Aztec and Mayas it was maize or corn and among the Incas the white potato.

The scene of the Aztec triumph was the Central Walleye of Mexico. Several centuries before Christ, agricultural tribes had already settled here, and by the time of Christ had established their great religious center at Teotihuacan. Archeologists place the advent, rise, and fall of this great civilization roughly from the second century to the tenth century A.D. About this time a new group moved into the Valley and settled in Tula, Hidalgo. They are known to us as the Toltec’s. These Indians belonged to Nashua group and seem to have come from the north or northwest into the Valley. Soon their culture and artistry spread to many parts of Mexico, reaching even as far as Yucatan and other Maya areas, However, as early as the eleventh century A.D., another related tribal group, the Chichimec’s, were already in contact with the Toltec’s, and by the thirteenth century they had gradually replaced the Toltec’s as the dominant tribal group in the Valley.

The Aztecs were among the last of the tribes to enter the Valley. They, too, were of the Nashua group. The tribal records of the Tenochca Aztecs indicate that they began their wanderings in A.D. 1168, coming down from their legendary home in Aztlan, referred to as the "Seven Caves," or the "Place of Reeds." Evidence seems to indicate that the Aztecs, "the Crane People." migrated from the north and northwest, passing through Michoacan. Linguistically speaking, they were allied to the North American Shoshonis and to the Michoacan Tarascans. They arrived in the central valley and asked for permission to settle at Chapultcpec in 1248. For some years they appear to have been almost enslaved by other tribes of the Nahua race. By the fourteenth century they had made two settlements on the islands in the lakes, one at Tenochtitlan. now called Mexico City, whose traditional founding date is given as 1325, and another at Tlaltetalco. By the fifteenth century, Tenochtitlan had become the center of Aztec growth, conquest, and expansion. The great struggle for prisoners of war had heen initiated.

As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, dominated all other cities and had reached the height of its power and magnificence.

In 1519, the first white men, the Spaniards, under the leadership of Hernan Cortes pushed their way into the Valley of Mexico and looked with wonder and amazement upon the Aztec capital as it glittered in the high, thin mountain air. The date was November 8, 1519, according to one of Cortes Lieutenants, Bernar Diaz del Castillo. Old Bernal Diaz, some forty years later, recorded his impressions of the first view of the approach to the city:

The amazement of the Spaniards increased as they entered the city and were received with true regal splendor by the Emperor Moctezuma in full regalia. But it was a sad event, for the Aztecs way of life was no longer to follow its own course. An alien world had come to impose its views upon these people and their civilization. Had the Aztec destiny run its course? The answer belongs to speculation, not to history. But the dominance of these people in the Valley of Mexico was henceforth delimited by the dates 1325 and 1519.

What was the implementing force that drove these Indians to become the masters of a threat part of Central America, to develop a civilization sui generis, unique among the peoples of the world? One word may best answer the question-religion. It was a profound knowledge of the Aztecs chat prompted Alfonso Caso to entitle his first version of El pueblo del Sol, "La religion de los aztecas."

Religion touched the daily life of every man. woman, and child in the Aztec world. It drove them to conquest and expansion,to build great temples, to compute and measure time, to offer hundreds of thousands. in bloody sacrificial rites to their gods. It was, as Caso points out in the book, both the impetus and nemesis of their civilization.

(C) 2007 Aztec-History Team

 




http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-timeline.html

Directory: fileServer -> student
student -> Next Magazine Nolan Ryan- world series Pitcher
student -> 3. When a fireball explodes in the atmosphere, it is called a bolide
student -> Josh Hamilton Hamilton at bat for the Rangers Texas Rangers — N

Download 129.61 Kb.

Share with your friends: