Mexico’s national chronicles go back to the 12th and 13th centuries, but they also contain obscure, but nevertheless true events from even older times, referring to the migration of a large group of people who spoke a common language to Mexico. The language was called Nahuall and it was the same language spoken by the Aztecs. The oldest of the Nahua peoples were the Toltecs, who appear in the sixth century AD. who moved from his homeland in the north to the Anahuak valley. The name of the people, Toltecatl, means the inhabitants of Tollan (reed land); Tollan, on the other hand, was the same word as today’s Tulan or Tula, which is a locality north of Lake Tezcoco. So it seems that the center of the Toltec kingdom was there. The Toltecs brought corn and cotton to Mexico, forged gold and silver, built great buildings, laid, in a word, the foundations of Mexican civilization. Cholula’s old great artificial wall was said to have been built by them. Their intellectual property was also Mexican pictographs and knowledge of time. The name of the Toltecs was associated with the legend of the god Quetzalcoatl, who was the creator of the earth’s civilization. But the fable depicted him as belonging to quite another race, a white man with noble features, long black hair, a full beard, and flowing cloaks; The Toltecs themselves were brown-skinned and hardly had beards at all. Quetzalcoatl had come to them from Tulan, according to others from Yucatan, and had lived among them for twenty years, teaching the people to live an austere and chaste life, to hate violence and war, to reject human and animal sacrifices, and instead to give bread to the gods, good perfumes and flowers, and to chastise his body with thorns, so that blood flowed. He had taught pictographs and time-keeping and silversmithing, for which Cholula was long famous. But at last he had gone, according to some to the unknown land of Tlapallan, according to others to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean on the borders of Central America, where the Maya and Quiché served him by other names (the Mayan name Cukulcan also meant “feathered serpent”). According to the legend, when Quetzalcoall reached the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, he sent his companions back to tell the people of Cholula that in future times his brothers, who were white and bearded like him, would arrive on the same shore from beyond the sunrise sea and would rule the land. The old culture of the Toltecs is evidenced, among other things, by the fact that that the word »toltecatl» in the Aztec language usually meant a skilled professional. Mexican historical records also say that almost the entire Toltec nation in the 11th century was destroyed by drought, famine and plague. Most of the survivors moved to Yucatan and Guatemala, only a small part stayed in Mexico.
History of the Aztecs.
After the Toltecs, the brutal Chichimeks moved to the country, who were also Nahua peoples judging by their names. After these came, also coming from the north, the seven Nahua nations, which included both the Tlaxcalas and the Aztecs. Along the way, the new conquerors left their names, some of which are still preserved and testify to the authenticity of this people’s migration.
The Aztecs, even though they were a warlike people, had to settle for being under the rule of more powerful tribal peoples in the beginning. Waging wars on their behalf, they showed such horrible cruelty and bloodlust that the others finally became angry with them and, making an alliance, harassed them in the reed beds of the Tezcoco lakes. There they founded a city on the island, which, from a chief named Tenoch, got the name Tenochtitlan, or »the place of stone cacti». The city was probably founded in the year 1325 AD, but it remained for many decades a poor settlement of mud huts and the centers of civilization were elsewhere in the highlands. The Aztecs continued their wars and raids, gathered goods and skilled professionals in their new city, began to “civilize”, build better houses, wear better clothes and finally, along with warfare, also trade. 14: The last great national battle took place in the 19th century. The Acolhuas, who at that time were the most dangerous enemies of the Aztecs, were victorious at the beginning, but then they did not understand how to stop crushing the Aztecs and destroying their island city. The Aztecs, after a little recovery, captured Tezcoco, the capital of Acolhuai; but then the two peoples made an alliance and captured Tlacopan, a city of the Tepanecs, whose inhabitants were sold as slaves. V. 1430 The Tepaneks were also included in the same alliance and, with their advice alone, they set out to conquer the highlands of Mexico and its borderlands all the way to the sea. When the first Moteuczoma (the Spanish form of Montezuma) ascended the throne of the Aztecs, all the peoples between the Pacific and the Atlantic already had in the temple complex of Tenochtitlan a sign of their sanctity, that they recognized their God as subjects of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war. Along with other taxes, the conquered peoples had to send youths and imps whose hearts the god of war took as sacrifices to the Aztec God. Even more numerous were the hecatombs that were sacrificed after a successful campaign. The Aztecs ruled the peoples they subjugated as tyrants, but at the same time owned their development, so that when Cortes of Tenochtitlan came to the country, there were the main centers of civilization in Mexico. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one. Along with other taxes, the conquered peoples had to send youths and imps whose hearts the god of war took as sacrifices to the Aztec God. Even more numerous were the hecatombs that were sacrificed after a successful campaign. The Aztecs ruled the peoples they subjugated as tyrants, but at the same time owned their development, so that when Cortes of Tenochtitlan came to the country, there were the main centers of civilization in Mexico. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one. Along with other taxes, the conquered peoples had to send youths and imps whose hearts the god of war took as sacrifices to the Aztec God. Even more numerous were the hecatombs that were sacrificed after a successful campaign. The Aztecs ruled the peoples they subjugated as tyrants, but at the same time owned their development, so that when Cortes of Tenochtitlan came to the country, there were the main centers of civilization in Mexico. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one. Even more numerous were the hecatombs that were sacrificed after a successful campaign. The Aztecs ruled the peoples they subjugated as tyrants, but at the same time owned their development, so that when Cortes of Tenochtitlan came to the country, there were the main centers of civilization in Mexico. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one. Even more numerous were the hecatombs that were sacrificed after a successful campaign. The Aztecs ruled the peoples they subjugated as tyrants, but at the same time owned their development, so that when Cortes of Tenochtitlan came to the country, there were the main centers of civilization in Mexico. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one. Formally, however, Montezuma’s empire was still a federal empire: the rulers of Tezcoco and Tlacopan were independent in their own countries. In the war, they acted jointly and the booty was divided in such a way that Tezcoco and Mexico each received two fifths, Tlacopa one.
The natives of Mexico fared much better than the islanders of the West Indies when they came under Spanish rule. Both the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalas, as well as many of the other old tribes of the highlands, have preserved their nationality until our days.
After this, let’s take a look at the old civilization of the Anahuac highlands.
Buildings.
The Spaniards perhaps viewed the stately palaces of Tenochlitlan with somewhat magnifying eyes; they were therefore astonished to meet such magnificent buildings outside the sphere of influence of the Old World. The Palaces of Mexico were only one-of-a-kind, but instead they were immensely vast. It is true that nothing remains of them, any more than Tezcoconca, but elsewhere so magnificent ruins have been preserved that we can conclude that the first Spanish narratives are based on real conditions, even if they were written in glowing moods. Montezuma’s gardens gathered flowers from the hot coastal zone, had saline and saltless springs for waterfowl, and well-kept zoos housed all kinds of birds and animals. This all shows a natural science hobby, which was more advanced than the European hobbies of that time. From the extent of the palaces and the large number of courtiers, one might guess that taxation in Mexico was quite heavy. A few of the most important surviving pictographs are indeed tax lists, which list hundreds of thousands of cloaks, ocelot-jaguar skins, bags of gold sand, bronze axes, loads of chocolate, etc., which the cities periodically paid. The nobility was numerous and powerful, its position to a large extent resembled the feudal conditions of the Middle Ages. Somehow, the position of the rich and powerful merchant state was the same as in Europe at the same time, and the actual agricultural population was just as oppressed as on this side of the Atlantic. The largest lands belonged to the ruler, who handed them over to his most prominent military commanders, or they were donated to the temples; part of the land was the common property of the villages, of which every free man was entitled to his share. Below free men were slaves, some prisoners of war, some sentenced to slavery because of a crime, some sold into slavery by their parents. Prisoners of war were mostly sacrificed, but other slaves were well treated; they enjoyed the protection of the law and their children were born free.
Judiciary.
The highest judicial power belonged to the palace, but besides that there were courts in the biggest cities, whose chief judge could not be removed from office, whose judgments could not be changed even by the king. In addition, there were sub-privileges and the prison guard-official staff under them. Special fees had been set for the hiring of judges. Mexico’s judicial system, with its prerogatives and state councils, headed by the ruler, was therefore very versatile. Laws and court cases were inscribed with pictographs in memory. The sign of the death sentence was a line and an arrow drawn across the picture of the condemned. The chronicles describe such a solemn event; the king sitting in the divine court on a golden, bejeweled throne pronounces judgment, a decorated skull in one hand, a golden arrow in the other. Just as in the Old World, the witnesses in Mexico also took an oath, first touching the ground with their finger and then their lips, thus swearing through the earth mother. The laws were extremely harsh, the culprit of even a small theft was condemned to be the slave of the person from whom he had stolen. Theft of a cigarette purse or twenty ears was punishable by death. He who cheated in the marketplace was beaten to death on the spot, while he who dishonored the god of goldsmiths and silversmiths by stealing precious metal was flayed alive and sacrificed to the offended god. Whoever drank aloe-beer, pulque, until he was drunk, was beaten to death if he was a man, or stoned if he was a woman; it wasn’t until he was 70 that the Mexican could get drunk with impunity. Witchcraft, forgery, transmigration and adultery were punished as follows, that the guilty person’s heart was cut out on the altar, or his head was crushed between two stones. Punishments for even minor crimes were severe; the slanderer’s hair was sharpened to the scalp with a pitch torch.
Military establishment.
The Aztecs, of course, were a warlike people; the ruler could not ascend the throne until he himself had taken prisoners of war in war to be sacrificed on the altar of the god of war. The sons of Ylimys already went to war when they were young, under the leadership of more experienced ones, taking the first prisoners of war with their help, but the youth’s promotion in the military depended on how many prisoners he unaided took in battles against a powerful enemy. Through such feats, he got to wear a variegated cloak, tassels and jewels on his lips, and got a handsome, gallant name. The highest military ranks were princes, eagles, and panthers; in the pictures, the princes have plaited hair, the eagles have eagle heels and the panthers have spotted armor. Ordinary soldiers, when going to war, painted their bodies colorful, but the chiefs had helmets in the shape of birds or beasts of prey, gold and silver armour, wooden shin-guards, and “ichcapilli”, a two-finger-thick stuffed cotton cloak, which protected so well against arrows that even the Spaniards used it with pleasure. The archers shot with their very stout bows, for example the arrowhead was usually just a bone or stone fragment. Spears were sharpened with volcanic glass (obsidian); except by hand they were also thrown with a spear sling. The strangest weapon, however, was a wooden mallet with sharp obsidian slivers on both sides; this weapon was so powerful that it could knock down both a man and a horse with one powerful blow. The military was divided into companies led by captains. The armies were quite large, with many divisions of 8,000 men, but the art of war was very rudimentary. The attack began with shooting arrows and throwing spears, followed by hand-to-hand combat, fighting with clubs and spears. The most common war plot was a feigned retreat, the purpose of which was to lure the enemy into an ambush. Fortresses were built on the hills and on the slopes of the gorges. The capital was protected by warboats on the lakes and towers and trenches on the dams. In the city, however, the multiple step pyramids were especially easy to defend. It was not considered right to start a war against another nation without first sending a solemn delegation to warn what misery that other nation would bring upon itself if it refused to comply and submit, and only then was it permissible to start a war.
Religion.
The most enlightened inhabitants of Mexico believed in one supreme god, but serving many gods was a common religion. The old god of the Nahua people seems to have been Tezcatlipoca; his footprints were thought to be visible in the flour that was sprinkled on the ground at the feast of all the gods. There had been jealousy and rivalry between Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, the old god of Cholula. Once, both gods had competed in a well-known ball game, and Tezcatlipoca had then lured the tired Quetzalcoatl to drink magic pulque, and under its influence, he had wandered towards the distant sea and then left in his boat and disappeared from human sight. It is not easy to find out about the birth of these two gods. Tonatiuh and Metztli, on the other hand, gods of the sun and moon, were clear nature gods. The great importance of their service is still evidenced today by the huge step pyramid of Teotihuacan, whose sides are in the four cardinal directions. But the most important of the Aztec gods was Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, whose symbol is still preserved in Mexico. It is a huge block of black basalt, on the side of which is carved the ugly image of the god of war, on one side the feathers of birds, which were his signature, on the other, an equally hideous goddess of war, whose name meant “divine war death”. Centcotl, goddess of corn, was the guardian spirit of the earth and mother of the gods. Mictlanteuctli, on the other hand, ruled over the dead in Manala. Besides, there were a whole host of lesser gods, such as the goddess of pleasure, whom the merry girls served, the god of spirits, and Xipe, the patron of goldsmiths. Every hill and grove had its owner, whose Shrines were next to the roads. Temples were said to be “artificial”; they were as great in size as old Babylon and in shape they resembled them. The huge statue of the god of war in Mexico was in an enormously wide square, from which the main streets of the city radiated in different directions. The temple manor was surrounded by a wall, each side of the wall 400 meters long; this wall was called »coatepantl», i.e. snake wall, because of its snake images. In the middle of the mansion was a multi-layered pyramid built of stone blocks, covered with faceted hewn stones, which rose steeply from its base and was about fifty-three meters high. It was visible, as we already mentioned, over the whole city, so that the long religious processions with priests and prisoners of war were clearly visible, when they went around the tiered embankments or went up the stairs to the upper embankments. On the uppermost terrace, which was paved, there were three-tiered tower temples, with stone images and altars on the ground floor, a green sacrificial stone in front of the image of the god of war. This was so shaped as to bend the victim’s body upward of its own accord, so that it would be easier for the priest to cut open the chest with his obsidian knife, tear out the heart, and hold it up for the god to see; the owner of the victim, with his friends below, waited until this had happened, and the victim was charged up the stairs to them; they now took it home with them and cooked a sacrificial meal from it to commemorate their victory. A fire was always burning in front of the sanctuaries, from which emanated the perpetual sneer of slaughter, and on the embankment there was a huge drum covered with snakeskin, whose horrible sound could be heard in the heads of many people. On the embankment, all the other shrines of the temple mansion, which came with images and looms, were visible, of which there were seventy or maybe more, and the »tzompantli», or skull place, where the skulls strung on sticks of the victims were placed or stacked into towers by the tens of thousands. From there you could also see the flat round »temalacatl», or »rye stone», on which the prisoners of war had to fight with wooden swords against the well-equipped gladiators, to the delight of the spectators. The great pyramid of Cholula, topped by the semicircular temple of Quetzalcoatl, was three times as long and twice as high as the man-made rock of Mexico — now it is just an almost shapeless pile, topped by a church. where the skulls of the victims strung on sticks were placed or stacked into towers by the tens of thousands. From there you could also see the flat round »temalacatl», or »rye stone», on which the prisoners of war had to fight with wooden swords against the well-equipped gladiators, to the delight of the spectators. The great pyramid of Cholula, topped by the semicircular temple of Quetzalcoatl, was three times as long and twice as high as the man-made rock of Mexico — now it is just an almost shapeless pile, topped by a church. where the skulls of the victims strung on sticks were placed or stacked into towers by the tens of thousands. From there you could also see the flat round »temalacatl», or »rye stone», on which the prisoners of war had to fight with wooden swords against the well-equipped gladiators, to the delight of the spectators. The great pyramid of Cholula, topped by the semicircular temple of Quetzalcoatl, was three times as long and twice as high as the man-made rock of Mexico — now it is just an almost shapeless pile, topped by a church.
Priests and temple servants formed a special order in the people of Mexico. The expenses of the church service were the same as in other parts of the world, prayers, sacrifices, festive processions, dances, songs, fasting and other self-torture, but there were still many strange things in the details. A great many prayers and other chapters have been written in memory; they are extremely verbose, but there are also quite beautiful ones among them. These prayers are entirely original; there is no European example that could have been their model. But to some extent they have been influenced by Spanish, because they were written in memory in Spanish. Maize and other vegetable matter were offered as sacrifices, sometimes rabbits and other small animals, but especially people, and eating human flesh was common at sacrificial feasts. Good-smelling smoking substances were used in general, especially »copal», the same substance as copal varnish, which is widely used in modern times; small smoking pots made of clay are the most common antiques in Mexico. Prolonged and severe fasts were common in different seasons, and at the same time self-torture, such as drawing blood from the arms, legs, and body with sharp aloes, and inserting sharp sticks into the tongue; these resemble similar Indian customs. Mexico’s old jubilee year was divided into 20-day periods, and each period had one or more religious holidays. In »the month of the diminishing of the waters», the rain gods, or Tlalocs, were propitiated in such a way that the priests, while playing whistles and horns, carried children dressed in colorful clothes, decorated with paper wings, in beds decorated with feathers, to sacrifice them on the mountain or in the whirlpool of the lake. It is said that people wept as they passed by, but if that happened, it was probably only out of habit and not emotion, for the most religion of these nations, the bloodiest known, had probably already suppressed all human feelings of pity. The next month was the festival of the god Xipe-totek, which was said to be the “skinning of the people”, for when the chest of the victims had been opened and the heart taken out, the bodies were skinned and the youths put on the skins to dance and have play fights. The next feast was that of Camaxtl; in it the priests first had to fast severely, after which the stone knives with which the tongues were pierced were sharpened; pranks were put through. For the great feast of Tezcatlipoca, the most beautiful and noble of the prisoners of war of that year were chosen as the incarnate representative of the god. The chosen victim was carried through the streets in front of the people; he was wearing an embroidered cloak, a crown of feathers and a wreath, with a retinue like a king. During the last month, the victim was married and received four imps representing the four goddesses. On the last day these wives and the chiefs belonging to the party escorted him to the small temple of Tlacochcalco, ascending the steps of which he broke a clay flute against each step. This was a symbolic farewell to all worldly joy, for when the victim had ascended to the uppermost terrace, the priests got hold of him, his heart was torn from the chest and raised towards the sun, the head was put on a tzompantli and the body was eaten as a sacred sacrificial meal. So people learned about his fate, that wealth and pleasures can suddenly turn into poverty and sorrow. Otherwise, many different ways were used to kill the victims for variety. Sometimes they were dressed in masquerades and forced to dance, the fire god’s sacrifices were thrown into the fire, at the harvest festival the sacrifices were crushed between a stone set aside and another, lying stone — it was probably a metaphorical representation of grinding. At all these parties there was fun, dancing disguised as beasts; play fights and children’s competitions were organized; but their religious part was always horrible human slaughter and eating human flesh. between a lying stone — it was probably an allegorical representation of grinding. At all these parties there was fun, dancing disguised as beasts; play fights and children’s competitions were organized; but their religious part was always horrible human slaughter and eating human flesh. between a lying stone — it was probably an allegorical representation of grinding. At all these parties there was fun, dancing disguised as beasts; play fights and children’s competitions were organized; but their religious part was always horrible human slaughter and eating human flesh.
