Throughout Mexico’s turbulent and famously epic ancient history, the fertile Valley of Mexico, known locally as Anáhuac (‘Near the Water’), was always a promised land for waves of migratory settlers.
Nestled in central Mexico between two rugged mountain chains – the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Sierra Madre Occidental – the green, almost temperate Valley of Mexico was the stage for untold dramas, bloody wars, intrigue and fascinating cultural exchanges. Regional powers rose and fell amid a constantly shifting background of new arrivals and changing allegiances.
Teotihuacán and Tula: The Great Kingdoms of Old
The Valley of Mexico was a cultural melting pot, but it was also a confusing, violent place, often marred by ambitious tribes looking to make their mark. It seemed to prosper most when a single power stamped its authority on the region.
The first to do so was the mighty city of Teotihuacán (300BC-600AD), whose pyramids are some of the world’s grandest. Its name means ‘Place of the Gods’ – a title later assigned by the Aztecs, who gazed upon the vast monumental architecture, the broad avenues, great temples and palaces, and believed, quite understandably, that the gods had once resided there.
Mighty Teotihaucan came to dominate Central Mexico. The giant pyramids and platforms are particular to the late formative era.
Little is actually known about Teotihuacán, even though it represents a major landmark in Central Mexican civilisation. This was the region’s first great city-state, and it set a precedent for all that followed, including the militaristic Toltecs.
Operating out of the city of Tula, the Toltecs rose to the fore some 300 years after the mysterious abandonment of Teotihuacán. There has been much speculation about their role in ancient Mesoamerican history, as Tula’s architectural style closely matches that of the Mayan city of Chichen Itzá, many miles away in southern Mexico.
Whatever the impact of Toltec culture, it was amid the general collapse of their civilisation in the 12th century that the political ground was once again levelled. Central Mexico was now in a power vacuum. And the flood-gates were opened to new waves of migrants from the north.
Rise of the Chichimeca
Although Tula was gone, the concept of the city-state lived on. Drawn to the shores of expansive Lake Texcoco, scores of nomadic tribes arrived in the increasingly crowded valley. New cities and settlements emerged alongside the fragmentary remains of Toltec civilisation. The newcomers were known as Chichimeca, which roughly translates as ‘barbarians’.
Descended from the fierce tribes of the arid northern deserts, the Chichimeca were accomplished warriors and huntsmen. They were, however, looked upon with disdain by the more civilised, sedentary peoples of the valley, who were largely refugees from Tula.
But in time, the Chichimeca established themselves and began appropriating the trappings of their more civilised neighbours, intermarrying where possible. Farming, woven garments, cooked food, mythology, religion, and most importantly, the Nahautl language – the esteemed native idiom of the Toltecs – became key elements of these emerging cultures.
So it was that the political landscape shifted and a new civilisation emerged. Under the cruel leadership of Tezozómoc, the Tepanecs – who had assuredly Chichimec roots – became the dominant regional force.
From their capital of Atzcapotzalco, they succeeded in subduing the cities of Texcoco, Tenayuca and Culhuacán, before expanding their influence southwards over the mountains. By the time Tezozómoc relinquished power in 1420, he had united the disparate city-states of central Mexico under one iron government.
Aztlán: The Aztec Homeland
The Aztecs, who called themselves Mexica (pronounced Mesh-ee-ka), were relative late-comers to the Lake Texcoco scene, arriving in the valley around 1200AD, and only after centuries of fruitless wandering.
Their homeland, Aztlán – from which the name ‘Aztec’ was later derived by the Spanish – is an unknown location that some scholars reckon was located as far away as the United States. More probably, the lake island of Mexcaltitlán in the state of Nayarit was their original home. Today, this tiny island is populated by a small fishing community and traversed by a single circular road that becomes a canal in the rainy season.
Enter the Aztecs
The Aztecs, or Mexica, departed their homeland of Aztlán in the 9th century, drawn by the whisperings of their war-like hummingbird god, tutor and protector – Huitzilopochtli – the Hummingbird of the South.
During their pilgrimage through Michoacán, and later into the Valley of Mexico, they acquired an acute sense of their own destiny. By their own estimation, the Aztecs were a messianic race, destined for the glory of Empire. Generation after generation searched for their fabled promised land, which the gods would reveal when the time was right.
But their reception in the Valley of Mexico was far from warm. Widely regarded as perverse, cruel and uncouth savages, the Aztecs were especially reviled for their gruesome sacrificial rites. Nonetheless, they found useful employment as paid mercenaries, for their bravery and prowess on the battlefield was well known and respected. Ultimately, however, their lust for gore let them down.
The Aztecs were bloodthirsty indeed. This skull rack was uncovered at the Templo Mayor, Mexico City
One famous anecdote recalls how the ruler of Culhuacán, Coxcox, offered the Aztecs land and freedom in exchange for their services in a war against the town of Xochimilco. The Aztecs agreed, attacked the town, and returned with sacks containing 8000 ears of the slaughtered Xochimilcas. As agreed, King Coxcox granted them freedom, but the Aztecs wanted more – the king’s daughter, no less, who would be made the Aztec queen and treated as a goddess.
Coxcox reluctantly agreed. Some days later, he attended a banquet in his honour, only to find the evening’s entertainment consisted of an Aztec dancer wearing the flayed skin of his daughter, who had been sacrificed earlier without his knowledge.
Humiliated and enraged, Coxcox unleashed an army upon the Aztecs and scattered them into the murky swamps of Lake Texcoco. Unknown to anyone at that time, the inglorious mud and reeds into which the Aztecs descended would soon form the foundations of one of Mesoamerica’s grandest and most advanced civilisations.
A Kingdom in the Reeds
Dejected but not defeated, the Aztecs drifted around the shores of lake Texcoco, forging a pitiful existence from frogs and fishes, until finally, they were delivered to their promised land.
A myth had long foretold that they should build their empire at the spot where they beheld an eagle devouring a snake. So it was in 1325 that providence delivered exactly this signal (at least that is what the official Aztec history tell us).
The Aztecs founded the settlement of Tenochtitlán on a tiny lake island that must have closely resembled their homeland of Aztlán. Dredging mud from the lake-bed to form ingenious cultivable gardens, trading fish and game for bricks and tools, piece by piece, stone by stone, they built their kingdom.
As their settlement gained notoriety, King Tezozómoc demanded their services as mercenaries. And as they gained his trust and increased in stature, in 1376, he accepted them as minor partners. Kingship was granted to the Aztecs, who elected Acamapichtli their first Huey Tlatoani.
For the next 50 years, until 1427, the Aztecs remained a tributary of Azcapotzalco. But after Tezozómoc resigned from power, the Aztecs made a deft political move and allied themselves with the cities of Texcoco and Tlacopan. The famous ‘Triple Alliance’ was forged. Under the leadership of Itzcoatl, the Aztecs were able to shake off the yoke of Azcapotzalco – and emerge as the dominant force in the region.
Birth of an Empire
After the death of Itzcoatl in 1440, his nephew Moctezuma I took power. An accomplished warrior and general, Moctezuma led his people into a massive programme of expansion, easily subjugating surrounding towns and extracting valuable tribute.
At the same, Tenochtitlán acquired the formal characteristics of a well-developed city-state, mostly thanks to the work of Tlacaelel, a famed propagandist who worked behind the scenes of government. Tlacaelel completely re-wrote Aztec history, obscuring the Chichimec past and fallaciously claiming lineage from the Toltecs. Historical fact was replaced by mythic realities. The Aztecs were reborn.
Tenochtitlan's main temple, the Templo Mayor, was made more glorious by each sucessive Aztec ruler.
Three rulers and 62 years later, the Aztec empire now embraced most of Central and much of Southern Mexico. Tenochtitlán was a thriving metropolis of 200,000 inhabitants. Schools, temples, libraries, markets, palaces and military academies heralded a sophisticated new era of Aztec hegemony. Poetry, religion and warfare at the heart of this opulent and splendid new civilisation.
The year was 1502 and Moctezuma II was assuming kingship. Aztec civilisation was at its height, but in less than two decades, it would all be reduced to inglorious rubble.
The Aztecs were not savages.
They were an empire run by a caste of insane psychopaths who used human vivisection–and the threat of it–as a terrorist tool to subjugate everyone around them. In the name of “the gods.”
Organized mass religious terrorism is not “savagery.” It is the invention of urban agricultures. Pandering to this terrorism is one of the worst sicknesses of civilized and educated people, and doing so in the name of political correctness is uglier still.