Introduction to the Aztecs (Mexica)

by Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank

Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), found on the Southeast edge of the Plaza Mayor/Zocalo in
Mexico City, basalt, 257 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City)

If you travel to Mexico City today, chances are you might visit museums such as the Templo
Mayor Museum in the heart of the city or the National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec
Park. Either is sure to dazzle you with an impressive array of exquisitely crafted objects (that we
typically label as “artworks”), ranging from monumental stone sculptures and shell mosaics to
colorfully painted ceramics and figurines. At both museums, Aztec art is the centerpiece:
excavations at the Aztec Templo Mayor fill the onsite museum, and Aztec art similarly occupies
the central galleries within the Anthropology museum. The Aztecs were only one group that
made up the diverse indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, but they were among those groups that
encountered Europeans when they arrived in the Americas. Collections like those at the Templo
Mayor museum or National Museum of Anthropology attest to the skill and creativity of Aztec
artists.
Ruins of the Templo Mayor, 1375-1520, Tenochtitlan, (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City)
(photo: Dr. Steven Zucker)

What’s in a name?

The German explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt arrived in Mexico in 1803 after
traveling throughout parts of Latin America. Impressed by what he experienced and saw in
Mexico City, he became interested in the country’s indigenous past (the country was then
still New Spain). He wrote about the Aztecs and created illustrations of their sculptures. In 1810,
he used the name “Aztecs” to describe the powerful Mesoamerican people who had built a vast
empire in Mexico and who encountered the Spaniards in 1519. He adapted the name Aztec from
the Nahua word Aztlan, which referred to their mythical homeland. Several decades later, the
historian William H. Prescott popularized the term, and it is still common today.
Alexander von Humboldt,”Basalt Relief representing the Mexican Calendar,” plate VIII from
Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique, 1814-40 (Paris: G.
Dufour) (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

But what did the Aztecs call themselves? They referred to themselves as the Mexica.

. Those who lived in their capital city, Tenochtitlan, were the Tenochca-Mexica. The Mexica
formed part of a larger ethnic group known as the Nahua, who spoke Nahuatl. Unfamiliar with
this language? You might know a few words: chocolate, chipotle, coyote, tomato, and avocado
derive from Nahuatl words. Even the name Mexico, adopted after Mexicans gained
independence from Spain in 1821, comes from Mexica.
Chicomoztoc, illustration from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, 16th century, folio 29 (Bibliothèque
nationale de France)

Where did the Mexica come from?

Several myths describe the migration of the Mexica from Aztlan, thought to be somewhere in
northern Mexico or the southwestern United States. The Mexica departed Chicomoztoc at the
urging of their patron deity, Huitzilopochtli, to journey to establish a new settlement.
Huitzilopochtli carried on the back of a person, Boturini Codex, c. 1530-41, detail of folio 4
(Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City)

Early colonial codices (books), like the Codex Boturini, show this migration, with footprints
indicating the direction the ancestors walked on their journey. In this particular codex, we even
see Huitzilopochtli carried on the back of one of the individuals migrating, alluding to his role in
the migration.

Huitzilopochtli told the Mexica to look for a sign—an eagle on a cactus—that would tell them
where to settle. Their migration led them to the Valley of Mexico. They were generally disliked
by other groups who found the Mexica uncivilized or unrefined, largely because they were
foreigners who worked initially as mercenaries for other people living around Lake Texcoco.

The flag of Mexico with an eagle perched atop a cactus (source: Alex Covarrubias, CC0)
According to Mexica mytho-historical textual sources (written down in the early colonial
period), they finally witnessed the sign on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco in the year
1325. It was there that they established Tenochtitlan, their capital city. They connected the city to
the mainland with causeways to make coming and going to the city more efficient. If you look at
the Mexican flag today, you will see a reference to this origin story. In the center of the flag an
eagle is represented on a cactus, and the eagle stands on a glyph for stone and water.

Forging an empire

As they developed their city and gained more prominence in the Valley of Mexico, the Mexica
formed an alliance with Texcoco (Tetzcoco) and Tlacopan (today, Tacuba), known as the Triple
Alliance. Really, when we refer to the “Aztecs,” we are talking about the people who formed this
alliance.

Map of the Aztec Empire under the Triple Alliance, 1519 (source: Yavidaxiu, CC BY-SA 3.0)

War was common in the Aztec empire. There were two main types of wars: one was primarily
for conquest and expansion of the empire, while the other involved a more ritualized form of
battle, called “flowery wars.” The flowery wars may have served several functions, including
training soldiers, capturing individuals for sacrifice, or weakening enemies.
The Triple Alliance had a large and powerful military that conquered many peoples throughout
Mesoamerica. Tribute was gathered from those the Alliance controlled, and we can see a record
of this in the mid-sixteenth-century Codex Mendoza. Tribute lists show what items, like bird
feathers, greenstone or jade, and textiles, that peoples controlled by the Mexica sent back to
Tenochtitlan.

Uprisings against Aztec control were common, meaning that armed conflicts occurred with
regularity. Many of these conquered peoples, or even those who successfully managed to
maintain independence but still disliked the Aztecs, joined with Hernan Cortés’s army when he
journeyed towards Tenochtitlan in 1519.

Mexica rulers

The Mexica ruler was known as the huey tlatoani (“chief speaker”; pronunciation: whey-tla-toe-
anee). There were eleven tlatoque (the plural form of tlatoani) of Tenochtitlan, beginning with
Acamapichtli in 1375 and ending with Cuauhtemoc in 1525. The huey tlatoani was tasked with
maintaining the city, participating in important rituals, and overseeing the military. They lived in
large, sumptuous palaces. Moteuczoma II Xocoyotzin’s palace had rooms for living quarters,
meetings, and storage, but also had gardens, a zoo, and even an aviary. The colonial Florentine
Codex describes the zoo as having “ocelots, bears, mountain lions, and mountain cats… eagles…
and various birds.” The royal palaces bordered the most important location in the capital—the
sacred precinct—which was thought to symbolize the navel of the universe, or axis mundi.

.
House with animals, detail from Bernardino de Sahagún and collaborators, Florentine Codex,
Book 8, folio 30v, 1575-77 (Medicea Laurenziana Library, Florence, Italy)

Sustaining an empire

Tenochtitlan was a bustling city, with more than 100,000 people living in it. Food and water
were of great concern, especially because the city was located on an island in a lake. Chinampas,
or floating gardens, provided the food necessary to sustain the Aztec empire. They consisted of
human-made islands where crops could be grown. Food staples included maize, squash, and
beans. Some chinampas were even used to grow flowers exclusively. If you visit Xochimilco
today, you can get a sense of what chinampas look like, with people still navigating canals
amidst floating gardens.

Traditional floating gardens (chinampas) in Xochimilco, Mexico City today (photo: Px-lga, CC
BY-SA 4.0)
Large aqueducts brought fresh water to the capital. These massive engineering projects were
supported by the huey tlatoani because they were critical to the survival of his people.

A complex pantheon of deities

The Mexica had numerous deities in their religious pantheon. The two most important deities
were Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, a rain and agricultural god. Their significance was symbolized
by the twin temples atop the Templo Mayor in the center of Tenochtitlan.

Placed within the heart of the sacred precinct, the Templo Mayor was the largest and most
important temple in the empire. One side symbolized Tlaloc, and included objects, symbols, and
colors (like blue-green) associated with the rain god. The other side symbolized Huitzilopochtli,
and similarly used a variety of means to convey his warrior and solar associations. Together,
Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli communicated the Mexica focus on warfare. Fire and water, known in
Nahuatl as atl-tlachinolli (“burnt water”; pronunciation: at-ul tlach-ee-no-lee), symbolized war,
which was essential to the expansion of the Mexica empire.

Diego Durán, illustration of the Templo Mayor with the twin temples of Tlaloc (left) and
Huitzilopochtli (right), from The History of the Indies of New Spain, 1579 (Biblioteca Nacional,
Madrid)

Other important deities included:

 Tezcatlipoca (“Smoking Mirror”), patron of rulers. He is also associated with sorcery,
symbolized by the obsidian mirror that he wears
 Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”), a god with a long history in Mesoamerica. He was
associated with the planet Venus, with wind, and also with fertility
 Chalchiuhtlicue (“She of the Jade Skirt”) a goddess of water fertility, and associated with Tlaloc.
While Tlaloc presided over rain, she was associated with bodies of water like lakes and rivers
Chicomecoatl (“Seven Serpent”) and Cinteotl (“Maize God”), both associated with maize and
sustenance
 Mictlancihuatl (“Lady of Mictlan”) and Mictlantecuhtli (“Lord of Mictlan”), deities of death and
who presided over Mictlan, the underworld

Writing with pictures

Aztecs used picture-writing rather than an alphabetic script like the one you are reading here. A
combination of glyphs and images made up this form of writing. For instance, the image of a hill
designated a place, and a specific image accompanying the symbol for hill designated the
specific place. Chapultepec, for example, would include a hill (tepetl) and a grasshopper
(chapolin). A scroll placed in front of someone’s mouth indicated talking or speech (in Nahuatl,
this is called tlatolli). The huey tlatoani Motecuzoma Ilhuicamina’s name means “arrow piercing
sky,” and his name glyph shows an arrow piercing the sky.
Illustration with the glyph for Chapultepec, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 16th century, folio 45v
(Bibliothèque nationale de France)

The Spanish conquest

The Aztec empire crumbled after the defeat of Tenochtitlan in 1521. Cortés and his men, along
with thousands of indigenous allies who despised the Aztecs, eventually defeated them after
cutting off their water supply. People in the capital city fell sick largely because they lacked
immunity to European diseases, and their military forces were weakened.

Aztec culture did not disappear, however. Mesoamerican traditions and art continued into what
we call the colonial or viceregal era. Even though some forms disappeared, others were
transformed, and still others continued unchanged.

Ongoing excavations in and around Mexico City continue to alter our understanding of this
diverse and fascinating culture as they reveal more Mexica art and architecture. Recent
excavations near the Templo Mayor uncovered the largest Aztec monolith to date, called
the Tlaltecuhtli Monolith. It is believed that this monolith may mark the spot of a huey
tlatoani’s tomb, and some of the items discovered underneath this monolith are helping us to
rewrite what we know about Aztec culture and art.