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The Aztecs [PAPER]
The Aztecs were a people that apparantly originated in
the main part of the North American continent, and migrated
south towards central Mexico as a wandering tribe of hunters.
The Aztecs were, in 1323, expelled from the lands of the most
illustrious ruling line of the period, the Colhuacan, because
of the Aztec sacrifice of a Colhua gift: a Toltec princess
intended as a wife for the Aztec chief. The sacrifice was
meant as a unique compliment; the Aztecs believed that the
princess would then become a war goddess. They then
travelled to the southwestern shores of the lakes that once
surrounded Mexico City and settled upon two marshy islands.
By 1345, the land had been mostly reclaimed upon thier
islands. The swamps were drained, and the lands were
suitable for farming. Despite these accomplishments, the
Aztecs still had tribal social and political organization.
They spread out in 1428, crushing thier enemies and took
control of central Mexico. They instituetd reforms
throughout thier newly-taken land. All books of the
conquered peoples were burned because they contained no
cotice of the people of Tehochtitlan, the Aztec's city. By
the time of his death in 1502, Ahuitzotl, the Aztecs' eighth
ruler had expanded thier territory immensely. He then ruled
most of the land between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific
Ocean. He also brought about a cultural flowering. Schools
were established at this time, the arts and literature were
encouraged, and architectural advancements were made.
The Aztec forms of religion and war were highly
intermingled; thier wars were shrouded in religion and thier
religion thrived on prisoners taken from wars for sacrifice.
The Aztecs believed that war was a tribute to a battle of the
gods in the sky, called The Battle of the Sun. It was
considered an honor to have died on the battlefield, all of
those who were permitted to die in battle were supposed to be
a tribute to the chief war god, Huitzilopochtli, thus priests
were not exempt from the law requiring every man to bear
arms. Each city contained at least four arsenals, all of
which were always kept fully stocked. This was the product
of a highly military state.
Aztec religion was based on complex cycles. The Aztec's
year was broken into eighteen months of twenty days each,
with another five days at the beginning of each year, and
each month had it's own set of ceremonies that every Aztec
had to participate in. The Aztecs also used a 260 day
almanac year in which every day was assigned to a diety, as
well as each week and month which were linked to other
dieties. Thier days were broken into hours of approximately
64.5 minutes each in which each of the twenty-two hours were
associated with a god or goddess. The Aztec pantheon is
reminiscent of, although much more extensive than, other
western civilizations whose pantheons included a divinity for
each city, town, and hamlet. The Aztecs believed everything
worked in set cycles . Thus, if a hurricane or war occurred
in one place, a hurricane or war would occur at that location
every set number of years, a theory that many western
historians seem to have picked up.
This intense cyclic worship may very well have been
originated by conservative priests who saw the populace
slacking in thier worship and/or changing in some other way
(i.e. evolving socially in ways that these priests found
distasteful or unhealthy). They instituted this intense
worship so to keep the populace to the ways of life that were
closer to thier images of ideal. As a society becomes more
complex, as there is great evidence of in Aztec culture, the
individuals will tend to forget the older ways that thier
ancesters were forced to accept as a means of life. The
religion of the Aztecs was controlled by a hierarchy that
relied almost totally upon its priests. These priests had
more than enough power to keep the Aztec society in orthodox,
cyclical, rigid forms of worship. In one city alone, there
were more than five thousand priests. These preists
maintained tight control on education, the sciences, of
course the city's religion, and the calendar. The calendar
was an important facet in the religion of the Aztecs.
The priests, in thier effort to keep the populace from
changing thier customs or in thier belief of it, taught that
man was constantly on trial with thier testy gods. The gods
could take away life at a moments notice if only they judged
man to be insufficient for the gods' whims. The priests
instituted strict prayer and ritual, especially in a time
period that occurred once every fifty-two years. This was a
time that the Aztecs believed was judgement day, and so the
worship was intensified. The people prayed, fasted, and even
mutilated themselves to show themselves to the gods as worthy
of life. Only at that time were the fire pits in the Aztec
temples extinguished, after which in every temple the priests
would wait for a sign, probably in thier zeal and desperation
they looked for any sort of sign, and probably found, for the
most part, insignificant natural happenings that had no deep
meaning. After the omen was found, a fire was lighted in the
chest of a living victim, and the fires of the temple were
lit from this fire. When the Spaniards came into the
picture, Diaz del Castillo reported that there were "piles of
human skulls....there were more than one thousand of them."
at just one temple.
It is obvious that the Aztec religion was one based on
complexities created by a strong hierarchy of priests trying
to keep the Aztec's life uncomplex, although at the risk of
making the life more complicated. The religious hierarchy
supported human sacrifice in thier doctrines, and a great
cyclical form of worship. Human sacrifice was not an idea
that was new to the area; the Aztecs were not innovaters, but
the Aztecs grew socially and intellectually (as well as
militarilaly) as no other civilization of thier area had been
able.
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