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... ce was when a person reached an alter and was stretched across a convex stone. Then a priest, with a sharp knife, would cut open the victims chest and tear out his heart. The heart then would be placed in a bowl called a chacmool. An estimated 10, 000 to 15, 000 people were sacrificed a year. The language of the Aztecs was called Nahuatl.
The language is a mix of Indian languages from the Pimas, Comanches, and the Shoshones. The Aztecs used pictographic writings that were recorded on paper or animal hides. Some of these writings, called codices, still exist today. Their calendar was 365 days and their were five 'hollow' days in which was thought of as very bad luck. In 1519, Hernando Cortes, a Spanish explorer, landed on the East Coast of Mexico and wanted to conquer Tenochtitlan. The Spaniards were joined by many Indians who were conquered and forced to pay high taxes to the emperor.
Montezuma II did not stop Cortes because he thought Cortes was Quetzalcoatl, the god of civilization and learning. An Aztec legend said that Quetzalcoatl was driven away by a rival god and was headed across sea to present day Mexico. Quetzalcoatl's return was said to be the year Ceacatl on the Aztec Calendar which is the same as 1519. Due to the legend, Montezuma II thought Cortes was Quetzalcoatl when he invaded the Aztec Empire. Montezuma II was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, but in 1520 he rebelled and drove the Spaniards out of Tenochtitlan. Unfortunately, Montezuma II was killed in this battle and soon on August, 1520 the Aztecs surrendered when Cortes invaded again.
The Spaniards wiped out all the temples and all other traces of Aztec civilization. They destroyed Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City on top of it. Present day Aztecs live in the vicinity of Mexico City and there are well over one million of them. They are the largest aboriginal group in Mexico and their religion is a mix of Aztec and Roman Catholic. Today, to pay contribution to the Aztecs, the cactus, the eagle, and serpent are all on the Mexican paper money.
Today, the Aztecs are 'highly respected and remembered for their struggles, devotion, and for the love they showed to their culture. The Aztecs The history of the Aztecs begins with the Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica. The greatest power the Americas had ever seen, the Maya were advanced in agriculture, as they had learned from the Incas, and built huge cities, with pyramids that told the movement of the planets and the earth's course around the sun. The Maya spawned a small, yet advanced sub culture known as the Toltecs; however, their prosperity was to be short lived. Some time before 1300 AD the Aztecs came down from the mountain plains of central America and brought burning death to the peaceful, burgeoning, Toltecs. They slaughtered the Toltecs with arrows and knives, destroying all that was their culture.
Then the Aztecs rooted themselves in the place of the Toltecs, taking their lands and their cities for their own. The name Aztec was to be feared, and was indeed feared by the neighboring tribes, they were a savage warrior people, obsessed with death and decay, only the slaughter of their enemies brought the Aztecs satisfaction. The warrior men ruled their society, with the women having little say. About 1325 AD, the Aztecs built the magnificent city of Tenochtitlan, which was nothing less than a wonder.
The city sat on small islands in the middle of a lake, all interconnected by causeways and gangplanks, with canals running throughout. They built great barges of woven grass, which they piled dirt on for farming; huge drawbridges of wood connected the city to the mainland, these were raised in time of danger, and danger was always close to the Aztecs. Like the Maya, they raided the houses of their subjects and took them captive, their very own people, and then sacrificed them in great pits of flame to their evil gods of death. The people had no recourse, and lived under the tyrannical rule of the emperor, who was elected by the nobles of the city. They oppressed their neighbors, taxing heavily on all goods, and taking significant cuts from the little food the conquered Toltecs and other small tribes could get.
The insane violence of the Aztec culture can be explained, to some degree, by their creation story, the story of Coatlique. Coatlique was the great deity of the Aztecs, she was the mother of Aztec creation, she was known as the lady with the skirt of snakes; she was decorated with skulls and wore a tunic woven of severed hands that crawled with snakes, spiders, and scorpions. She wore a hat made of from a human head and earrings of bloody fingers. Coatlique was first impregnated by a knife of obsidian, and gave birth to a daughter, Coyolxanuhqui, who was the goddess of the moon, and several sons, who became the stars.
It was on one day walking earth that Coatlique discovered a ball of black feathers, which she tucked in her bosom, only later to be unable to find it. This ball was the seed that fertilized her once again. It was an evil seed; that likewise wrought evil. The mother was not supposed to be impregnated twice, and thus it was the duty of her children to murder her, and they plotted to do so, until Coatlique gave birth to the child that was the spawn of the evil seed, Huitzilopochtli, the fiery god of war and death. With the help of a serpent of flame, Huitzilopochtli destroyed his brothers and sisters in a murderous rage. He beheaded Coyolxanuhqui and dismembered her body, throwing it into a pit of blackness, where it like mangled for all eternity.
The earth was thus created through fire and death; the earth mother had fallen, the moon goddess was dead, and her brothers slaughtered. And so is the story of the Aztec creation. They based their lifestyle on the examples set by the gods and goddesses in the story, thus they led violent lives. The Aztecs saw no wrong in torturing, maiming, and decapitating their neighbors for the gods.
They were a savage people, and this savagery would be their downfall. In 1519 Hernando Cortes' led over 500 men into Aztec territory in search of gold, what he found were the magnificent golden statues of the Aztec deities. The Aztecs believed him to be the representative for some white skinned god, and hence feared and respected him. It was not until they saw him melting their statues and shipping the blocks of gold to Spain that they acted.
They attacked Hernando and his men, and succeeded in driving them off. However, Cortes returned later with the support of local Indian tribes that hated the Aztecs for centuries of cruel treatment to defeat the mighty Aztecs and take the empire. This ended the Aztec civilization forever.
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