Aztecs By: Ivan Moreno

History  The term, Aztec, is a startlingly imprecise term to describe the culture that dominated the Valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Properly speaking, all the Nahua-speaking peoples in the Valley of Mexico were Aztecs, while the culture that dominated the area was a tribe of the Mexica called the Tenochca. At the time of the European conquest, they called themselves either "Tenochca" or "Toltec," which was the name assumed by the bearers of the Classic Mesoamerican culture. The aztecs migrated from the north into the valley of mexico as early as the twelfth century AD, after the classic period Messoamerica.

History The Aztecs were forced to live on the worst lands in the valley. They were the ones that adopted the cultural patterns called “Mixteca-Pueblo” that originated in the culture of Teotihuacán, so the urban culture they built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is essentially a continuation of Teotihuacán culture. The people of Mesoamerica distinguished between two types of people, the Toltecs “which means craftsman”, and the Chichimec, “the wild people” , who settled Mesoamerica from the north. The Mexica were, then, originally Chichimec when they migrated into Mexico, but eventually became Toltecs.

Economy and Society   The urban population on the island required high levels of economic support from surrounding areas. In its earliest history, Tenochtitlan was self-supporting; the village was small and agriculture was managed through the chinampa method of architecture, practiced widely throughout Mesoamerica. In the chinampa , flat reeds were placed in the shallow areas of the lake, covered with soil, and then cultivated. In this way, the Aztecs reclaimed much of the lake for agriculture. A large part of the city's population were farmers; at its height (100,000-300,000), at least half the population would leave the city in the morning to go farm and return in the evening. 

Religion   The religion of the Aztecs was realy complicated, partly due to the fact that they inherited much of it from conquered peoples. Their religion was dominated by three gods: Huitzilopochtli ("hummingbird wizard," the native and chief god of the Tenochca, Huitzilopochtli was the war and sun god), Tezcatlipoca ("Smoking Mirror," chief god of the Aztecs in general), and Quetzalcoatl ("Sovereign Plumed Serpent," widely worshipped throughout Mesoamerica and the god of civilization, the priesthood, and learning

Huitzilopochtli

Tezcatlipoca 

Quetzalcoatl

Art Ancient Aztec art was primarily a form of religious expression and a means for paying tribute to their gods. In addition, various forms of Aztec art were used to assist in  communication.

Aztec Totem Statue

Pottery Pottery was not only useful to the Aztecs; it was also an important religious craft within the Aztec arts. Pottery of all shapes and sizes depicted a variety of designs that were meaningful to the Aztec culture and religion. The designs typically placed on the pottery were meant pay reverence to specific Aztec gods or to represent an Aztec tribe.  

Sports The Aztecs had two different games - tlachtli and patolli. Tlachtli was a ball game that was played between teams using rubber balls. The court was shaped like a capital I and it was 60 meters long by 10 meters wide. One person on each team would have to shoot the ball into a vertical hoop high over their heads with their knees without using their hands. The hoop was placed on opposite walls at the midpoint of the court. In a way this game combined modern day soccer and basketball. Whichever team made the first basket won the game. Sometimes it took hours to complete a game.

tlachtli

Sports The other game, patolli, was a gambling game that was played with pebbles and dry beans. In this game you are given six pieces to play with and you have ten jade pebbles to gamble. The board you would play on is an "X" divided into squares. Each player has a home base in the middle of the "X". Now you must decide how many jade pebbles you want to gamble on the whole game. You are given five cacao beans with white dots painted on them. These will be used as dice. If you get one white dot you move one square, if you get two white dots you move two squares and so on, but if you get all five white dots you move ten squares. The pieces must move clockwise. To begin the game you must throw a one. When you make it back to home base, you take that piece off the board; your opponent owes you one jade pebble. You keep playing until one player has lost all of his or her beans.

patolli