Handbook to Life in the Aztec World
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Cobró Los Tributos Y Fungió Tan Sólo Como Un Intermediario En Los Proyectos Del Conquistador
El gobierno de Toluca en los inicios del siglo xvi cobró los tributos y fungió tan sólo como un intermediario en los proyectos del conquistador. Algunos testimonios confrman que Cortés confó “al descendiente de Chimaltecuhtli”, la administración de las tierras que Axayacatl y Moctezuma se habían adjudicado, es decir, aque- llas donde marcaron los contornos de la Villa de Toluca y de sus barrios.42 Ahora bien, Macacoyotzin reinó muy poco tiempo ya que Cortés pronto lo alejó acu- sándolo de idolatría. Al respecto, el testimonio de Francisco de Santiago destaca: “[…] por aver idolatrado y cometido delito con una hija suya lo llevaron a México y quedó en su lugar en la dicha población de Toluca don Pedro Cortés su hijo por manera que […] no fue señor ni cacique en la dicha villa y población y tierras a donde está agora fundada la dicha villa de Toluca el dicho Macacoyotzin cacique de ella sino principal como dicho tiene”. 43 En la época en que fray Juan de Zumárraga fue arzobispo de México, Macacoyotzin habría sido llevado al convento de San Francisco en la capital, donde cumplió años de con- dena. Nada indica que haya regresado a la región de Toluca. Su hijo, don Pedro Cortés indio, sucedió a su padre como gobernador. Lo cierto es que Cortés sacó provecho del alejamiento de Macacoyotzin de México para apresurar la creación de la villa de Toluca. Resumiendo, los testimonios anexados al expediente muestran cómo Cortés logró eli- minar la posible infuencia del señor matlatzinca, no sin haber utilizado sus funciones de gobernador lo mejor que pudo. -
Myths and Legends: the Feathered Serpent God 1 Storytimetm
TM Storytime Myths and Legends: The Feathered Serpent God 1 Teaching Resources The Feathered Serpent God is a myth from the Aztec civilisation IN BRIEF about one of their most important gods, Quetzalcoatl, and how he brought people to life. 1 LITERACY LESSON IDEAS The Feathered Serpent God is a good story to read alongside learning about the Aztec civilisation. Quetzalcoatl was an important and powerful god in ancient Central America. Find out more about him on our Quetzalcoatl Fact Sheet and find out about other Aztec gods in our Top 10 Aztec Gods Sheet. See our Feathered Serpent God Word Wise Sheet to find the meanings of any new or tricky words, and have a go at our Quick Comprehension Checker and writing exercises. Put this myth in the correct order using our Story Sequencing Sheet. Looking at the pictures, write the story in your own words using our Simple Storyboards. Make up your own myth to explain why humans come in different shapes and sizes. Discuss your ideas in class. Use our Storytime Writing Sheet to write it. Act out The Feathered Serpent God myth using our printable Quetzalcoatl, Xolotl and Skeleton Masks. The skeletons can be the Lord and Lady of the Underworld. 2 SCIENCE LESSON IDEAS Imagine you are Quetzalcoatl and you have to put the bones you’ve carried back together to make a human. Do you know where each bones goes? Fill in the blanks on our Super Skeleton Sheet and learn the names of some important bones too. Continued on page 2... © storytimemagazine.com 2018 TM Storytime Myths and Legends: The Feathered Serpent God 2 Teaching Resources 3 HISTORY LESSON IDEAS The Aztecs were fascinating. -
Collision of Civilizations
Collision of Civilizations Spaniards, Aztecs and Incas 1492- The clash begins Only two empires in the New World Cahokia Ecuador Aztec Empire The Aztec State in 1519 • Mexico 1325 Aztecs start to build their capital city, Tenochtitlan. • 1502 Montezuma II becomes ruler, wars against the independent city-states in the Valley of Mexico. The Aztec empire was in a fragile state, stricken with military failures, economic trouble, and social unrest. Montezuma II had attempted to centralize power and maintain the over-extended empire expanded over the Valley of Mexico, and into Central America. It was an extortionist regime, relied on force to extract prisoners, tribute, and food levies from neighboring peoples. As the Aztec state weakened, its rulers and priests continued to demand human sacrifice to feed its gods. In 1519, the Aztec Empire was not only weak within, but despised and feared from without. When hostilities with the Spanish began, the Aztecs had few allies. Cortes • 1485 –Cortes was born in in Medellin, Extremadura, Spain. His parents were of small Spanish nobility. • 1499, when Cortes was 14 he attended the University of Salamanca, at this university he studied law. • 1504 (19) he set sail for what is now the Dominican Republic to try his luck in the New World. • 1511, (26) he joined an army under the command of Spanish soldier named Diego Velázquez and played a part the conquest of Cuba. Velázquez became the governor of Cuba, and Cortes was elected Mayor-Judge of Santiago. • 1519 (34) Cortes expedition enters Mexico. • Aug. 13, 1521 15,000 Aztecs die in Cortes' final all-out attack on the city. -
Hierarchy in the Representation of Death in Pre- and Post-Conquest Aztec Codices
1 Multilingual Discourses Vol. 1.2 Spring 2014 Tanya Ball The Power of Death: Hierarchy in the Representation of Death in Pre- and Post-Conquest Aztec Codices hrough an examination of Aztec death iconography in pre- and post-Conquest codices of the central valley of Mexico T (Borgia, Mendoza, Florentine, and Telleriano-Remensis), this paper will explore how attitudes towards the Aztec afterlife were linked to questions of hierarchical structure, ritual performance and the preservation of Aztec cosmovision. Particular attention will be paid to the representation of mummy bundles, sacrificial debt- payment and god-impersonator (ixiptla) sacrificial rituals. The scholarship of Alfredo López-Austin on Aztec world preservation through sacrifice will serve as a framework in this analysis of Aztec iconography on death. The transformation of pre-Hispanic traditions of representing death will be traced from these pre- to post-Conquest Mexican codices, in light of processes of guided syncretism as defined by Hugo G. Nutini and Diana Taylor’s work on the performative role that codices play in re-activating the past. These practices will help to reflect on the creation of the modern-day Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos. Introduction An exploration of the representation of death in Mexica (popularly known as Aztec) pre- and post-Conquest Central Mexican codices is fascinating because it may reveal to us the persistence and transformation of Aztec attitudes towards death and the after-life, which in some cases still persist today in the Mexican holiday Día de Tanya Ball 2 los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. This tradition, which hails back to pre-Columbian times, occurs every November 1st and 2nd to coincide with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ day in the Christian calendar, and honours the spirits of the deceased. -
Calendrical Calculations: the Millennium Edition Edward M
Errata and Notes for Calendrical Calculations: The Millennium Edition Edward M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz Cambridge University Press, 2001 4:45pm, December 7, 2006 Do I contradict myself ? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.) —Walt Whitman: Song of Myself All those complaints that they mutter about. are on account of many places I have corrected. The Creator knows that in most cases I was misled by following. others whom I will spare the embarrassment of mention. But even were I at fault, I do not claim that I reached my ultimate perfection from the outset, nor that I never erred. Just the opposite, I always retract anything the contrary of which becomes clear to me, whether in my writings or my nature. —Maimonides: Letter to his student Joseph ben Yehuda (circa 1190), Iggerot HaRambam, I. Shilat, Maaliyot, Maaleh Adumim, 1987, volume 1, page 295 [in Judeo-Arabic] If you find errors not given below or can suggest improvements to the book, please send us the details (email to [email protected] or hard copy to Edward M. Reingold, Department of Computer Science, Illinois Institute of Technology, 10 West 31st Street, Suite 236, Chicago, IL 60616-3729 U.S.A.). If you have occasion to refer to errors below in corresponding with the authors, please refer to the item by page and line numbers in the book, not by item number. Unless otherwise indicated, line counts used in describing the errata are positive counting down from the first line of text on the page, excluding the header, and negative counting up from the last line of text on the page including footnote lines. -
Smith ME & M. Lind . Xoo-Phase Ceramics from Oaxaca Found At
Ancient Mesoamerica, 16 (2005), 169–177 Copyright © 2005 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the U.S.A. DOI: 10.1017/S095653610505011X XOO-PHASE CERAMICS FROM OAXACA FOUND AT CALIXTLAHUACA IN CENTRAL MEXICO Michael E. Smitha and Michael D. Lindb aSchool of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA bIndependent Scholar, Santa Ana, CA, USA Abstract We describe tombs and ceramic collections in Zapotec style excavated in central Mexico, outside Oaxaca. The most notable are 13 ceramic vessels and objects from the Xoo complex (a.d. 500–800) excavated by José García Payón in Calixtlahuaca (near the city of Toluca), and three Zapotec-style tombs excavated in Los Teteles (near the city of Puebla). We also mention Zapotec remains excavated near Tula, Hidalgo, and tombs in other parts of central Mexico. We briefly explore the implications of these data for our understanding of central Mexico after the fall of Teotihuacan. The presence of Oaxacan ceramics at Teotihuacan in the Early Albán IV as separate ceramic phases, a practice that was then Classic period is well known. Parts of the “Oaxaca barrio” (or followed by archaeologists conducting survey and surface collec- Tlailotlacan), where these materials are concentrated, have been tions in the Valley of Oaxaca (Blanton et al. 1982; Finsten 1995; excavated (Spence 1989, 1992), revealing a tomb and a calendri- Kowalewski et al. 1989). cal inscription in Oaxacan style in addition to imported ceramic On the basis of fieldwork at Monte Albán itself, however, Mar- vessels. It appears that a group of people from Oaxaca—most cus Winter (1989) and Michael Lind (1994) proposed merging likely Zapotecs—resided at Teotihuacan, and the implications of these two constructs (Monte Albán IIIB and IV) back into a single this situation for trade and interaction between Teotihuacan and ceramic phase, which they named Xoo. -
Culture Box Aims to Provide Resources for Approaching Mexico in a Multidisciplinary Way, Featuring Items That Tell Stories of Mexico’S Past and Present
MEXICO INTRODUCTION: Mexico is the large country that shares a common border with the United States about 2,000 miles long. Ancient ruins such as Teotihuacan (Aztec) and Chichen Itza (Mayan) are scattered throughout the country. This culture box aims to provide resources for approaching Mexico in a multidisciplinary way, featuring items that tell stories of Mexico’s past and present. WHAT THIS BOX INCLUDES: 1. Copper Plate 2. Mexican Peso, Woven Coin Purse 3. Miniature Tamale 4. Miniature Indigenous Women 5. Game – Loteria (2) 6. Muñeca Maria 7. Spanish Vocabulary Cards 8. La Virgen de Guadalupe 9. Oaxacan Crafted Turtle 10. Clay Pendants 11. Aztec Calendar 12. Tablitas Mágicas 13. Maracas 14. Spin Drum Culture Box: Mexico COPPER PLATE DESCRIPTION This copper plate features the Aztec calendar. This sort of plate is sold in gift shops and can be used as decoration. The Aztec calendar is the system that was used by Pre-Columbian people of Central Mexico, and is still used by Nahuatl speaking people today. There are two types of Aztec calendars: the sacred calendar with 260 days (tonalpohualli in Nahuatl); and the agricultural calendar with 365 days (xiuhpohualli in Nahuatl). The tonalpohualli is regarded as the sacred calendar because it divides the days and rituals between the Aztec gods. According to the Aztecs, the universe is very delicate and equilibrium is in constant danger of being disrupted, and the calendar tells how time is divided between the gods. Culture Box: Mexico MEXICAN PESO, COIN PURSE DESCRIPTION The Mexican Peso is one of the oldest currencies in North America. -
Excavations of Aztec Urban Houses at Yautepec, Mexico
- - EXCAVATIONSOF AZTECURBAN HOUSES AT YAUTEPEC, MEXICO Michael E. Smith, CynthiaHeath-Smith, and Lisa Montiel Our recent excavations at the site of Yautepecin the Mexican state of Morelos have uncovered a large set of residential struc- turesfrom an Aztec city. Weexcavated seven houses with associated middens, as well as several middens without architecture. In this paper, we briefly review the excavations, describe each house, and summarizethe nature of construction materials and methods employed. Wecompare the Yautepechouses with other knownAztec houses and make some preliminary inferences on the relationship between house size and wealth at the site. En nuestras excavaciones recientes en el sitio de Yautepecen el estado mexicano de Morelos, encontramosun grupo grande de casas habitacionales en una ciudad azteca. Excavamos siete casas con sus basureros,tanto como otros basurerossin arquitec- tura. En este artfeulo revisamos las excavaciones, decribimos cada casa y discutimos los patrones de materiales y me'todosde construccion. Hacemos comparaciones entre las casas de Yautepecy otras casas aztecas, y presentamosalgunas conclusiones preliminaressobre la relacion entre el tamanode las casas y la riqueza. Most Aztec urban sites today lie buried Yautepec under modern towns, and, of those that still exist as intact archaeological sites, Socialand Economic Context most have been heavily plowed, causing the Yautepecwas thecapital of a powerfulcity-state, and destruction or heavy disturbance of residential its king ruled over severalsubject city-states in the structures(Smith 1996). Intensive surface collec- YautepecRiver Valley of central Morelos (Smith tions can provide important information about 1994). This area,separated from the Valleyof Mex- social and economic patternsat these plowed sites ico to the northby theAjusco Mountains(Figure 1), (e.g., Brumfiel 1996; Charlton et al. -
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title A History of Guelaguetza in Zapotec Communities of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, 16th Century to the Present Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7tv1p1rr Author Flores-Marcial, Xochitl Marina Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles A History of Guelaguetza in Zapotec Communities of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, 16th Century to the Present A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Xóchitl Marina Flores-Marcial 2015 © Copyright by Xóchitl Marina Flores-Marcial 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A History of Guelaguetza in Zapotec Communities of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, 16th Century to the Present by Xóchitl Marina Flores-Marcial Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Kevin B. Terraciano, Chair My project traces the evolution of the Zapotec cultural practice of guelaguetza, an indigenous sharing system of collaboration and exchange in Mexico, from pre-Columbian and colonial times to the present. Ironically, the term "guelaguetza" was appropriated by the Mexican government in the twentieth century to promote an annual dance festival in the city of Oaxaca that has little to do with the actual meaning of the indigenous tradition. My analysis of Zapotec-language alphabetic sources from the Central Valley of Oaxaca, written from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, reveals that Zapotecs actively participated in the sharing system during this long period of transformation. My project demonstrates that the Zapotec sharing economy functioned to build and reinforce social networks among households in Zapotec communities. -
Stear Dissertation COGA Submission 26 May 2015
BEYOND THE FIFTH SUN: NAHUA TELEOLOGIES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES By ©Copyright 2015 Ezekiel G. Stear Submitted to the graduate degree program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson, Santa Arias ________________________________ Verónica Garibotto ________________________________ Patricia Manning ________________________________ Rocío Cortés ________________________________ Robert C. Schwaller Date Defended: May 6, 2015! ii The Dissertation Committee for Ezekiel G. Stear certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: BEYOND THE FIFTH SUN: NAHUA TELEOLOGIES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES ________________________________ Chairperson, Santa Arias Date approved: May 6, 2015 iii Abstract After the surrender of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to Hernán Cortés and his native allies in 1521, the lived experiences of the Mexicas and other Nahuatl-speaking peoples in the valley of Mexico shifted radically. Indigenous elites during this new colonial period faced the disappearance of their ancestral knowledge, along with the imposition of Christianity and Spanish rule. Through appropriations of linear writing and collaborative intellectual projects, the native population, in particular the noble elite sought to understand their past, interpret their present, and shape their future. Nahua traditions emphasized balanced living. Yet how one could live out that balance in unknown times ahead became a topic of ongoing discussion in Nahua intellectual communities, and a question that resounds in the texts they produced. Writing at the intersections of Nahua studies, literary and cultural history, and critical theory, in this dissertation I investigate how indigenous intellectuals in Mexico-Tenochtitlan envisioned their future as part of their re-evaluations of the past. -
The Toro Historical Review
THE TORO HISTORICAL REVIEW Native Communities in Colonial Mexico Under Spanish Colonial Rule Vannessa Smith THE TORO HISTORICAL REVIEW Prior to World War II and the subsequent social rights movements, historical scholarship on colonial Mexico typically focused on primary sources left behind by Iberians, thus revealing primarily Iberian perspectives. By the 1950s, however, the approach to covering colonial Mexican history changed with the scholarship of Charles Gibson, who integrated Nahuatl cabildo records into his research on Tlaxcala.1 Nevertheless, in his subsequent book The Aztecs under Spanish Rule Gibson went back to predominantly Spanish sources and thus an Iberian lens to his research.2 It was not until the 1970s and 80s that U.S. scholars, under the leadership of James Lockhart, developed a methodology called the New Philology, which focuses on native- language driven research on colonial Mexican history.3 The New Philology has become an important research method in the examination of native communities and the ways in which they changed and adapted to Spanish rule while also holding on to some of their own social and cultural practices and traditions. This historiography focuses on continuities and changes in indigenous communities, particularly the evolution of indigenous socio-political structures and socio-economic relationships under Spanish rule, in three regions of Mexico: Central Mexico, Yucatan, and Oaxaca. Pre-Conquest Community Structure As previously mentioned, Lockhart provided the first scholarship following the New Philology methodology in the United States and applied it to Central Mexico. In his book, The Nahuas After the Conquest, Lockhart lays out the basic structure of Nahua communities in great detail.4 The Nahua, the prominent indigenous group in Central Mexico, organized into communities called altepetl. -
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL NOT for DISTRIBUTION Figure 0.3
Contents Acknowledgments ix A Brief Note on Usage xiii Introduction: History and Tlaxilacalli 3 Chapter 1: The Rise of Tlaxilacalli, ca. 1272–1454 40 Chapter 2: Acolhua Imperialisms, ca. 1420s–1583 75 Chapter 3: Community and Change in Cuauhtepoztlan Tlaxilacalli, ca. 1544–1575 97 Chapter 4: Tlaxilacalli Religions, 1537–1587 123 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL Chapter 5: TlaxilacalliNOT FOR Ascendant, DISTRIBUTION 1562–1613 151 Chapter 6: Communities Reborn, 1581–1692 174 Conclusion: Tlaxilacalli and Barrio 203 List of Acronyms Used Frequently in This Book 208 Bibliography 209 Index 247 vii introduction History and Tlaxilacalli This is the story of how poor, everyday central Mexicans built and rebuilt autono- mous communities over the course of four centuries and two empires. It is also the story of how these self-same commoners constructed the unequal bonds of compul- sion and difference that anchored these vigorous and often beloved communities. It is a story about certain face-to-face human networks, called tlaxilacalli in both singular and plural,1 and about how such networks molded the shape of both the Aztec and Spanish rule.2 Despite this influence, however, tlaxilacalli remain ignored, subordinated as they often were to wider political configurations and most often appearing unmarked—that is, noted by proper name only—in the sources. With care, however, COPYRIGHTEDthe deeper stories of tlaxilacalli canMATERIAL be uncovered. This, in turn, lays bare a root-level history of autonomy and colonialism in central Mexico, told through the powerfulNOT and transformative FOR DISTRIBUTION tlaxilacalli. The robustness of tlaxilacalli over thelongue durée casts new and surprising light on the structures of empire in central Mexico, revealing a counterpoint of weakness and fragmentation in the canonical histories of centralizing power in the region.