The Aztecs: Building an Empire - Part 1

I'm back!

My last post was in long ago October. Shame on me. Fiction and Malcolm Gladwell have taken up my reading schedule, temporarily pushing history to the backseat. But never fear! I've returned to tackle an old enemy: the complicated and frustrating history of the Aztecs. No longer will I be confused by the differences between Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan, Huexotzingo and Huaxteca, or Tlacopan and Tlaxcala. Or, the fact that there are two rulers by the name of Motecuhzoma - or as it's sometimes spelled, Montezuma. Moctezuma is also correct, too...

Who am I kidding? I'm confused already.

The Aztecs were an early attempt of this blog, trying to sort through wikipedia pages while in an overheated university classroom, battling the twin evils of boredom and asbestos. I made the mistake of trying to sum up an extensive history with a wide assortment of complicated (but frustratingly similar) names in one short blog while having very little information to draw from. You can view that travesty of writing here.

This time we're going to take it one step at a time, starting with the people who got the ball rolling. Likely the first group to really settle down and become a civilization (with proper communities, art, language, etc.) were the Olmecs. I could bore you with the details, but what you really need to know is they built the foundation for much of Mexico's pre Spanish-induced annihilation. Cultures and traditions get shared and passed down the line, and whoever is in power typically spreads it the furthest. The Olmecs were prominent, and thus set the tone for much of how early Mexico looked at the time and right up until the Spanish.

Here, a man is holding a baby were-jaguar.
Adding this character into Teen Wolf must
have really been jumping the shark.

One key similarity was they were big into the anthropomorphic animal god thing, particularly "were-jaguars". Many of their statures featured intensely creepy were-jaguar children. What makes it even creepier is just how little we know about why they were there. Type "were-jaguar" into google and you'll mostly find stories about Teen Wolf's fourth season introduction of one of these creatures.

They were also into burying their dead in pyramids (not quite the Egyptian type, but pretty well the Egyptian type) and creating giant, nine foot tall sculpted heads of their rulers. implying they likely had a strong hierarchy system much the same as the later Aztecs. Their diets weren't that far off, either - they enjoyed fish, corn, dogs (before that was uncool) and of course, they had a tendency to indulge in eating one of their neighbours every so often, likely for religious rituals or the fantastic taste. Considering it was also likely they ate frogs that are known to cause a hallucinogenic effect, it paints a strange picture for what was going on at the time.

Just a bunch of half-man, half-jaguar babies eating people while high on frogs. Book your flight to Mexico today!

The temple in the back is an ancient version of The Ritz.

Somewhere in 150-600 A.D. the Olmecs have splintered off into a great number of city states and hit a golden age. Cities were flourishing, populations grew rapidly, and major powers began to rise. The most prominent of which was Teotihuacan (not to be confused with the later major power, Tenochtitlan, the only city in pre-conquest Mexico to ever even come close to reaching the power and magnitude of the former). A sign of their power was the construction of major temples dedicated to the sun and the moon, as well as the serpent god Quetzalcoatl, the creator god. The temples were incredible; massive structures in a city that at its height held between 125,000-200,000 people. The size and scope of the city spread massive cultural and military influence across the whole of central Mexico, in what I'm sure inspired countless others to be ritually sacrificed and thrown underneath the temples amongst jewels and feathers.

This poor fella made the mistake of messing with
Quetzalcoatl. Sure, take a shot at Xipe Totec. Just not
Quetzalcoatl. Never Quetzalcoatl.

Death and the gods were really the driving cultural forces. My personal favourite is Xipe Totec, meaning "Our Lord the Flayed One" - perhaps the coolest name for something that was the strong and powerful deity of "the annual renewal of vegetation with the onset of the rainy season." Man, I can't wait to hear what they called their death or fire gods. This all seems par for the course, though. Rather unsettling images and poetry seemed to be a mainstay in their culture; plenty of snakes, terrifying faces on their temples, dark omens and human sacrifices... just check out the words of this one song:

And they called it Teotihuacan
because it was the place
where the lords were buried.
Thus they said:
"When we die, 
truly we die not,
because we will live, we will rise, 
we will continue living, we will awaken.
This will make us happy."

Well, at least they'll have zombies to fight the were-jaguars.

So here we are, a thriving civilization. How could this ever fall apart? Well, the funny thing is, all we really know is it gets invaded. As to who takes the credit, we don't really know. Sometime around 600 A.D. 75% of the population in the city gets wiped out, most of their buildings burned or desecrated, and they lose their cultural relevance almost entirely. From there, a power vacuum is created and a great number of city states rise up and vie for power in the wake of the fall of Teotihuacan. Oddly enough, a relative peace comes through for a little while. But at a time of cannibalism and sacrifices, it's sure to be short lived. So bring on the Aztecs!