Understanding the Aztecs

A Talented and Well-Organised People

Representation by Diego Rivera of how the city of Tenochtitlán looked before the Spanish arrived.. wikimedia commons 1 May 2013. (Photograph of a public work of art — This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 70 years or fewer.

Ask most people what they know about the Aztec or Mexica civilization, and they will say the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice and drank a lot of chocolate. Both are true but, like all the best stories, there’s a lot more to it than is commonly understood.

Where did the Aztecs originate?

While we don’t know for certain, their creation story tells of a wandering tribe that came from North America. They arrived in Anahuac, Mexico, in their year two caña (1168 by the European calendar).

The most fertile land was occupied by other tribes, fighting among themselves. The Aztecs, needing good farmland to grow maize, beans, calabazas and chilies, were not welcome.

Their creation story says that Huitzilopochtli (the Colibri Brujo/Witchdoctor Hummingbird) was their chief deity, and guided them to a place where they would find an eagle eating a snake, while sitting on a cactus. They found this at Lake Texcoco.

They made their home there and soon developed a complex civilization, founding their great city of Tenochtitlan around 1325 CE.

The snake image is still used, on the Mexican flag: