Research Paper on the Aztecs - Essay Example

The Aztec Civilization November 21, 2006 The Aztec Civilization The Aztecs were an advanced culture centered on the highlands of Mexico from about the 12th century A.D., and this was the society that the Spanish conquistadors met when they sailed into what would be known as Central America. Unfortunately for the Aztecs, the Spanish liked what they saw of the riches and land around them and decided to take it for their own. In the resulting battles, Spain won out over the indigenous population and effectively ended not only Aztec rule over the area, but the entire culture itself. Today, virtually no ancestors of the Aztec civilization walk the earth, and it is the ongoing exploration of the Mexican highlands by archaeologists and other researchers that uncovers the lost secrets of the nation. Before settling near the southern edge of modern Mexico, the Aztecs were a group of semi-nomadic people with weak political powers and a notably fragmented identity1. A small part of the colorful politics of the area at the time, the Aztecs were actually driven into the highlands by other more powerful nations and for a few centuries they lived relatively peaceably with their neighbors, much differently than the society we envision now as the Aztecs: a violent and powerful group motivated by gold, wealth and bloodthirsty gods. In truth, it took at least 200 years for the Aztecs to work their way into a position of relative authority throughout southern Mexico, and this was accomplished with "judicious diplomacy, discreet military alliance, and well-timed royal marriages"2. Another factor in the rise of the nation was the capital city, Tenochtitlan, which now lies buried under Mexico City. Tenochtitlan was founded several hundred years before the Aztecs held control of their part of Mexico, and as it grew so did the nation. The first grip the Aztecs held on their counterparts was via their city as an important marketing town, since people from all around would come to trade with each other and indeed relied on Tenochtitlan for their livelihoods. Through slow and deliberate state movement within the military, surrounding governments and the royal family, the Aztecs found themselves an undeniably powerful position within local and surrounding politics during the 14th and 15th centuries, thereafter undertaking a drastic change in policy that saw them become an unquestioned ruling force that we recognize from Spanish accounts. Ironically, the Aztec nation had only just become a society of an elite ruling class, with a vaguely centralized economy catering primarily to Tenochtitlan from countless surrounding villages and towns when the Spanish happened upon it. There is no telling where the society might have taken itself without the destructive influence of the Spanish, although given the history of the area historians are in a general consensus that like the Maya and Toltec nations, the Aztecs were doomed to fall victim to their own bad economic planning. In fact, such innately fragile forces have actually been cited as the reason that the Spanish found their conquering party so successful3. One of the most persistent legends of the Aztecs is that of human sacrifice; the practice is often alluded to modern literature and television, and this is largely responsible for our contemporary view of the Aztecs as violent and barbaric. The stories come from the Spanish accounts of their enemies, with graphic scenes described where Aztec rulers marched their victims up the steep steps of a pyramid and laid them out, slitting their chests and pulling their hearts out by hand. The gruesome scene must have made some impression on the Europeans, and it does still affect us greatly today when we have hundreds of years safely separating us from the event. There can be little doubt that human sacrifice was carried out by the Aztecs since the remains of the victims is estimated at the hundreds of thousands by excavators and historic documents. What researchers really want to know is why the practice occurred in the first place. Most data collected from the sites and stories suggests that ordained priests were offering the human hearts and blood up to bloodthirsty gods "on behalf of the welfare of the state"4. The underlying belief in the ritual was that the ruling super naturals fed on such things and when kept satisfyingly full would favor the people with good crops, wealth and happiness. The reality of it is that the practice evolved to aid the ruling class in frightening its subjects into submission; no one questions a leader who would easily rip your heart out and burn it in offering to a god. It is surmised that this sacrificial aspect of the Aztec culture provided the rulers with a way to keep their fragmented society together. The Aztec nation was a large one for its time, and Tenochtitlan was actually the largest city of the entire region for hundreds of years; a true precursor to Mexico City. The fact was that the rulers presided solely in the capital city and relied on hired local officials to do their bidding and keep tabs on the various acquired villages and rural lands. All wealth flowed inwards to Tenochtitlan with only job security in return, and to prevent the patchy empire from crumbling the royalty needed to present itself as all-powerful and capable of anything. Sacrifice of royal subjects of all ages and sexes was the perfect official loyalty tool. As a relatively recent society, the Aztecs are sometimes mistakenly thought of as ancient, since they preceded our own more widely known Western civilization. For that reason, the more minute cultural aspects of the society tend to be overlooked, such as language and the arts, although they are technically on par with that of Native American groups in the northern part of the continent. While the Aztec title can only truly be used on the ruling class who were sure to breed within their own families and other outlying royal families, beneath the surface of the empire lay hundreds of smaller regional cultures that were simply overtaken and aligned with Tenochtitlan. Even after the Spanish invasion and expulsion of the Aztec nation, these smaller societies persisted because they had never properly been woven into the larger culture. Because of this fragmentation, we can still see the cultural impacts of smaller Mesoamerican groups and use them to help piece together the missing history of the Aztecs themselves. The arts were a large part of the overall culture, and although local groups had an obvious impact on the forms and uses of the arts like blanket weaving and pottery these are nevertheless the product of an established civilization. Pottery was a fine art with Aztec artists, who shaped the pots by hand and tended to use only two colors when decorating; the more elaborate pieces were created solely for the elite. Weaving was also an important craft, used not only for the functionality of creating warm blankets but also for communicative purposes. Of the rare artifacts saved from the Aztec civilization, some of these are woven blankets or maps designed to inform the rulers of their taxed possessions and listing the incomes of the citizenry of the kingdom. Artworks were often used to convey simple messages in lieu of a written language, which the Aztecs never formed of their own accord. Instead, pictograms were painted onto mats to show any number of headdresses, livestock or people inherit to a certain area of the land so that rulers could have a comprehensive view of their empire. Architecture was also an integral part of the Aztec society, and the great pyramids throughout the land are what originally shocked the Spanish fleets upon entry into the American continent. The giant stepped pyramids dot the Mexican highlands even now, still standing high just as when they were erected by the Aztec builders in a bid to unite the population, as always, under a banner of fear and trepidation. Always intimidating, the ruling elite used every tactic they could think of to give their subjects the impression that they were strong and all-powerful. Whatever the original intentions, Mexico remains forever changed because of the impact of this civilization. Now, more than 400 years after the fall of such an immense civilization, we are having trouble understanding just where that culture came from and what we have to learn from it. The Spanish have managed to stamp their own imprint on that part of the world to such a degree that Mesoamerican cultures are all but forgotten to the rest of the planet, but when you look closer you can still see many little hints of the great empire that once ruled the Mexican highlands. With the Aztec-Tanoan language still spread throughout the southern part of North America5, the pyramids still reaching for the sky and the threat of brutal human sacrifices still fresh in the minds of television scriptwriters and artists, it is really plain to see that the culture has not left us entirely just because Tenochtitlan no longer rules over the land. The Aztecs are still visible just under the surface. Bibliography Fagan, Brian. People of the Earth: an introduction to world prehistory. Upper Saddle River: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2004. Hickerson, Nancy. Linguistic Anthropology, 2nd Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2000. Miller, Barbara, Penny Van Esterik and John Van Esterik. Cultural Anthropology. USA: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. Read More