Curious Facts about the So-Called Aztecs
The truth about Cortés, Moctezuma, and human sacrifice
The Cauldron is a reader-supported publication exploring curious occult history and mythology, with artful nudes from SF-based photographer and mysterious gentleman Jose de los Reyes. See more of his work on Instagram.
According to popular misbelief, today is Mexico’s Independence Day. In fact, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army's defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Very niche. Very not-about-tacos-and-sombreros.
What else don’t we know about Mexican history? To be fair, there’s a lot to study. Let’s start with Mexico-before-it-was-Mexico and the complex society that reigned supreme from a capital now known as Mexico City. Called Tenochtitlan, this was a thriving metropolis of massive pyramid temples and garden rooftops, flowers galore, tidily organized streets, and a huge market precisely laid out in sections by the Tlatelolcans, where folks traded in everything from jade to piss. (Ammonia is a useful chemical, is it not?) A city so breathtaking, arrivals from Spain thought it might have been a dream.
This dream city was built by the so-called Aztecs. And most of what you know about them is probably wrong, starting with their name.
“Aztecs” is reductive
Technically, writes historian Camilla Townsend, “there never were any ‘Aztecs.’ No people ever called themselves that.” Like “Vikings,” the term “Aztec” is a broad-strokes attempt at defining a people better known as part of the Nahuas, who came from what were essentially different nations—altepetls—supported by sub-altepetls. The term “Aztec” was actually first applied by 18th century scholars.
Human Sacrifice Was Not a Bloody Party
It’s true people were sacrificed and it’s true that those sacrificed were often captives of various wars and skirmishes. This prevented the people from having to sacrifice their own. But monthly sacrifices were solemn affairs. This wasn’t blood sport, it was a sacred act necessary to ensure the prosperity of all the people. Those sacrificed were often treated accordingly and sometimes given lush accommodations. And drugs to ease them through the process. Priests trained to perform these ceremonies might cast the victims’ bodies down from on high so that they could embrace the divine as they fell.
As the empire grew, more sacrifices were necessary to ensure the people could survive and thrive. Except an exacting tribute tax system put the squeeze on those at the bottom.
When a leader died, there was no “one trueborn son” to inherit
Who doesn’t love an ancient monarchy? Yet we often assume rules of succession are more or less European-style. Not so here. Men of consequence married as many women as they could support, ideally ones of noble birth. Allegiances to their wives shifted along with politics. If a leader needed to strengthen his alliance with his wife’s people, he might elevate her position and declare her son to be his heir. The reverse happened when conflict arose: a wife’s position could be taken away, her fancy clothes and jewels removed, and her children downgraded to heirs with nothing to inherit.
When a king died, dozens, or even a hundred-plus male heirs might jockey to take his place. Brothers-from-the-same-mother would band together to support one of their own. But the idea of a legitimate heir vs an illegitimate was not a thing. Children of slave women occasionally did very well for themselves, and women of noble birth could still find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order if things truly went sideways.
Nobody thought Cortés was a god, not even Cortés
Unlike the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, there’s nothing in the Nahaus religion that enables humans to become gods. Nor was Cortés the first European they encountered. Various scouts had already been observed and even captured, which is how translators were already available by the time Cortés insisted on meeting Moctezuma.
Moctezuma was not the fool or coward he’s been portrayed as either. He was a pragmatist, aware he was dealing with representatives of a foreign god who were very much mortal men, with mortal men’s appetites and failings. They also had swords and metal armor.
Cortés took advantage of the complex political situation he walked into (remember the many wives, many factions). He teamed up with Moctezuma’s enemies and arrived at Tenochtitlan with an army thousands strong, made up of armored Spaniards with horses, plus Tlaxcalan warriors.
Moctezuma knew the Europeans had won every battle they fought, with minimal casualties on their side. So he offered tributes in the form of precious metals, textiles, and enslaved people, hoping that would be enough to make the Spanish go away. But Cortés was after a bigger prize.
On November 8, 1519, the Spaniard forced his way into Tenochtitlan and was greeted by a veritable parade of chiefs and officials, a symbol of a united body politic. Every man touched the ground then kissed their fingers. (Cortés complained the whole performance took, like, an hour.) At the center of it all this spectacle and fanfare was the tlatoani, bedecked in finery: Moctezuma.
The thing about Cortés is he was a total con man. He passed through so many loopholes in pursuit of wealth, and to sate his taste for violence, that by the time he even reached Moctezuma’s territory, he was an outlaw; he didn’t even have permission to be there. So when more Spaniards showed up to hold him accountable, Moctezuma sought to exploit tensions and began preparing for war. Cortés panicked and took the king hostage, holding him in irons for about 80 days. War broke out between the Mexica and Cortés’s army. The king pleaded with his people to lay down their weapons. He was the ruler of tens of thousands and keeping everyone alive, even at the expense of honor or freedom, was his most important job. But the young men of the city, all of them trained at least to some degree in violence, as befit men of their time, desired honor and revenge.
Moctezuma was assassinated—it’s unclear by whom—and Cortés fled from the young warriors with a bunch of his men and allies. They were attacked and lost all their goods and most of their party. A couple princesses who’d been offered up as wives were recovered. Women swept away the invaders’ footprints.
Then smallpox broke out.
The Europeans came back, looting and destroying village after village, killing everyone they could. Fighting went on for three months, casualties mounting, and not just from battle: starvation spread, there was an outbreak of dysentery. Some people were enslaved. Women were trafficked. In 1523, the King of Spain actually declared something to the effect of “Hey, can you tone down the sexual violence against these native women?”
Meanwhile the sons of Cortés held positions of power. Their father’s—and their mother’s—names conferred respect in Mexico City, but nobody thought they were the children of a god. Cortés was just a man. A violent, merciless one at that.
Eventually, his sons were accused of treason against Spain and tortured.
Meanwhile, portrayals of the “Aztecs” as naive or “primitive” padded the European ego, while maybe assuaging some guilt.
Those who survived the violence, starvation, and disease came to understand their European captors well. I say “captors” because they really held the people hostage economically and spiritually. Forty years after the arrival of Cortés, battles over excessive taxation weren’t being fought with spears, but through the Spanish court system as it existed in Mexico.
The colonizers’ Roman alphabet also proved quite useful in recording word-for-word testimonials and historical accounts, a shift from recording the events of each year, a tradition called xiuhpohualli, meaning year count. The year count was delivered from different points of view; no history was complete without multiple perspectives.
By the early 1600s, Mexico City was one of the world’s wealthiest metropolises. Settled Spaniards purchased enslaved people from Africa to work their crops (like sugar cane, which is notoriously awful to harvest) and perform as servants in their houses. The indigenous population dwindled. Depleted by over-taxation and disease (smallpox came back with a vengeance, this time in eye-bleeding form), sixty thousand people were reduced to twenty to twenty-five thousand. The Mexica became a minority in their ancestral city of Tenochtitlan.
In Aztec myth, the world dies and respawns
When the Spanish showed up, the Aztec calendar was on its fifth sun, meaning four other worlds had already been born and destroyed. The idea of rebirth from annihilation was built into Nahaus spirituality. In other words, the future always meant remaking the world as we knew it.
