hello all! take a look at the info. i have.

STEP 1::

The Mexica, as many may know, are not one of the most noble civilizations one might ever see. At first, they were a very peaceful tribe, yet, circumstances have brought them to live wildly, and live off rats and snakes.

At first, the Aztecs used to live in their northern homeland of Aztlan. This was a place called Meso-America. They left Aztlan in 1125, and wandered for 200 years. One very important situation caused them to move someplace else.

One fine day, a man named Tenoch had a vision. The god Huitzilopochtli appeared, and ordered Tenoch to take his people to a swampy island which was located in the middle of the Lake Texcoco. Tenoch was quite confused. There might be many a swamp in the Lake Texcoco. But, lucky for him, Huitzilopochtli gave him a specific sign to look for. There would be, situated in the place where they were supposed to settle, an eagle perched on a cactus surrounded by water growing from a rock. This eagle had to be found eating a serpent. The cactus was later called Tenochtli. Huitzilopochtli told Tenoch that the people had to build their city there in his honor, and provide human sacrifices to him as thanks. After a long, hard journey, the Mexica finally found their home. Their journey was not easy – they had to move all the way from their northern home to the south. Yet, Tenoch didn’t completely follow Huitzilopochtli’s instructions. He built the city after himself, and called it Tenochtitlan. Angered by his disobedience, Huitzilopochtli gave the people sufferings to deal with – at times starvations, wars, etc. This city was made in around 1325. Soon, the people living there came to be known as the Aztecs.

Yet, the people weren’t very happy. Although they (very reluctantly) followed Huitzilopochtli’s instructions, they had to live in poor conditions. Building Tenochtitlan was extremely challenging, as all the Aztecs were provided with was a small piece of land surrounded by marshes all around. Obviously, they couldn’t build anything in the marshes, so, they were forced to live in the tiny area available, as they didn’t want to anger Huitzilopochtli.

Instead, they tried to do something with the marshes. They built the swampy lakes into places called “chinampas.” What they did was, they started piling up the mud that they got from the bottom of the lakes, and eventually developed islands. They put posts on all sides to support the chinampas, and trees were grown to keep the soil firm. Those were the building blocks of the fine city. Their only starting structures were a few small mud huts, hay and stick houses, and one or two temples, but they grew enormously. Soon, connecting devices were starting to be built. Causeways and bridges came up, so that the mainland and the city would still remain connected. Channels were built, and for the people’s convenience, they were lined with stone. People also traveled in canoes which they made from hollowed out trees. There were more magnificent temples that had strong foundations and by 1376, they had one developed city. Their largest and grandest temple was the one dedicated to Huitzilopochtli. It gradually became the center of everything, and was also thought of as the center of the universe. This attracted a lot of people’s attention. Soon, there were people coming from extremely far distances to live in the fabulous city of Tenochtitlan. Today, this place is known as Mexico City.

After a great amount of development and growth, the Aztec civilization had 15 million people and 500 towns and cities. It is amazing how they managed to make so many improvements on a small piece of land located in the marshes. Soon, their political situation started getting better. They had a government that were responsible to organize the taxes that people paid, the amount of food people got, the punishments they had to undergo, and the overall peace of the city. The punishments were quite easy to understand. Any small offence, the “criminal” had to pay some amount as fine. If it was a major offence, the person had to go through hard, tedious work for a long time. They weren’t extremely harsh or brutal, like, for instance, killing the crime committer. So, it didn’t really make much of an impact on the lives of the Aztecs. The Aztecs were very good farmers. They used a tactic called irrigation so that crops could be grown all through the year. They also made “floating gardens” very ingeniously. They firmly anchored the soil by growing trees, and, in the shallow areas of the lake, made the gardens.

STEP 2::

The land that they were living on now was filled with snakes and was not a very comfortable place to live in. Yet, Tenochtitlan did extremely well, seeing as their living conditions were not the best. They grew crops, build palaces, causeways, fought wars to get human sacrifices from the enemies so now even the Gods would be happy with them

STEP 3::

The Aztec religion was a complex one, as it was a mix of many cultures and religions put together. The land was mostly conquered from neighboring places, so the cultures were varied. The three main Gods of the religion were Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl. The Aztec religion had the Gods at different levels. The three Gods mentioned above are at the topmost level. Below them are four other Gods who were not involved with human activity. And, at the bottom most level were millions of other Gods, some of them who were important, such as Tlaloc, Chalchihuitlicue and Xipe.

 Huitzilopochtli

Huitzilopochtli, in actuality means “Hummingbird on the Left.” He was the main patron God of the Mexicas. He was the one that took the Aztecs on their journey from Aztlan to present day
Mexico City. He was the god of war, and the people under his education were very successful and became the most powerful group in
Central America during the Postclassic period. Even Huitzilopochtli’s family members were prominent Gods. His father was Coatlicue, his sister was Coyolxauhqui. Templo Mayor was a temple built in his honor, and really signifies him – its shows that warfare and tribute were important for the economic growth of the Aztecs. There was a main ceremony held in his honor in the Aztec month of Panquetzaliztli.

Coyolxauhqui

There is a story that really explains Coyolxauhqui’s life. Her mother was Coatlicue who was the Earth. Coyolxauhqui was the Goddess of the Moon and of the stars. Once, the Earth miraculously became pregnant because of a ball of feathers that flew down from the sky and tucked itself in the Earth’s stomach. The Moon (Coyolxauhqui) did not like this. So, she plotted with her brothers (the stars) to kill her mother. The one that was actually in the Earth’s womb was none another than Huitzilopochtli. When the Moon and her brothers were just about to kill the Earth, Huitzilopochtli was born, completely equipped for a war with a fire serpent. He threw the Moon down the hill and every time she rolled, she was decapitated. That’s why, every month, the Moon dies, and that shows that she was defeated by the Sun. She is located at the foot of the Templo Mayor.

Tlacoc

Tlaloc means “He who Makes Things Grow.” He was represented by the clean and pure water of the earth and lived in a place where the clouds form – the tallest mountains there were. He was a kind God, yet, he had his mean side too. If anyone disobeyed him, he would punish them by sending lightning, hailstorms, and floods, making sure that all of those “natural” calamities manage to destroy crops. There are many festivals celebrated in his honor, as all the Aztecs believed that it was because of this God that they got their daily staple meals. He too, like all the other main Gods has a shrine devoted to him at Templo Mayor. He is represented by water animals.

Quetzalcoatl His name comes from quetzalli, which means “precious feather,” and coatl, which means “snake.” Basically, when you put these two together, he could be called “Feathered Serpent.” He was also one of the most important Gods of the Aztecs, one of the Gods that were worshipped regularly. He represented the morning and evening star. The morning star is nothing but birth, while the evening star symbolizes death. Quetzalcoatl’s friend was Xolotl, who was a God who had the head of a God. In reality, he is supposed to have gone to the underground, where there were bones of the ones that died over many an ancestor. He went and picked up all these bones, and spread some of his very own blood onto those bones. And, that is how humans came into this universe. There were many different representations of Quetzalcoatl. Some say he was a slightly old man who had a beard; others say he looked like a man wearing a mask consisting of two tubes connected to the mask. And apparently, the wind used to blow through those tubes. There is of course, a temple built in his honor at
Tenochtitlan.

Xipe Totec 

The Aztec Sociiety was not a very complex one to understand. All they had were three main classes – Slaves, the Commoners, and the Nobles.
Slaves:
These were the children that were born to poor parents. But, they did have a chance to get back their freedom. All they had to do, was to be able to escape and reach the royal palace without being stopped by any of the guards. Then, they were given their freedrom instantly.
Commoners:
This was the social groupn with the most number of people. They took part in many of the common tasks such as irrigation, farming, trading etc. They were allowed to work in family land and keep whatever they grew, but, they were all owned by the “big” owners, the ones living in the calpulli (neighborhood). The good thing was that, they were given a lifetime ownership of the land, something which the lower commoners didn’t have. Even the commoners had social stages. There were the commoners, and the peasants. The peasants had to work for the land owners and grow crops for them.
Nobility:
In Aztec society, it was very hard or often impossible to be a noble if you were not born one. They were people that were by birth nobles or priests. There was a social sphere for even the nobilities, where a small amount of families occupied it. These were people that were born nobles, and not the ones that earned it. They were the ones that worked for the governement, in temples as priests, or in the army. There was a specific leader in every group of the nobles. This leader was greatly respected and ruled the nobles until he died.
The nobles were the most respected of all the three in the social classes of the Aztecs.

STEP 5::

The Aztecs were one of many cultures that used pictures grouped together, or individually to make sentences and words. They did not have the concept of using actual letters or words. A whole story could be told by using just one picture that was generally hard to understand. Sometimes they would tell a whole story in one picture that was generally not so easy to understand.

Archaeologists are very pleased to note that Aztec writing is legible, and can be deciphered, though it takes some hard work. The Aztecs were very organized, in the sense that they had a proper writing system that was understandable. Yet, there was one key thing Aztecs lacked while making their writing systems. They did not used to focus on sounding out the words, all they did was find the right pictures to match whatever they were trying to imply. Just as any other writing systems, the Aztecs used their writing for many things, from calendars to diaries, from history to calculation. They used to even record their history, and this fact really helps anthropologists, as they now even know chronological detail. It is said that the Aztecs were the most learned of all the other societies, and now we know why – it is because they understood the need for them to record even the slightest detail of history.

Going back to Aztec basics, they made paper out of the bark from fig trees. They would collect the bark from fig trees using some of the tools that they used during the Aztec times. The tools were not very modern, and it took the Aztecs a lot longer than they would take if they could use any of the modern tools we have today. After collecting the bark, they would pound the bark on some very strong pieces of wood.  

The language the Aztecs spoke was called Nahuatl ( nah-oo-at-al). This is said to not be a very hard language to learn, but has quite a few grammatical rules. But, the structure is a bit complex. In Nahuatl, sentences and words are made by joining a prefix, a root word, and a suffix. That is how ideas are formed.  STEP 6::

The Aztecs could be called geniuses when it comes to the techniques they used to grow food. They used all the techniques farmers use in our generation today. There was terracing, which the Aztecs used to control the water flow and make sure there’s no excess water that can ruin their crop. There was also the slash and burn method that was very popular in the ancient times, and proved to be effective in those times. The Aztecs were quite smart, in the sense that they themselves built an appropriate spot to grow crops in the swamps, called the Chinampas. Chinampas were made out of reed mats and were covered with mudded plants to make the swampy region look like an island and be able to extend the region of growing crops. The way they made the Chinampas was ingenious, and crops grew well too.  

The staple crops for the Aztecs were just the crops that grew in abundance, or, crops that grew by plenty. Their main crops were corn, chili peppers, squash, tomatoes, beans and some other crops that didn’t grow as much, yet were some of the crops that the Aztecs savored.  There were some important economic duties that the Aztecs had to fulfill, and organized trade was one of the main ones. Traders were treated with respect and were looked up to, as they belonged to a high social status, yet, they were not allowed to skip paying tribute. The traders did not hesitate to go to very far lands, and sometimes even traded with the Mayans, or the residents of
Panama.

The Aztecs did not exactly have a specific currency, yet, their basic was cacao beans. Chocolate was a delicacy, and it remains so till today! Cacao beans were their main form of money. Yet, the Aztecs used cotton cloaks, quills, and many more “everyday items.”

STEP 7::

The Aztecs were one of the only American civilizations that fell hard when the Spanish attacked them. The whole conflict was started by Diego Velasquez who served as the Spanish governor of
Cuba. Then came the massive blow. He was a man named Hernan Cortes. He tried to win Velasquez’s support, but couldn’t, so he set sail earlier than planned. Their ingenious plan was to greet the Aztecs with kindness, and while they are being on their “soft” side, the Spanish would attack. And that’s just what happened. The Aztecs were weak, and they got defeated by the clever, cunning Spanish.

STEP 8::

La Malinche, the hated woman. The one the Aztecs would never forgive. Yet, they do not think before they make their decisions. By asking Cortes to talk to the Aztecs, she had just stopped a massacre from occurring. None of the Aztecs see that. Also, she did not join Cortes by her choice, she was forced to, and didn’t have any say about it. Dona
Marina now slowly comes into the picture as the interpreter for Cortes. La Malinche was just the title given to Dona
Marina. Without his “right hand girl” Cortes would have definitely not been able to accomplish this conquest. She was one of the most respected women – for her fearless, brave arritude. The Aztecs did not like this woman and the Spanish absolutely adored her.

Sai :]