Table Of ContentCASE STUDIES IN
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
GENERAL EDITORS
George and Louise Spindier
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
THE AZTECS OF CENTRAL MEXICO
An Imperial Society
THE AZTECS OF
CENTRAL MEXICO
An Im perial Society
By
FRANCES F. BERDAN
California State College, San Bernardino
HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO PHILADELPHIA
MONTREAL TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY TOKYO
MEXICO CITY RIO DE JANEIRO MADRID
Credits
León-Portilla, Miguel. Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico. Norman : University of Oklahoma
Press, 1969. Copyright © 1969 by the University of Oklahoma Press, publishing division
of the University.
León-Portilla, Miguel. Aztec Thought and Culture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1963. Copyright © 1963 by the University of Oklahoma Press, publishing division of the
University.
Duran, Fray Diego. Book of the Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar (transi, and ed.
by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971.
Copyright © 1971 by the University of Oklahoma Press, publishing divisioú of the Uni
versity.
Zorita, Alonso de. Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the
Lords of New Spain (transi, and with introduction by Benjamin Keen). New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1963. Copyright © 1963 by Rutgers, the State
University. Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. The Florentine Codex: A General History of the Things of New
Spain, Book 2, The Ceremonies (transi, by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson).
Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah,
1951.
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. The Florentine Codex: A General History of the Things of New
Spain, Book 4, The Soothsayers (transi, by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson).
Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah,
1957.
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. The Florentine Codex: A General History of the Things of New
Spain, Book 6, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy (transi, by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur
J. O. Anderson). Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the Uni
versity of Utah, 1969.
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. The Florentine Codex: A General History of the Things of New
Spain, Book 8, Kings and Lords (transi, by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble).
Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah,
1969.
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. The Florentine Codex: A General History of the Things of New
Spain, Book 10, The People (transi, by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson).
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University
of Utah, 1961.
Figs. 1-3, 1-4: Reproduced by permission of the Society for American Archaeology from
American Antiquity 37(1) :108, 109, 1972.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Berdan, Frances F.
The Aztecs of Central Mexico.
(Case studies in cultural anthropology)
Bibliography: p. 189
1. Aztecs. I. Title. II. Series.
F1219.73.B47 972\01 81-7055
ISBN 0-03-055736-4 AACR2
Copyright © 1982 by CBS College Publishing
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CBS COLLEGE PUBLISHING
Holt, Rinehart and Winston
The Dryden Press
Saunders College Publishing
Foreword
ABOUT THE SERIES
These case studies in cultural anthropology are designed to bring to students,
in beginning and intermediate courses in the social sciences, insights into the rich
ness and complexity of human life as it is lived in different ways and in different
places. They are written by men and women who have lived in the societies they
write about and who are professionally trained as observers and interpreters of
human behavior. The authors are teachers, and in writing their books they have
kept the students who will read them foremost in their minds. It is our belief that
when an understanding of ways of life very different from one’s own is gained, ab
stractions and generalizations about social structure, cultural values, subsistence
techniques, and the other universal categories of human social behavior become
meaningful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frances F. Berdan was born in Wellsville, New York, in 1944. She received
her B.A. degree in geography at Michigan State University ( 1965 ) and her Ph.D.
degree in anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin ( 1975 ). Dr. Berdan
has engaged in archaeological field research in the American Southwest, participated
in ethnographic research in a Mexican peasant community, and conducted archival
research in Mexico City and Seville, Spain. She has published numerous articles on
Aztec culture and society and co-authored a book on colonial period Nahuad docu
ments (Beyond the Codices, 1976). She is presendy involved in completing a
monograph on the Aztec imperial economic system, co-authoring a second book on
colonial Nahuad documentation, and researching the linguistic and cultural bases
of the Aztec hieroglyphic writing system. Dr. Berdan is currendy associate professor
and chair of the Department of Anthropology at California State College, San
Bernardino, is married, and has two children.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This case study is about the Aztecs of Central Mexico, a people who
dominated a vast area of what is now Mexico by the time the Spanish conquista
dors arrived in A.D. 1519, but who had humble beginnings as despised nomads.
The story of the confrontation and the defeat of the Aztecs by the small force of
Spaniards led by Hernán Cortes is told in the last chapter.
The larger part of this book is devoted to an ethnographic reconstruction of
Aztec culture as it flourished in the period immediately preceding the Conquest.
It is based upon a variety of documents, in Nahuad and in Spanish, most of which
were written immediately or soon after the Conquest. Although this case study is
v
yi FOREWORD
based on documents produced by others, the reconstruction of Aztec life is as vivid
and detailed as though it were the product of direct participation-observation, as
most ethnographies are.
The richness and complexity of Aztec life in its aesthetic, ideological, and
material dimensions is beautifully developed in this case study. For many potential
readers the fact that the Aztecs sacrificed thousands of lives in religious ceremonies
has loomed so large that the other dimensions of Aztec life have been overshadowed
or even obliterated. This study provides detailed information on occupational special
ization, the role of merchants and artisans, modes of production, the marketplace,
social class, kinship, education, etiquette, morals, marriage, social control and law,
warfare, religion, the calendric system, medicine, literature and music, and many
other aspects of the Aztec way of life. Human sacrifice and cannibalism are
discussed in the perspective of opposing interpretations of both their magnitude
and their significance.
This study is essential reading for anyone interested in native life in the New
World. Aztec culture was complex and sophisticated, rivaling the high cultures
of the Old World. This culture and the other centers of cultural development in
Mesoamerica and South America, such as the Mayas and Incas, had far ranging
influences on cultural development elsewhere in the New World. In fact, some
interpreters argue that the indigenous North American cultures represented, in
varying degrees, diminished cultural complexes; human sacrifice among the Pawnee,
the "priest-temple-idol cult" among the Natchez, and the Feast of the Dead among
the Iroquois are believed to have originated from the Aztec or other high Central
American cultures. Although these diffusionist interpretations have been challenged,
and by many interpreters discarded, the profound influence of Aztec and other
complex state societies on the cultural development of the rest of the Americas
cannot be denied. An understanding of Aztec culture, therefore, is essential to
understanding other cultural developments in the Americas.
Aztec culture, however, is so interesting in itself that no extraneous justification
is needed for its study. Never again will any human culture replicate even the
outlines of this unusual way of life.
We are fortunate to have this reconstruction of pre-conquest Aztec life readily
available. Other available literature tends to be either too massive or technical for
anyone but a specialist or highly motivated aficionado to assimilate, or too super
ficial to be adequate for class use. This study by Professor Berdan achieves a fine
balance between complexity and simplicity. She does not avoid the complexities
and contradictions of Aztec culture but writes about them in understandable
language. The result is both a contribution to the serious literature on pre-conquest
Mexico and an excellent text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in
ethnology, cultural anthropology, world ethnography, ethnohistory, New World
history, and other courses in the social sciences and in history, religion, and
philosophy. It is also a fine and informative book for the general reader interested
in human cultures.
GEORGE AND LOUISE SPINDLER
General Editors
Calistoga, California
Preface
Seeking an ever broader understanding of mankind, anthropologists have
trekked to remote corners of the globe, excavated deep into the earth, and pene
trated the complexities of urban life. More recently anthropologists have also
begun to probe historical documents for ethnographic data, and with considerable
success. In fact, for some societies, the investigator is almost entirely restricted to
written documents for information. This is the case with the Aztecs of pre-
Spanish, sixteenth-century Mexico.
Although supported by some archaeological evidence, knowledge of the culture
portrayed in The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society leans heavily on
documents composed for the most part during and immediately following the
Spanish conquest in 1521. These documents include a tremendous amount and
variety of written material: pictorial manuscripts painted in pre-conquest style,
eye-witness reports of the Spanish conquest, detailed ethnographic data collected
by Spanish friars from Indian nobles, and much ’local-level” documentation, such
as wills, tax records, correspondence, and other documents generated by various
kinds of disputes between persons or communities.
This is, therefore, an historical ethnography. It is drawn not from the direct
experience of the author but is based on accounts written by others, others who
were not, and did not intend to be, anthropologists. Thus, it is also interpretive
history. This implies certain problems. One is the selective nature of the documenta
tion: It tends to emphasize certain aspeas of life, while barely touching on many
other areas of interest to the ethnographer. Beyond seleaivity, even documents
which abundantly record particular areas of life sometimes leave considerable gaps
in specific information; or several documents recording the same category of
information may leave behind a trail of confusing contradiaions. And since the
vast' bulk of the documentation regarding the Aztecs was created after the arrival
of the Spaniards, some of the documents reflea Indian adaptations to new condi
tions, rather than pre-Spanish Indian life.
To minimize these problems, an attempt has been made here to draw on as wide
an array of documentation as possible: formal and informal, Nahuatl and Spanish,
state level and local level, piaorial and textual. Quotations from original sources
are used extensively to provide cultural insights and to maintain the special flavor
of the original documentation.
The goal is to provide an overall understanding of Aztec culture. This poses
a particular challenge in a society as heterogeneous and complex as the Aztec
empire. Despite its limitations, the documentation allows a detailed analysis of the
major themes underlying Aztec culture, refleaed in highly diverse phenomena
such as settlement patterns, warfare, legal codes, ceremonies, human sacrifice,
formal education, and the aeative arts. The cultural themes were given unique
content by the people themselves, each bringing a special flavor to traditional roles
vii
viii PREFACE
and activities. An appreciation of the broad variety and diversity of life en
compassed under the rubric "Aztec” is a particular concern in this book. Whether
noble or commoner, male or female, young or old, merchant or artisan, urbanite or
rural dweller, each person had different roles in, and orientations to, the shared
culture.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kind support and assistance 1 have
received from many quarters in developing this book. Over the years my under
standing of Aztec culture has been continually refined and enriched by Dr. H. B.
Nicholson of UCLA, who has always given generously of his time and knowledge
and has helped instill in me a strong appreciation of the potential of primary
ethnohistorical sources. Likewise, Dr. James Lockhart of UCLA has consistently
been a stimulating and insightful colleague, especially enhancing my understanding
of life in early colonial Mexico. Dr. Patricia Anawalt has been an extremely suppor
tive and wise colleague and critic and has generously shared her extensive knowl
edge and resources. I would also like to express my gratitude to Drs. George and
Louise Spindler. Their encouragement and constructive suggestions have con
tributed greatly to the final form of this book.
Bruce Compton provided many hours of invaluable assistance in the details of
manuscript production and in rendering the maps. My grateful thanks also go to
Chris Rasmussen for her perseverance, dedication, and skill in typing the manu
script. Earl Jamgochian and Peter Bradford photographed and produced the
illustrations—their accommodating and talented services are gratefully acknowl
edged. I would also like to express my gratitude to California State College, San
Bernardino, for providing assistance in the production of the manuscript.
My very special thanks go to my linguist husband, Bob, who spent endless
hours discussing, reading, and editing drafts of this book, and who provided
strong intellectual and moral support in bringing this book into final form.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
1. Mexico and the Mexica
Origin of the Mexica and Arrival in Central Mexico 3
Historical Background of the Aztec Empire 7
Urban Settlement and Organization 10
2. Economic Organization
Modes of Food Production 15
Division of Labor and Occupational Specialization 26
Craft Production
Trade and Professional Merchants
Political, Military, and Religious Occupations
Service and Other Occupations
Tribute and Trade 35
Tribute
Marketplace Exchange
3. Social Structure and Dynamics
Social Class Structure 45
Tlatoque, or "Rulers”
Tetecutin, or "Chiefs”
Pipiltin, or "Sons of Nobility”
Provincial Nobility
Macehualtin, or "Commoners,” and Calpulli Organization
Mayeque, or "Rural Tenants”
Tlacotin, or "Slaves”
Social Mobility
Kinship, Family, and Domestic Life 66
Marriage Rules
Residence and Household Composition
Inheritance
4. Daily Life
Cultural Codes, Daily Life, and Interpersonal Relations 73
Life Cycle and Education 81
Pregnancy and Birth
X CONTENTS
Childhood
Formal Education
Marriage
Old Age
Death and Conceptions of the Afterlife
Social Control and Law 96
5. Imperial Politics and Warfare 99
Rulership and Government 99
Warfare and Conquest 105
Human Sacrifice 111
6. Religious Organization and Beliefs 119
Mythology and Legend: The Structure of the Universe 120
The Dynamics of Creation
The Organization of the Universe
The Deities and Their Domains 124
Celestial Creativity—Divine Paternalism
Rain—Moisture—Agricultural Fertility
War—Sacrifice—Sanguinary Nourishment of the Sun and Earth
The Priestly Hierarchy 130
Priestly Ranks
Religious Duties and Activities
Rites and Ceremonies 133
Divination, Magic, and Omens: The Role of Fate 139
Divination and Beneficial Magic
Sorcery
Omens
7. Intellectual and Artistic Achievements 143
Cdendrics and the Reckoning of Time 144
The Solar Calendar
The Ritual Calendar
The Calendar Round and Astronomical Calculations
Mexica Medicine 148
Hieroglyphic Writing 150
Sculpture and the Luxury Crafts 151
Sculpture *
The Luxury Crafts: Gold, Feathers, and Mosaics
Literature and Music 155
Poetry
Songs and Hymns
Prose: Chronicles and Narratives
8. The Consequences of Conquest 159
Arrival of the Spaniards 160
The Conquest 164
