The

Awesome

Aztecs

History

The Aztec tribe lived in ancient

Mexico for about 400 years.

For the first 200 years, the Aztecs

were constantly on the move. No

one wanted the Aztecs as

neighbors. The Aztecs practiced

human sacrifice. They believed that

if their gods were not fed, they

would not do their jobs. The sun

god would not bring up the sun,

and everyone would die.

Religion

To keep their gods happy, the Aztecs believed

that human sacrifice was necessary. They used

people to feed their hungry gods.

Some of the people they sacrificed

were Aztecs. However, most of

the people they sacrificed were

captured from neighboring tribes.

This did not make them popular

with their neighbors. Sooner or later,

their neighbors would band together to

chase the Aztecs away.

Settlement

When the Aztecs first arrived in the Valley of

Mexico, other tribes were already living on

the best land in the area.

This time, rather than fight for the best land

or for captives to feed their hungry gods,

the Aztecs quietly settled along the

swampy shores of Lake Texcoco.

They built canoes so they could fish, hunt

waterfowl, and trade with other tribes

for the building materials they needed.

The capital city of

the Aztecs was at

Tenochtitlan, what is

today Mexico City,

and the extent of

their empire

covered almost all

of what is today

Mexico.

At the time of

Spanish conquest,

the capital was a

cosmopolitan city,

with different

ethnic groups from

all over Mexico.

Language

Náhuatl (pronounced NAH-wah-tuhl) was

the language spoken by the Aztec/Mexica,

and it is still spoken today by thousands of

people, mainly in Central Mexico.

Finally, many Nahuatl words have passed

into the English dictionary through

Spanish, such as coyote, chocolate,

tomato, chili, cacao, avocado and many

others.

The state

language,

Nahuatl, allowed

for a written

documentation

that was kept on

bark cloth

manuscripts (most

of which were

destroyed by the

Spanish).

Chocolate

The Aztecs attributed the creation of the cocoa

plant to their god Quetzalcoatl who, descended

from heaven on a beam of a morning star carrying

a cocoa tree stolen from paradise. In both the

Mayan and Aztec cultures cocoa was the basis for

a thick, cold, unsweetened drink called xocoatl…

believed to be a health elixir. Since sugar was

unknown to the Aztecs, different spices were used

to add flavor, even hot chili peppers and corn meal

were used!

Free School for Everyone

To build the city they wanted, they

knew that they would need many

engineers, builders, and traders. This

required an educated population. To

solve this problem, the Aztecs set up

a system of public schools.

Attendance was mandatory for all

Aztec children, even girls and slaves.

The Aztecs were the only people up

to that time in history to have free

schools that every child had to attend.

All students were trained to be

specialists in whatever they did.