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Mexico
The Aztecs
The Aztecs were the native American people who
dominated northern México at the time of the Spanish
conquest led by Hernan Cortes in the early 16th century.
According to their own legends, they originated from a
place called Aztlan, somewhere in north or northwest
Mexico. At that time the Aztecs (who referred to
themselves as the Mexica or Tenochca) were a small,
nomadic, Nahuatl-speaking aggregation of tribal peoples
living on the margins of civilized Mesoamerica. In the
12th century they embarked on a period of wandering and
in the 13th century settled in the central basin of
México. Continually dislodged by the small city-states
that fought one another in shifting alliances, the
Aztecs finally found refuge on small islands in Lake
Texcoco where, in 1325, they founded the town of
TENOCHTITLAN (modern-day Mexico City). The term Aztec,
originally associated with the migrant Mexico, is today
a collective term, applied to all the peoples linked by
trade, custom, religion, and language to these founders.
Fearless warriors and pragmatic builders, the
Aztecs created an empire during the 15th century that
was surpassed in size in the Americas only by that of
the Incas in Peru. As early texts and modern archaeology
continue to reveal, beyond their conquests and many of
their religious practices, there were many positive
achievements:
the formation of a highly specialized and stratified
society and an imperial administration
the expansion of a trading network as well as a
tribute system
the development and maintenance of a sophisticated
agricultural economy, carefully adjusted to the land
the cultivation of an intellectual and religious
outlook that held society to be an integral part of
the cosmos.
The yearly round of rites and ceremonies in the
cities of Tenochtitlan and neighboring Tetzcoco, and
their symbolic art and architecture, gave expression to
an ancient awareness of the interdependence of nature
and humanity.
The Aztecs remain the most extensively documented
of all Amerindian civilizations at the time of European
contact in the 16th century. Spanish friars, soldiers,
and historians and scholars of Indian or mixed descent
left invaluable records of all aspects of life. These
ethnohistoric sources, linked to modern archaeological
inquiries and studies of ethnologists, linguists,
historians, and art historians, portray the formation
and flourishing of a complex imperial state.
Words: 378
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