Social and Cultural History

Nobles and Commoners

Elite status in Aztec society was inherited and regulated by law, and therefore the Aztec elite class fits the definition of a nobility.^[1729] Kingship was hereditary, but not through primogeniture; kings were elected—from eligible nobles of royal descent— by a royal council.

Nobles differed from commoners in terms of wealth, status, and power. Nobles owned most of the land and controlled the government at the city-state and im­perial levels. Their privileges, as defined by a series of imperial decrees, included closer relations with the emperor and use of a number of sumptuary goods, from two-story houses to forms of clothing and jewelry. Although many documentary sources, derived from noble informants, suggest a simple and bleak life for Aztec commoners, archaeological excavations of commoner houses paint a different story. Even at rural villages, all commoners had access to a variety and abundance of imported goods. Not only did people obtain much of their pottery and most of their cutting tools from distant sources, but expensive exotic items—such as greenstone or crystal jewelry, and bronze tools and ornaments—are also regularly recovered at excavated commoner houses, although in lower frequencies than at elite houses.^[1732] Access to markets was widespread in both urban and rural contexts, allowing elites and commoners alike to obtain large numbers of consumer goods, often from dis­tant sources.

The expansion of the Aztec Empire probably served to reinforce social class differences, with most of the socially detrimental effects falling on commoners and the benefits going to the nobility. Most soldiers were commoners, and imperial taxes fell most strongly on the commoner class. Most conquered polities already had functioning tax systems, which the empire tapped into. The net effect of the imposition of imperial taxes in conquered areas was an increase of the taxes paid by individual households. Although the distinctions between nobles and commoners are clear in both the historical and archaeological records, recent research using the Gini index now permits the level of inequality to be studied quantitatively. By using house size and agricultural field size as measures of household wealth, the concen­tration of wealth in a series of Aztec provincial settlements can be calculated. The Gini index can have values between 0 (complete equality; every household has an equal amount of wealth) and 1 (complete inequality; one household has all of the wealth in a community). The values for Aztec provincial villages are 0.10; small towns have Gini values between 0.40 and 0.50, and the city-state capital Yautepec has a Gini value of 0.33. These results point to inequality levels similar to those in the United States today (0.45).^[1733]

Religion and Empire

During the imperial period, Aztec religion was undergoing processes of synthesis and change. The various deities, myths, rituals, and beliefs were a blend of three his­torical traditions or processes. First, the Aztecs adopted some elements of religion from the long tradition of urban agricultural societies of central Mexico, extending back a millennium to Teotihuacan and beyond. Second, the Mexica and other peo­ples who migrated into central Mexico from a north Mexican homeland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries brought their own deities, beliefs, and practices. Finally, as the Aztec Empire expanded, the kings of Tenochtitlan promoted religious innovations that served to legitimize their rule and imperial expansion.

These three traditions had not been successfully synthesized by 1519, and as a result the religious accounts given to Spanish chroniclers are full of contradictions and a multiplicity of gods and myths. To take just one example, most accounts list Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl as the most powerful creator gods, but a few sources state that Huitzilopochtli, the patron of the Mexica people, was also a powerful high god. This latter position clearly derives from the third tradition mentioned earlier, imperial innovations. Indeed, one source notes that an advisor to the emperor “went around persuading the people that their supreme god was Huitzilopochtli.”^[1734] The complexities and contradictions of Aztec religion are compounded by the fact that no Aztec priest ever explained religious concepts or practices to a European observer. Our knowledge all comes from laymen, not specialists. Major accounts of Aztec religion include Burkhart, Graulich, Dodds Pennock, and the classic study of Leon-Portilla.^[1735]

The religious innovations under the empire were the source of the myths and rituals that celebrated imperial conquest. Enemy soldiers captured in battle were the primary source of victims for rituals of human sacrifice, and the state religion proclaimed it the religious duty of soldiers to fight and to capture enemy soldiers to sacrifice. These myths posited that humans owed a debt to the gods, and that sacrifices and other blood offerings were the primary means of repayment. Some authors have claimed that these beliefs were the major forces driving imperial con- quest,^[1736] a view that does not accord with the facts.

The Imperial Capital

The size and wealth of Tenochtitlan awed the conquering Spaniards.^[1737] The dramatic growth of the island city was a direct consequence of its role as capital of the Aztec Empire. Goods flowed into Tenochtitlan from all over Mesoamerica. They included items of money (cotton textiles and cacao beans), exotic animal products (colorful tropical bird feathers, jaguar skins), luxury goods (jewelry of gold and greenstone), utilitarian goods (pottery, wax), and grains and other food.

At the heart of the city of Tenochtitlan was the sacred precinct, a large walled compound filled with temples, shrines, and other features. Numerous ceremonies took place here, ranging from large public spectacles to secluded rites of the priests. Exotic goods and ritual items were buried in offerings at the central temple, where archaeologists have now excavated many of them.^[1738] The wealth and cosmopol­itan influences of the empire stimulated the production of fine art in Tenochtitlan and nearby cities. New forms of pictorial codices were devised, and stone sculp­ture reached its greatest level of technical and aesthetic development in ancient Mesoamerica. The production of jewelry, ritual ceramic vessels, and other luxury objects increased greatly.^[1739] Much of the artistic production in Tenochtitlan was sponsored by the Mexica emperors, who commissioned monuments, codices, and other items that celebrated their conquests and proclaimed the cosmic destiny of the empire. The new myths glorifying warfare and the empire were illustrated in pictorial codices and sculptures.

When foreign kings and nobles visited Tenochtitlan, they were shown massive imperial sculptures and treated to elaborate feasts and ceremonies where human sacrifices were featured. The Mexica account of their reaction was recorded by the Spanish friar Diego Duran:

They saw that [the Mexica] were masters of the world, their empire so wide and abundant that they had conquered all the nations and that all were their vassals. The guests, seeing such wealth and opulence and such authority and power, were filled with terror.^[1740]

This statement describes the official imperial perspective; it is not an objective de­scription of the reactions of foreigners. While it is possible that friar Duran's ac­count was colored by the Spanish conception of empire, such examples of imperial boasting and propaganda are quite widespread in both documentary sources and imperial artwork. These messages were designed to induce foreign and enemy kings and nobles to cooperate with the empire. Furthermore, in the period after the Spanish conquest, such propaganda also served to celebrate the ancient glories of the Aztec Empire after it had come crashing down, by sword and smallpox, on August 13, 1521.