Aztec Empire I │The Origin Of The Aztec

The Aztecs lived without plague, without a lack of food, and without equals. This should have been the closest anyone had ever come until then to creating a paradise. And yet they waged constant war, practiced cannibalism, and sacrificed thousands of people alive every year. How did the civilization create such a mix of peaceful paradise and violent brutality? In this series, we're going to look at the Aztecs from their mythical past to the rise of their civilization and until they failed the test of time. We're not just going to look at their military accomplishments. We're going to look at their politics, their culture, and their economics. And we're going to analyse how their policies in these matters turned them into the dominant empire in the region and why it wasn't another empire that rose instead. We don't know a lot about the Aztec people before they founded their civilization. That's because one of their kings decided to burn all the codexes detailing the origin of the Aztec people. But luckily, another king later tried to recover this part of their history. But that too was burned when the Spanish arrived. Therefore, their history is rooted in myth and legend, with various sources scraped together over time from Spanish priests who spoke with the locals to a recovered codex here and there. So we do know some things about their past. The Aztecs came from the plains of what is currently northern Mexico. According to the mythology, the Aztec people originated on the island of Aztlan. Aztec literally means people of Aztlan. Eventually, their most important god commanded them to leave Aztlan to travel to a land of paradise where they would receive good weather and bountiful harvests. The name of this god was Huitzilopochtli, the sun god. He is comparable to Amun-Ra, Jupiter, or Odin. It is this god who would guide the Aztec people on their journey to a promised land. The migration lasted for centuries. Each time they would settle a location for a few years or a few decades and then move on. How the Aztec priests would interpret the will of Huitzilopochtli directly affected how the people would live and had ripple effects throughout the Aztec history that may not be obvious at first. For example, on their journey, the Aztecs tell of a land named Tolan. Here the priests built an altar in honour of their faithful god. Huitzilopochtli advised his priests to go down the hill to an area of meadows and construct a dam to block any water going out. This created the first artificial lagoon recorded in Mesoamerican history. Many animals came to this lagoon, such as wild ducks, hummingbirds, and an array of fish. The Aztec people were so happy with this easy abundance of food that they formed a sedentary lifestyle and no longer honoured Huitzilopochtli. They went as far as to ask the priests to just give up on this whole migration thing and take the land of Tolan instead. But one night, lightning rocked the land of Tolan and in the morning the Aztec people woke up to find the bodies of those who had forsaken Huitzilopochtli. Their bodies were mutilated, their chests lay open, and their hearts had been ripped out. Today, scholars mainly see this story as a mythological account of a real event, a bloody struggle between two groups for leadership of the Aztec tribe. But this event made something clear to the Aztec people, Huitzilopochtli wanted blood sacrifices. From now on, the Aztec high priests would offer human sacrifices and extract human hearts for their god to appease his anger. And so, with all opposition to the great migration dead, the Aztec continued their journey until they arrived at Lake Texcoco. And it's the arrival at Lake Texcoco where we finally get some written historical records. Upon their arrival at the lake, they discovered a civilisation far more sophisticated than their own. Cities, a feudal system, and large temples. What is often overlooked in history is what was there in Central America before the Aztec civilisation arose. When I was in school, I was taught that the Aztecs were the first civilisation in that region. But this isn't so. There were already cities everywhere, going as far back as Teotihuacan. Some were independent while others were part of larger kingdoms and paid taxes to a central city in exchange for protection. This society was in many ways similar to that of medieval Europe. And when the Aztec decided to settle this land, the locals were very displeased. You see, the people in this region practiced something called land ownership, a new concept to the Aztecs. So the nobles of other towns and cities weren't particularly happy with a bunch of immigrants from North America coming south to take their land. On the advice of their god Wichita Lopochtli, the Aztec constructed a town, erected solid walls, and elected a warrior to become their leader. This would set a major precedent. For all future leaders of the Aztec would be warriors. A decision that would, over time, make the Aztecs expansionist. This warrior leader taught his people to craft weapons to defend themselves with. And so the Aztec people evolved from a religious and agricultural society into a militarily aggressive society. As the hostilities became worse, the Aztec decided to teach all the men, women, and children how to use all sorts of weaponry to defend their tribe. Over time the surrounding kingdoms would fight several battles with the Aztec tribe until these kingdoms decided to kill all the Aztec in an ambush. But the Aztecs instead ambushed their ambushers, ripped out their beating hearts, and offered them to the sun god Wichita Lopochtli. And after a few more battles decided that maybe it was a good time to leave this area. On the advice of Wichita Lopochtli, the Aztecs sent a diplomatic envoy to the next king whose land they wanted to settle. This land was ruled by the kingdom of Colhuacan. They asked the king for land and were given a patch of inhospitable land with barren soil and poisonous animals. They eventually managed to build a town, turn the ground fertile, and settle into a life of But Wichita Lopochtli, who had become not just the sun god but also the god of human sacrifice and war, didn't like the sound of a peaceful and quiet life. He ordered his people to attack their Colhuacan overlords. The Aztec were crafty and sent an emissary to ask for the hand of the king's daughter. She would be crowned as their queen and become the bride of their god Wichita Lopochtli. And the king agreed to this marriage. When the princess arrived at the tribe for their wedding ceremony, the priests took her by her hand and brought her to the temple of her future husband. There, four priests tore off her clothes. A fifth priest emerged with a flint knife. He held the knife in the air and cut open her chest. With one hand he reached into her still living body, grabbed her heart and ripped it out of her chest. That night, after dinner, that same priest appeared before the king, wearing the skin of his daughter. This spectacle enraged the king and he ordered all of his people who were there for the wedding to kill every last Aztec. His daughter will be avenged. The ensuing battle was a disastrous defeat for the Aztec. What remained of their population fled to an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. In their desperation, they sought the counsel of Wichita Lopochtli once more and he told them that their migration was nearly at an end. They were almost at their destination. The Aztecs would have their homeland. Wichita Lopochtli told them to look for a rock with a cactus on top. On top of that cactus, they would find an eagle nesting and devouring a serpent. After some searching, the Aztecs finally found it and named their new city Tenochtitlan, meaning Place of the Cactus on the Rock. At last, the long journey of the Aztec had ended in 1325. Their god had shown them the promised land. He told them to build a city here and to start claiming ownership of all the lands that surrounded them. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more videos like it. My next video will cover the Aztecs as they try to turn their little tribe into a proper kingdom. If you want to see that and other videos as soon as they come out, press the subscribe button.