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Foundation of Aztec
Significance of religion in aztec culture
Foundation of Aztec
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Xipe Totec or “Our Lord the Flayed One” in Náhuatl, was a Mesoamerican god whose origin is uncertain. Xipe Totec might have descended from God VI in Olmec culture or from the Yope civilization in the southern highlands of Guerrero. Xipe Totec was also known as Tlatlauhca, Tlatlauhqui, Red Tezcatlipoca, and Youalahuan. The goddess Xilonen-Chicomecoatl was the female equivalent of Xipe Totec. The first depictions of Xipe Totec first appeared near Teotihuacán in Xolalpan and Texcoco. The deity most likely became a prominent Aztec god during the 15th century due to the Aztec conquest of the Gulf Coast under the reign of Axaycatl. Xipe Totec was a major Aztec god also worshipped by Tlaxcaltecans, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Tarascan, and Huastecs. Xipe Totec was protector of day Cuauhtli and the trecena that starts with 1-Itzcuintli in the Aztec calendar. The Aztec civilization was one that was founded on religion and relied on art to portray their beliefs. Rituals played an important role in keeping their surrounding world thriving and paying homage to their ancestors was key. Xipe Totec was only one of the various gods that the Aztecs honored.
Xipe Totec is the god of shedding skins and therefore usually associated with rejuvenation and springtime. Also believed to be the god that invented war, some of his symbols included the pointed cap and rattle staff, which was also the war attire for the Mexica emperor. In codices Xipe Totec was depicted wearing flayed human skin with the skin of the hands hanging from the wrists. His body is usually painted tan on one side and yellow on the other, along with the legs, hands, neck, lips, and mouth being painted red. The mouth is open, the ears are pierced and the eyes are not visible. Xipe Totec car...
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...and the obsidian blades were replaced with feathers. The captive was forced to fight against a total of five Aztec warriors: two jaguar warriors, two eagle warriors, and a left-handed warrior. The captives would obviously be put at a disadvantage that resulted in them losing the battle and being sacrificed. Priests would pull out the hearts of such captives as offerings to Xipe Totec. Yet during the reign of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin a war captive whose name was Tlahuicole survived the ceremonial battle. Tlahuicole accomplished to prove he was a strong and skillful warrior and was granted his freedom by the emperor. However, he insisted in wanting to be gloriously sacrificed and refused to walk away. This particular style of sacrifice was held outside of Yopico and marked the end of the Tlacaxipehualiztli festival in honor of Xipe Totec.
The religion and culture of the Aztecs played a role in the way the way they thought and fought. They worshiped the war-god Huitzilopochtli. He was identified with the sun and was called "the Giver of life" and "the Preserver of Life" (xxxix). The religion carried some ridiculous rituals such as human sacrifice along with using magicians and wizards to cast spells. In war conditions, human sacrifice played a big role because the Aztecs would not fight to kill,...
Cheech Marin, a comedian actor and activist, said, “You have to want to be Chicano to be Chicano.” What Cheech Marin means by this is that being Chicano is something Chicanos feel and think instead of letting others give them that title. Before there were Aztecs and Chicanos there were the Mexica. The Mexica were natives who migrated all through out what is now known as Mexico. They each spread to different parts of the land. Most ended up in what is now present day Mexico City. Those Mexica later became the Aztecs. The Aztecs had a myth of how the earth and all living things were created. In the myth the Aztec sun god and the goddess of Earth both created all living things. Hence, making all Aztecs royalty. The city was then destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores. Although the Spaniards won the Aztecs didn’t go down without a fight.
Inga Clendinnen's Aztecs:An Interpretation is an outstanding book dealing with investigations into how the Mexica peoples may have veiwed the world in which they lived. From the daily life of a commoner to the explosively, awe inspiring lives of the priests and warriors. Clendinnen has used thoughtful insights and a fresh perspective that will have general readers and specialist readers alike engaged in a powerful and elegantly written interpretation that is hard to put down without reflection upon this lost culture.
Aztecs were tribe. In Chronicler’s Account talked about Spaniards with Aztecs from 1519 to 1521.When the Spaniards arrived in Tenochtitlan, and they bought horses, guns and also smallpox that killed a lot of people there. A Text from the Chronicler’s Account saids “ at about the time that the Spaniards had fled from Mexico….there came a great sickness, a pestilence, the smallpox. It …. spread over the people with great destruction of men.” The Aztec chronicler was trying to be objective in what happened at that time. Aztec Chronicler wrote about struggled in
It is the 1450s. Foreigners have invaded your land, and they’re capturing the citizens living there for their lethal rituals. (Doc. A) You are unlucky enough to find yourself kidnapped, along with your family. Your mother is taken away quickly, but your father is forced to become a human sacrifice for the Aztec gods. What does this mean, exactly? According to The History of the Indies of New Spain by Friar Diego Duran, your father’s chest is severed, and his heart is taken out of his body. This is all while he is still awake, and before the time of pain medication. He slowly bleeds to death on the temple stairways - and you’re watching it all. This sounds terrible, does it not?
The children which were the stars and Coyotxauhqu became jealous and feared that now they would no longer be as important to her and decided the murder her. The children decapitated the Coatlicue which cause the new born child Huitzilopotchi to be born in armor and seek vengeance upon his siblings. He threw his sisters body down the mountain and tossed her head into the air to become the moon. This myth was used by the Aztecs as a metaphors as to why the sun, moon, and stars are how they are now, but also to show how Huitzilopotchi became the sun god telling how the sun and moon came into place. The Aztec people traveled until they found a cactus with an eagle nesting obeying Huilzilopotchli command and settled there which is now known as Tenochtitlan. After the fall of the Aztec, the work was found by Christians and reburied because of the assumption that it represented something evil. The art was not supposed to be viewed as evil but to show the Coatlicue as part human, part earth animal, and animal that represented life and death. The goddess played a
To begin with, the Aztec's cruel tribute system allowed Cortes to act as a liberator. The process of human sacrifice was extremely common and was feared by the majority of the common people. The Aztecs as a nourishment for the Sun and all other gods needed human sacrifice. The Aztecs sacrificed between 10,000 and 50,000 victims per year. As the majority of those who were sacrificed were war captives who opposed the Aztecs, they obviously greatly feared the brutal tribute system. However not only war captives were sacrifices, common adults and children were also sacrificed at times. Cortes himself was disgusted at the thought of human sacrifice, this allowed him to gain Indian allies as well as gain respect among Mexican tribes that feared and opposed the Aztecs. The majority of the population feared the process therefore making Cortes, whom despised the process, an appealing alternative. Many followed Cortes as they shared the same views on the 'human sacrifice' topic.
The Aztec gods and goddesses, not only wanted blood, they wanted living human hearts. The living hearts were considered to nourish the gods and goddesses. All hearts were good, but the bravest captives were to be best nourishing to the gods as a result, widespread warring took place. The Aztec people sought to bring captives back to the Aztec temples for sacrifice. They would sacrifice people in name of the gods.
Cortés went to Tenochtitlan in mid-August 1519, along with 600 soldiers, 15 horsemen, 15 cannons, and hundreds of indigenous carriers and warriors. On the way to Tenochtitlan, Cortés made alliances with indigenous peoples such as the Totonacs of Cempoala and the Nahuas of Tlaxcala. The Otomis initially, and then the Tlaxcalans fought the Spanish a series of three battles from 2 Sept. to 5 Sept. 1519, After Cortés continued to release prisoners with messages of peace, Xicotencatl the Elder, and Maxixcatzin, persuaded the Tlaxcalan warleader, Xicotencatl the Younger, that it would be better to ally with the newcomers than to kill them. On November 8, 1519, they were peacefully received by Moctezuma
The Aztec believed that they were the chosen people by the gods. They were also polytheistic. They too had many gods. They sacrificed humans to please the gods.
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people that lived in the area of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th century. It is said that Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan. Aztlan was the Aztec's homeland, nobody knows exactly where it was, but it is believed that Aztlan lies somewhere to the north of Mexico. Some experts claim that Aztlan is a mythical place. According to Aztec legends Huitzilopochtli, their god of war and of the sun, told them to leave Aztlan and to wander until they saw an eagle on a cactus budding out of a rock and eating a snake. The Aztecs traveled many years to find the legend that Huitzilopochtli had told. They left Aztlan in the 12th century. They built their settlements in the Valley of Mexico by Lake Texcoco. There were other Indian tribes living in the area when the Aztecs arrived. The Aztecs called their settlement Tenochtitlan. By the time they settled after two centuries of voyage they called themselves by a different name, the Mexica, but the term Aztec has been used as a ...
A major element of Aztec life was religion, as often is in the case in ancient civilizations. The Aztecs were a polytheistic people, and they often made use of human sacrifice to please their gods. Diaz often makes reference to the blood-stained walls of the Aztec temples in his account of the conquest. In reference to the success of Cortes and his soldiers, an anci...
The Toltec civilization was one of the greatest Mesoamerican civilizations, prospering between 900 to 1150 CE. The Toltecs preceded the legendary Aztec civilization in Mesoamerica, who regarded them as their “great intellectual and cultural predecessors” (ancient.eu). They played a key role in maintaining the Mesoamerican culture that was passed down by several older civilizations including the Olmec, Teotihuacan, and Mayan civilizations. Much of what is known about the ancient Toltecs is derived from Aztec along with other Mesoamerican texts which document even older oral descriptions of historical events. The accuracy of these events, especially that of the Aztecan documents, has been questioned due to the tendency of the civilization to hyperbolize the feats of the Toltecs by combining historical truths with cultural myths. However, it cannot be argued that the Toltec civilization was vital in preserving the culture and ideology of the Mesoamerican region.
The Aztec civilization was a very complex society that was feared and known well for their various gory sacrifices done to please their many gods in their polytheistic religion. The much feared civilization began by the exile of one of the two Toltec leaders, which lead to the decline of the Toltec state that was later replaced by Mexica, or the Aztecs. According to the Aztecs, the land chosen to build their main city was chosen by the portrayal of an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its mouth. Through military might, the Aztecs managed to become the most powerful civilization in the mid-fourteenth century. They maintained their power through military might and the fear they caused other civilizations because of the human sacrifices they performed on their captured victims. In the mid-fourteenth century, the Aztecs used the method of human sacrifices to uphold fear in their neighbors by using the method year round to please the gods and ensure their survival.
Hernan Cortes along with the Spanish army of five hundred, and thousands of Indian warriors declared war with the Aztecs. Moctezuma believed that the person coming towards his land was Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl who was forced into exile, but promised to return. Topiltzin was born in the year ce acatl, departed during ce acatl. Coincedently Cortes came in the year of ce acatl, unfortunately for Moctezuma having his guards down and his arms open during the start of the war.