What do you know about the year 2012?
Throughout history people have suggested this year will be a major turning point for humanity as a whole.

Who or what might be the cause of this? Can we do anything to predict or change this point in time?

What do you think?
If you follow the parody this site represents then potential competitors are everywhere. Who or what will be the winners and losers in perhaps the biggest game of all time?

Its time for change on earth and that begins with information. Browse the site comment when you feel like it. Spread the word and help begin the revolution…

It’s time for a revolution and we’ve not got long to go!
However it is not all doom and gloom. The point of this site is awareness. Whether you believe something is seriously wrong with the world or not; knowledge is the currency of our time. Read and learn, act, maybe disregard; best of all share. Whichever way approach this site and life with an open mind.

We’ve only just begun to understand a fraction of the infinite possibilities of our existence. Now is the time to look outisde our self created boxes of material items, education and rules.

Do you want a stab at the answer; to the question hanging over all our heads? Then embrace earth2012 and help it grow and change the world for the common good!

“Weaving spiders come not here”—inscription surrounding an owl on a bronze bas-relief plaque built into the brick wall near the corner of Taylor and Post Streets in San Francisco

The Bohemian Club is a prominent private men’s club in San Francisco, California, United States.

Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco.^[1] Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journalists, artists and musicians, it soon began to accept businessmen and entrepreneurs as permanent members, as well as offering temporary membership to university presidents and military commanders who were serving in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Today, the club has a diverse membership of many prominent local and global leaders, ranging from artists and musicians to leading businessmen.

History

Bohemianism

In New York City and other American metropolises in the late 1850s, groups of young, cultured journalists flourished as self-described “bohemians” until the American Civil War broke them up and sent them out as war correspondents.^[2] During the war, reporters began to assume the title “bohemian,” and newspapermen in general took up the moniker. “Bohemian” became synonymous with “newspaper writer”.^[2] California journalist Bret Harte first wrote as “The Bohemian” in The Golden Era in 1861, with this persona taking part in many satirical doings. Harte described San Francisco as a sort of Bohemia of the West.^[3] Mark Twain called himself and poet Charles Warren Stoddard bohemians in 1867.^[2]

The Bohemian Club was originally formed in April 1872 by and for journalists who wished to promote a fraternal connection among men who enjoyed the arts. M. H. de Young, proprietor of the San Francisco Chronicle, provided this description of its formation in a 1915 interview:

The Bohemian Club was organized in the Chronicle office by Tommy Newcombe, Sutherland, Dan O’Connell, Harry Dam and others who were members of the staff. The boys wanted a place where they could get together after work, and they took a room on Sacramento street below Kearny. That was the start of the Bohemian Club, and it was not an unmixed blessing for the Chronicle because the boys would go there sometimes when they should have reported at the office. Very often when Dan O’Connell sat down to a good dinner there he would forget that he had a pocketful of notes for an important story.^[4]

Journalists were to be regular members; artists and musicians were to be honorary members.^[5] The group quickly relaxed its rules for membership to permit some people to join who had little artistic talent, but enjoyed the arts and had greater financial resources. Eventually, the original “bohemian” members were in the minority and the wealthy and powerful controlled the club.^[6] Club members who were established and successful, respectable family men, defined for themselves their own form of bohemianism which included men who were bons vivants, sometime outdoorsmen, and appreciators of the arts.^[3] Club member and poet George Sterling responded to this redefinition:

Any good mixer of convivial habits considers he has a right to be called a Bohemian. But that is not a valid claim. There are two elements, at least, that are essential to Bohemianism. The first is devotion or addiction to one or more of the Seven Arts; the other is poverty. Other factors suggest themselves: for instance, I like to think of my Bohemians as young, as radical in their outlook on art and life; as unconventional, and, though this is debatable, as dwellers in a city large enough to have the somewhat cruel atmosphere of all great cities.^[7]

Despite his purist views, Sterling associated very closely with the Bohemian Club, and caroused with artist and industrialist alike at the Bohemian Grove.^[7]

Membership

A number of past membership lists are in public domain,^[5] but modern club membership lists are private. Some prominent figures have been given honorary membership, such as Richard Nixon and William Randolph Hearst. Members have included some U.S. presidents (usually before they are elected to office), many cabinet officials, and CEOs of large corporations, including major financial institutions. Major military contractors, oil companies, banks (including the Federal Reserve), utilities, and national media have high-ranking officials as club members or guests. Many members are, or have been, on the board of directors of several of these corporations; however, artists and lovers of art are among the most active members. The club’s bylaws require about one quarter of the membership be accomplished artists of all types (composers, musicians, singers, actors, lighting artists, painters, authors, etc). Artistic members are admitted after passing a stringent audition demonstrating their talent.

Bohemian Grove

The club’s mascot owl cast in masonry perched over the main entrance at 624 Taylor. The owl is flanked by the letters B and C and surrounded by words of the club’s motto

Every year the club hosts a two week long (three weekends) camp at Bohemian Grove, which is notable for its illustrious guest list and its eclectic Cremation of Care ceremony which mockingly burns “Care” (the normal woes of life) with grand pageantry, pyrotechnics and brilliant costumes, all done at the edge of a lake and at the base of a forty-foot ’stone’ owl statue. In addition to that ceremony, there are also two outdoor performances (dramatic and comedic plays), often with elaborate set design and orchestral accompaniment. The more elaborate of the two is the Grove Play, or High Jinks, the more ribald is called Low Jinks.^[8] More often than not, the productions are original creations of the Associate members but active participation of hundreds of members of all backgrounds is traditional.^[9]

Bill Clinton heckler

On October 26, 2007, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, former President Bill Clinton was heckled during a speech by a man claiming that the September 11 attacks were a fraud and mentioning the Bohemian Club. Clinton denied the 9/11 claim and then sarcastically added, “Did you say the Bohemian Club? That’s where all those rich Republicans go up and stand naked against redwood trees right? I’ve never been to the Bohemian Club but you oughta go. It’d be good for you. You’d get some fresh air.” The heckler was escorted out of the hall as Clinton made his remarks.^[10]

See also

San Francisco Bay Area portal

• List of Bohemian Club members
• Belizean Grove — Women’s only club in New York City modeled after the Bohemian Grove
• List of American gentlemen’s clubs
• The Family (club)

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Bohemian Club. Constitution, By-laws, and Rules, Officers, Committees, and Members, 1904
• Bohemian Club. Semi-centennial high jinks in the Grove, July 28, 1922. Haig Patigian, Sire.
• Bohemian Club. History, officers and committees, incorporation, constitution, by-laws and rules, former officers, members, in memoriam, 1960
• Bohemian Club. History, officers and committees, incorporation, constitution, by-laws and rules, former officers, members, in memoriam, 1962
• Domhoff, G. William. Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling-Class Cohesiveness, Harper & Row, 1975. ISBN 0061318809
• Dulfer & Hoag. Our Society Blue Book, San Francisco, Dulfer & Hoag, 1925.
• Garnett, Porter, The Bohemian Jinks: A Treatise, 1908
• Ogden, Dunbar H.; Douglas McDermott, Robert Károly Sarlós (1990). Theatre West: Image and Impact. Rodopi. ISBN 9051831250. http://books.google.com/books?id=96lCI145-38C. 
• Parry, Albert. (2005.) Garretts & Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America, Cosimo, Inc. ISBN 159605090X

External links

• A labor dispute involving the Bohemian Club

Aztec Empire Also known as Aztec Triple Alliance 1325–1521 → Capital Tenochtitlan Language(s) Nahuatl Religion Aztec religion Government Hegemonic Empire Tlatoani  - 1376–1395 Acamapichtli  - 1520–1521 Cuauhtémoc Historical era Pre-Columbian  - Tenochtitlan is founded March 13, 1325 1325  - Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire August 13, 1521 1521 Area 500,000 km2 (193,051 sq mi) Currency Various currencies

Aztec civilization
Aztec society
Nahuatl language
Religion · Mythology · Philosphy · Calendars
Human sacrifice · Medicine
Aztec history
Aztlán · Codices · Warfare
Aztec Triple Alliance
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
Fall of Tenochtitlan · La Noche Triste
Moctezuma II · Hernán Cortés
v • d • e

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.

Often the term “Aztec” refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan, situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mexica Tenochca or Colhua-Mexica. Sometimes the term also includes the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan’s two principal allied city-states, the Acolhuas of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, who together with the Mexica formed the Aztec Triple Alliance which has also become known as the “Aztec Empire”.

In other contexts, Aztec may refer to all the various city states and their peoples, who shared large parts of their ethnic history as well as many important cultural traits with the Mexica, Acolhua and Tepanecs, and who like them, also spoke the Nahuatl language. In this meaning it is possible to talk about an Aztec civilization including all the particular cultural patterns common for the Nahuatl speaking peoples of the late postclassic period in Mesoamerica.

From the 13th century Valley of Mexico was the core of Aztec civilization: here the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance, the city of Tenochtitlan, was built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco. The Triple Alliance formed its tributary empire expanding its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of Mexico, conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica.

At its pinnacle Aztec culture had rich and complex mythological and religious traditions, as well as reaching remarkable architectural and artistic accomplishments.

In 1521, in what is probably the most widely known episode in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Hernán Cortés, along with a large number of Nahuatl speaking indigenous allies, conquered Tenochtitlan and defeated the Aztec Triple Alliance under the leadership of Hueyi Tlatoani Moctezuma II; In the series of events often referred to as “The Fall of the Aztec Empire“. Subsequently the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the ruined Aztec capital.

Aztec culture and history is primarily known:

• From archaeological evidence as it is found in excavations such as that of the renowned Templo Mayor in Mexico City and many others.
• From indigenous bark paper codices.
• From eyewitness accounts by Spanish conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo.
• And especially from 16th and 17th century descriptions of Aztec culture and history written by Spanish clergymen and literate Aztecs in the Spanish or Nahuatl language, such as the famous Florentine Codex compiled by the Franciscan monk Bernardino de Sahagún with the help of indigenous Aztec informants.

Nomenclature

Sculpture commemorating the moment when Aztecs found the sign from the god Huitzilopochtli

The name Aztec comes from Nahuatl: aztēcah, plural of aztēcatl ‘person from Aztlān (Aztlán).

According to the mythico-historical Aubin codex, seven Nahua tribes lived in Aztlán under the rule of a powerful elite. The seven tribes fled Aztlán, to seek new lands. The Mexicas were the last group to leave. The Aubin Codex relates that after leaving Aztlán, their god Huitzilopochtli ordered his people to never identify themselves as Azteca, the name of their former masters. Instead they should henceforth call themselves Mexìcâ.

The word “Aztec” was not originally an endonym for any ethnic group, but achieved wide use as an exonym first in the English language and later in Castilian from the 19th century on. Some modern day scholars use the word “Aztec” to refer to the Nahuatl speaking peoples of Mexico before the Spanish conquest in 1519 and the word “Nahua” to refer to the same peoples after the conquest.^[1] Because no people ever referred to itself as “Aztecs”, and because the peoples to whom the word is popularly used to refer never saw themselves as a unified ethnic group, many scholars now prefer to refer to particular ethnic groups individually e.g. the “Mexica”, “Acolhua” or “Tepaneca” rather than subsuming them under a solitary term such as “Aztec”.

The Spanish conquistadores referred to them as “Mexicas” or “Culua-Mexicas”. In Mexico, archaeologists and museums use the term Mexicas. The wider population in and outside Mexico generally speaks of Aztecs. In this article, the term “Mexica” is used to refer to the Mexica people up until the time of the formation of the Triple Alliance. After this, the term “Aztecs” is used to refer to the three peoples who made up the Triple Alliance, or in the wider context to all the Nahuatl speaking peoples as bearers of “Aztec culture”.

Mexica

Mexica or Mexìcâ (Nahuatl pronunciation: [meʃiʔkaʔ]) is a term of uncertain origin. Various proposed etymologies include the old Nahuatl word for the moon, the name of their leader Mexitli, or mexixin, a type of weed that grows in Lake Texcoco. Mexican scholar Miguel León-Portilla suggests that it is derived from mexictli, “navel of the moon”, from Nahuatl metztli (moon) and xictli (navel).^[2] Alternatively, mexictli could mean “navel of the maguey” using the Nahuatl metl and the locative “co”.

According to an Aztec legend, it was Huitzilopochtli, the war deity and patron of the Mexica, who gave them their name. The most probable interpretation is that the name comes from Mexitl (or Mexi), a secret name for the deity.^[3]

Aztec

In Nahuatl, Aztecatl means “someone who comes from Aztlán“. In 1810 Alexander von Humboldt originated the modern usage of “Aztec” as a collective term applied to all the people linked by trade, custom, religion, and language to the Mexica state and the Triple Alliance. In 1843, with the publication of the work of William H. Prescott, it was adopted by most of the world, including 19th century Mexican scholars who saw it as a way to distinguish present-day Mexicans from pre-conquest Mexicans. This usage has been the subject of debate in more recent years, but the term “Aztec” is still more common.^[4]

Nahuatl (nahuatl/nawatlahtolli) Classical Nahuatl (also known as Aztec, and simply Nahuatl) is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language. The majority of the speakers live in Central Mexico in the states of Estado de Mexico, Distrito Federal, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Morelos, Guerrero, Veracruz, Michoacán and Hidalgo. Other variants of the language “Nahuatl” were spoken by many of the central Mexican city-states under the domination of the Aztec Empire. Nahuatl was originally written with a pictographic script which was not a full writing system but instead served as a mnemonic to remind readers of texts they had learned orally.

History

Migrational period

The Nahua peoples began to migrate into Mesoamerica from northern Mexico in the 6th century. They populated central Mexico dislocating speakers of Oto-Manguean languages as they spread their political influence south. As the former nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples mixed with the complex civilizations of Mesoamerica, adopting religious and cultural practices the foundation for later Aztec culture was laid. During the Postclassic period they rose to power at such sites as Tula, Hidalgo. In the 12th century the Nahua power center was in Azcapotzalco, from where the Tepanecs dominated the valley of Mexico. Around this time the Mexica tribe arrived in central Mexico.

Rise of the Triple Alliance

The Valley of Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

The true origin of the Mexicas is uncertain. According to their legends, the Mexica tribe place of origin was Aztlán. It is generally thought that Aztlán was somewhere to the north of the Valley of Mexico; some experts have placed it as far north as Southwestern United States.

Based on these codices as well as other histories, it appears that the Mexicas arrived at Chapultepec in or around the year 1248.^[5]

At the time of their arrival, the Valley of Mexico had many city-states, the most powerful of which were Culhuacan to the south and Azcapotzalco to the west. The Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco soon expelled the Mexicas from Chapultepec. In 1299, Culhuacan ruler Cocoxtli gave them permission to settle in the empty barrens of Tizapan, where they were eventually assimilated into Culhuacan culture.

In 1323, the Mexicas were shown a vision of an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus, eating a snake. This vision indicated that this was the location where they were to build their home. In any event, the Mexicas eventually arrived on a small swampy island in Lake Texcoco where they founded the town of Tenochtitlan in 1325. In 1376, the Mexicas elected their first Huey Tlatoani, Acamapichtli, who was living in Texcoco at the time.

For the next 50 years, until 1427, the Mexica were a tributary of Azcapotzalco, which had become a regional power, perhaps the most powerful since the Toltecs, centuries earlier. Maxtla, son of Tezozomoc, assassinated Chimalpopoca, the Mexica ruler. In an effort to defeat Maxtla, Chimalpopoca’s successor, Itzcoatl, allied with the exiled ruler of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl. This coalition was the foundation of the Aztec Triple Alliance, which defeated Azcapotzalco in 1428.

Jaguar warrior, from the Codex Magliabechiano.

The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan would, in the next 100 years, come to dominate the Valley of Mexico and extend its power to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific shore. Over this period, Tenochtitlan gradually became the dominant power in the alliance.

Two of the primary architects of the Aztec empire were the half-brothers Tlacaelel and Montezuma I, nephews of Itzcoatl. Moctezuma I succeeded Itzcoatl as Hueyi Tlatoani in 1440. Although he was also offered the opportunity to be tlatoani, Tlacaelel preferred to operate as the power behind the throne. Tlacaelel reformed the Aztec state and religion. According to some sources, he ordered the burning of most of the extant Aztec books claiming that they contained lies. He thereupon rewrote the history of the Aztec people, thus creating a common awareness of history for the Aztecs. This rewriting led directly to the curriculum taught to scholars and promoted the belief that the Aztecs were always a powerful and mythic nation; forgetting forever a possible true history of modest origins. One component of this reform was the institution of ritual war (the flower wars) as a way to have trained warriors, and created the necessity of constant sacrifices to keep the Sun moving.

Spanish conquest

The empire reached its height during Ahuitzotl’s reign in 1486–1502. His successor, Motehcuzōma Xocoyotzin (better known as Moctezuma II or Moctezuma), had been Hueyi Tlatoani for 17 years when the Spaniards, led by Hernándo Cortés, landed on the Gulf Coast in the spring of 1519.

Despite some early battles between the two, Cortés allied himself with the Aztecs’ long-time enemy, the Confederacy of Tlaxcala, and arrived at the gates of Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519.

The Spaniards and their Tlaxcallan allies became increasingly dangerous and unwelcome guests in the capital city. In June, 1520, hostilities broke out, culminating in the massacre in the Main Temple and the death of Moctezuma II. The Spaniards fled the town on July 1, an episode later characterized as La Noche Triste (the Sad Night). They and their native allies returned in the spring of 1521 to lay siege to Tenochtitlan, a battle that ended on August 13 with the destruction of the city. During this period the now crumbling empire went through a rapid line of ruler succession. After the death of Moctezuma II, the empire fell into the hands of severely weakened emperors, such as Cuitláhuac, before eventually being ruled by puppet rulers, such as Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuh, installed by the Spanish.

Despite the decline of the Aztec empire, most of the Mesoamerican cultures were intact after the fall of Tenochtitlan. Indeed, the freedom from Aztec domination may have been considered a positive development by most of the other cultures. The upper classes of the Aztec empire were considered noblemen by the Spaniards and generally treated as such initially. All this changed rapidly and the native population were soon forbidden to study by law, and had the status of minors^{[citation needed]}.

The Tlaxcalans remained loyal to their Spanish friends and were allowed to come on other conquests with Cortés and his men.

Colonial period population decline

The Aztec Empire, on the eve of the Spanish Conquest

In 1520–1521, an outbreak of smallpox swept through the population of Tenochtitlan and was decisive in the fall of the city. It is estimated that between 10% and 50% of the population fell victim to this epidemic.

Subsequently, the Valley of Mexico was hit with two more epidemics, smallpox (1545–1548) and typhus (1576–1581). The Spaniards, to consolidate the diminishing population, merged the survivors from small towns in the Valley of Mexico into bigger ones. This broke the power of the upper classes, but did not dissolve the coherence of the indigenous society in greater Mexico.

The population before the time of the conquest is unknown and hotly contested,^[6] but disease is known to have ravaged the region; thus, the indigenous population of the Valley of Mexico is estimated to have declined by more than 80% in the course of about 60 years.^[7]

Cultural patterns

Government

The Aztec Empire was an example of an empire that ruled by indirect means. Like most European empires, it was ethnically very diverse, but unlike most European empires, it was more of a system of tribute than a single system of government. In the theoretical framework of imperial systems posited by Alexander J. Motyl^[8] the Aztec empire was an informal or hegemonic empire because it did not exert supreme authority over the conquered lands, it merely expected tributes to be paid. It was also a discontinuous empire because not all dominated territories were connected, for example the southern peripheral zones of Xoconochco were not in direct contact with the center. The hegemonic nature of the Aztec empire can be seen in the fact that generally local rulers were restored to their positions once their city-state was conquered and the Aztecs did not interfere in local affairs as long as the tribute payments were made.^[9]

Although the form of government is often referred to as an empire, in fact most areas within the empire were organized as city-states, known as altepetl in Nahuatl. These were small polities ruled by a king (tlatoani) from a legitimate dynasty. The Early Aztec period was a time of growth and competition among altepetl. Even after the empire was formed (1428) and began its program of expansion through conquest, the altepetl remained the dominant form of organization at the local level. The efficient role of the altepetl as a regional political unit was largely responsible for the success of the empire’s hegemonic form of control.^[10]

Tribute and trade

Several pages from the Codex Mendoza list tributary towns along with the goods they supplied, which included not only luxuries such as feathers, adorned suits, and greenstone beads, but more practical goods such as cloth, firewood, and food. Tribute was usually paid twice or four times a year at differing times.^[11]

Archaeological excavations in the Aztec-ruled provinces show that incorporation into the empire had both costs and benefits for provincial peoples. On the positive side, the empire promoted commerce and trade, and exotic goods from obsidian to bronze managed to reach the houses of both commoners and nobles. Trade partners included the enemy Tarascan, a source of bronze tools and jewelry. On the negative side, imperial tribute imposed a burden on commoner households, who had to increase their work to pay their share of tribute. Nobles, on the other hand, often made out well under imperial rule because of the indirect nature of imperial organization. The empire had to rely on local kings and nobles and offered them privileges for their help in maintaining order and keeping the tribute flowing.^[12]

Economy

The Aztec economy can be divided into a political sector, under the control of nobles and kings, and a commercial sector that operated independently of the political sector. The political sector of the economy centered on the control of land and labor by kings and nobles. Nobles owned all land, and commoners got access to farmland and other fields through a variety of arrangements, from rental through sharecropping to serf-like labor and slavery. These payments from commoners to nobles supported both the lavish lifestyles of the high nobility and the finances of city-states. Many luxury goods were produced for consumption by nobles. The producers of featherwork, sculptures, jewelry, and other luxury items were full-time commoner specialists who worked for noble patrons.

In the commercial sector of the economy several types of money were in regular use. Small purchases were made with cacao beans, which had to be imported from lowland areas. In Aztec marketplaces, a small rabbit was worth 30 beans, a turkey egg cost 3 beans, and a tamal cost a single bean. For larger purchases, standardized lengths of cotton cloth called quachtli were used. There were different grades of quachtli, ranging in value from 65 to 300 cacao beans. One source stated that 20 quachtli could support a commoner for one year in Tenochtitlan. A man could also sell his own daughter as a sexual slave or future religious sacrifice, generally for around 500 to 700 beans. A small gold statue (approximately 0.62 kg / 1.37 lb) cost 250 beans. Money was used primarily in the many periodic markets that were held in each town. A typical town would have a weekly market (every 5 days), while larger cities held markets every day. Cortés reported that the central market of Tlatelolco, Tenochtitlan’s sister city, was visited by 60,000 people daily. Some sellers in the markets were petty vendors; farmers might sell some of their produce, potters sold their vessels, and so on. Other vendors were professional merchants who traveled from market to market seeking profits. The pochteca were specialized merchants organized into exclusive guilds. They made long expeditions to all parts of Mesoamerica, and they served as the judges and supervisors of the Tlatelolco market. Although the economy of Aztec Mexico was commercialized (in its use of money, markets, and merchants), it was not “a capitalist economy because land and labor were not commodities for sale.”^[13]

Transportation

The main contribution of the Aztec rule was a system of communications between the conquered cities. In Mesoamerica, without draft animals for transport (nor, as a result, wheeled vehicles), the roads were designed for travel on foot. Usually these roads were maintained through tribute, and travelers had places to rest and eat and even latrines to use at regular intervals, roughly every 10 or 15 km. Couriers (paynani) were constantly travelling along those ways, keeping the Aztecs informed of events, and helping to monitor the integrity of the roads. Due to the steady surveillance, even women could travel alone, a fact that amazed the Spaniards, as that was not at all possible in Europe since the time of the Romans.

After the conquest those roads were no longer subject to maintenance and were lost.

Mythology and religion

The Coat of Arms of Mexico, from Aztec mythology

The Aztec Sun Stone, also known as the Aztec Calendar Stone, at National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.

The Aztec goddess of Coatlicue, mother of earth. National Museum of Anthropology.

The Mexica made reference to at least two manifestations of the supernatural: tēōtl and tēixiptla. Tēōtl, which the Spaniards and European scholars routinely mistranslated as “god” or “demon”, referred rather to an impersonal force that permeated the world. Tēixiptla, by contrast, denoted the physical representations (”idols”, statues and figurines) of the tēōtl as well as the human cultic activity surrounding this physical representation. The Mexica “gods” themselves had no existence as distinct entities apart from these tēixiptla representations of tēōtl (Boone 1989).

Veneration of Huitzilopochtli, the personification of the sun and of war, was central to the religious, social and political practices of the Mexicas.^[14] Huitzilopochtli attained this central position after the founding of Tenochtitlan and the formation of the Mexica city-state society in the 14th century. Prior to this, Huitzilopochtli was associated primarily with hunting, presumably one of the important subsistence activities of the itinerant bands that would eventually become the Mexica.

According to myth, Huitzilopochtli directed the wanderers to found a city on the site where they would see an eagle devouring a snake perched on a fruit-bearing nopal cactus. (It was said that Huitzilopochtli killed his nephew, Cópil, and threw his heart on the lake. Huitzilopochtli honoured Cópil by causing a cactus to grow over Cópil’s heart.) Legend has it that this is the site on which the Mexicas built their capital city of Tenochtitlan. This legendary vision is pictured on the Coat of arms of Mexico.

According to their own history, when the Mexicas arrived in the Anahuac valley (Valley of Mexico) around Lake Texcoco, the groups living there considered them uncivilized. The Mexicas borrowed much of their culture from the ancient Toltec whom they seem to have at least partially confused with the more ancient civilization of Teotihuacan. To the Mexicas, the Toltecs were the originators of all culture; “Toltecayōtl” was a synonym for culture. Mexica legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the mythical city of Tollan, which they also identified with the more ancient Teotihuacan.

Human sacrifice

Human sacrifice as shown in the Codex Magliabechiano

For most people today, and for the European Catholics who first met the Aztecs, human sacrifice was the most striking feature of Aztec civilization. While human sacrifice was practiced throughout Mesoamerica, the Aztecs, if their own accounts are to be believed, brought this practice to an unprecedented level. For example, for the reconsecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed 84,400 prisoners over the course of four days, reportedly by Ahuitzotl, the Great Speaker himself.

However, most experts consider these numbers to be overstated. For example, the sheer logistics associated with sacrificing 84,000 victims would be overwhelming, though historians and archaeologists agree that 2,000 is a more likely figure. A similar consensus has developed on reports of cannibalism among the Aztecs.

Accounts by the Tlaxcaltecas, the primary enemy of the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish Conquest, show that at least some of them considered it an honor to be sacrificed. In one legend, the warrior Tlahuicole was freed by the Aztecs but eventually returned of his own volition to die in ritual sacrifice. Tlaxcala also practiced the human sacrifice of captured Aztec Citizens.

Social structures

Class structure

A painting from Codex Mendoza showing elder Aztecs being given intoxicants.

The highest class were the pīpiltin or nobility.^[15] Originally this status was not hereditary, although the sons of pillis had access to better resources and education, so it was easier for them to become pillis. Later the class system took on hereditary aspects.

The second class were the mācehualtin, originally peasants. Eduardo Noguera^[16] estimates that in later stages only 20% of the population was dedicated to agriculture and food production. The other 80% of society were warriors, artisans and traders. Eventually, most of the mācehuallis were dedicated to arts and crafts. Their works were an important source of income for the city.^[17]

Slaves or tlacotin also constituted an important class. Aztecs could become slaves because of debts, as a criminal punishment or as war captives. A slave could have possessions and even own other slaves. However, upon becoming a slave, all of the slave’s animals and excess money would go to his purchaser. Slaves could buy their liberty, and slaves could be set free if they had children with or were married to their masters. Typically, upon the death of the master, slaves who had performed outstanding services were freed. The rest of the slaves were passed on as part of an inheritance.

Traveling merchants called pochtecah were a small, but important class as they not only facilitated commerce, but also communicated vital information across the empire and beyond its borders. They were often employed as spies.

Recreation

As with all Mesoamerican cultures, the Aztecs played a variant of the Mesoamerican ballgame, named tlachtli or ollamaliztli in Nahuatl. The game was played with a ball of solid rubber , called an olli, whence derives the Spanish word for rubber, hule. The players hit the ball with their hips, knees, and elbows and had to pass the ball through a stone ring to automatically win. Getting the ball through the hoop was so hard, if a player actually scored a goal, they were given some jewelry. No one knows the exact rules of the game, as the rules have never been recorded, and thus, only speculations exist. The Aztec variant of the Mesoamerican ballgame is the only one to be described in postcolonial sources, and not much is known about how other Mesoamerican people played the game.

The Aztecs also enjoyed board games, like patolli and totoloque. Bernal Diaz records that Cortés and Moctezuma II played totoloque together.

Education

Until the age of fourteen, the education of children was in the hands of their parents, but supervised by the authorities of their calpōlli. Part of this education involved learning a collection of sayings, called huēhuetlàtolli (”sayings of the old”), that embodied the Aztecs’ ideals. Judged by their language, most of the huēhuetlatolli seemed to have evolved over several centuries, predating the Aztecs and most likely adopted from other Nahua cultures.

There were two types of schools: the telpochcalli, for practical and military studies, and the calmecac, for advanced learning in writing, astronomy, statesmanship, theology, and other areas. The two institutions seem to be common to the Nahua people, leading some experts to suggest that they are older than the Aztec culture.

Aztec teachers (tlatimine) propounded a spartan regime of education with the purpose of forming a stoical people.

Girls were educated in the crafts of home and child raising. They were not taught to read or write. All women were taught to be involved in religion; there are paintings of women presiding over religious ceremonies, but there are no references to female priests.

Arts

This ornament features a turquoise mosaic on a carved wooden base, with red and white shells used for the mouths. Probably worn across the chest, this ornament measures 20 by 43 cm (8 by 17 in). It was likely created by Mixtec artisans from an Aztec tributary state. 1400–1521, from the British Museum [1].

Song and poetry were highly regarded; there were presentations and poetry contests at most of the Aztec festivals. There were also dramatic presentations that included players, musicians and acrobats.

Poetry was the only occupation worthy of an Aztec warrior in times of peace. A remarkable amount of this poetry survives, having been collected during the era of the conquest. In some cases poetry is attributed to individual authors, such as Nezahualcoyotl, tlatoani of Texcoco, and Cuacuauhtzin, Lord of Tepechpan, but whether these attributions reflect actual authorship is a matter of opinion. Miguel León-Portilla, a well-respected Aztec scholar of Mexico, has stated that it is in this poetry where we can find the real thought of the Aztecs, independent of “official” Aztec ideology.^[18]

It is also important to note that the Spanish classified many aspects of the Aztec/Nahuatl culture according to the lexicon and organizational categories with which they would distinguish in Europe. In the same way that the second letter of Cortes made a mention of “mesquitas”, or in English, “mosques”, when trying to convey his impression of Aztec architecture, early colonists and missionaries divided the principal bodies of nahuatl literature as “poetry” and “prose”. “Poetry” was in xochitl in cuicatl a dual term meaning “the flower and the song” and was divided into different genres. Yaocuicatl was devoted to war and the god(s) of war, Teocuicatl to the gods and creation myths and to adoration of said figures, xochicuicatl to flowers (a symbol of poetry itself and indicative of the highly metaphorical nature of a poetry that often utilized duality to convey multiple layers of meaning). “Prose” was tlahtolli, also with its different categories and divisions (Garganigo et al.).

Turquoise mask. Mixtec-Aztec. 1400–1521.

The most important collection of these poems is Romances de los señores de la Nueva España, collected (Tezcoco 1582), probably by Juan Bautista de Pomar.^[19] Bautista de Pomar was the great-grandson of Netzahualcoyotl. He spoke Nahuatl, but was raised a Christian and wrote in Latin characters. (See also: “Is It You?“, a short poem attributed to Netzahualcoyotl, and “Lament on the Fall of Tenochtitlan“, a short poem contained within the “Anales de Tlatelolco” manuscript.)

The Aztec people also enjoyed a type of dramatic presentation, a kind of theatre. Some plays were comical with music and acrobats, others were staged dramas of their gods. After the conquest, the first Christian churches had open chapels reserved for these kinds of representations. Plays in Nahuatl, written by converted Indians, were an important instrument for the conversion to Christianity, and are still found today in the form of traditional pastorelas, which are played during Christmas to show the Adoration of Baby Jesus, and other Biblical passages.

Music and dance formed an essential part of the indigenous rites and ceremonies. Research about music of the Aztec people dates back to the writings of Bernal del Castillo, who was appalled by the music of these people because he viewed it during their ritualistic sacrifices, which were very different from rituals of Christian worship. Others, such as the Franciscan monk Fray Bernardino de Sahagún and the Dominican monk Diego Durán, were able to look at the music from different viewpoints, noting the unique instruments and the qualities of pitch and harmony that were achieved with these instruments—new sounds to their ears. Some musical instruments used are Tetzilacatl, Teponaztli, Tecomapiloa, Omichicahuaztli, Huehuetl, Coyolli, Chililitli, Caililiztli, Chicahuaztli, Cacalachtli, Áyotl, Ayacahtli.

City-building and architecture

Tenochtitlan, looking east. From the mural painting at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City. Painted in 1930 by Dr. Atl.

The capital city of the Aztec empire was Tenochtitlan, now the site of modern-day Mexico City. Built on a series of islets in Lake Texcoco, the city plan was based on a symmetrical layout that was divided into four city sections called campans. The city was interlaced with canals which were useful for transportation.

Tenochtitlan was built according to a fixed plan and centered on the ritual precinct, where the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan rose 50 m (164.04 ft) above the city. Houses were made of wood and loam, roofs were made of reed,^[20] although pyramids, temples and palaces were generally made of stone.

Around the island, chinampa beds were used to grow foods as well as, over time, to increase the size of the island. Chinampas, misnamed “floating gardens”, were long raised plant beds set upon the shallow lake bottom. They were a very efficient agricultural system and could provide up to seven crops a year. On the basis of current chinampa yields, it has been estimated that 1 hectare of chinampa would feed 20 individuals and 9,000 hectares of chinampas could feed 180,000.^[21]

Anthropologist Eduardo Noguera estimates the population at 200,000 based in the house count and merging the population of Tlatelolco (once an independent city, but later became a suburb of Tenochtitlan). If one includes the surrounding islets and shores surrounding Lake Texcoco, estimates range from 300,000 to 700,000 inhabitants.^[21]

Agriculture

The pre-conquest Aztecs were a society that had four main methods of agriculture. The earliest, most basic form of agriculture implemented by the Aztecs is known as “rainfall cultivation.” The Aztecs also implemented terrace agriculture in hilly areas, or areas that could not be used for level ground farming. In the valleys irrigation farming was used. Dams diverted water from natural springs to the fields. This allowed for harvests on a regular basis. The Aztecs built canal systems that were longer and much more elaborate than previous irrigation systems. They managed to divert a large portion of the Cuauhtitlan River to provide irrigation to large areas of fields. The network of canals was a very complex and intricate system.

In the swampy regions along Lake Xochimilco, the Aztecs implemented yet another method of crop cultivation. They built what are called chinampas. Chinampas are areas of raised land, created from alternating layers of mud from the bottom of the lake, and plant matter/other vegetation. These “raised beds” were separated by narrow canals, which allowed farmers to move between them by canoe. The chinampas were extremely fertile pieces of land, and yielded, on average, seven crops annually. In order to plant on them, farmers first created “seedbeds,” or reed rafts, where they planted seeds and allowed them to germinate. Once they had, they were re-planted in the chinampas. This cut the growing time down considerably.

The Aztecs are credited with domestication of the subspecies of Wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, which is native to this region.^[22]

While most of the farming occurred outside the densely populated areas, within the cities there was another method of (small scale) farming. Each family had their own garden plot where they grew maize, fruits, herbs, medicines and other important plants.

Of the various crops grown by the Aztecs, maize was the most important. Aztec diets centered on it. Maize was grown across the entire empire, in the highland terraces, valley farms and also on the chinampas. Women ground maize into a coarse meal by rubbing it with a grinding stone called a mano against a flat stone called a metate. The Aztecs made tortillas from the corn meal. Other crops that the Aztecs relied upon were avocados, beans, squashes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, chia, amaranth and chilies. These crops were also grown everywhere. Crops that were specific to the lowland regions were cotton, fruits, cacao beans and rubber trees.

Relationship to other Mesoamerican cultures

Aztecs admired Mixtec craftsmanship so much that they imported artisans to Tenochtitlan and requested work to be done in certain Mixtec styles. The Aztecs also admired the Mixtec codices, so some of them were made to order by Mixteca for the Aztecs. In the later days, high society Aztec women started to wear Mixtec clothing, specifically the quexquemetl. It was worn over their traditional huipil, and much coveted by the women who could not afford such imported goods.

The situation was analogous in many ways to the Phoenician culture which imported and duplicated art from other cultures that they encountered.

Archaeologists usually do not have a problem differentiating between Mixtec and Aztec artifacts. However, the Mixtec made some products for “export” and that makes classification more problematic. In addition, the production of craft was an important part of the Mexica economy, and they also made pieces for “export”.

Legacy

Most modern day Mexicans (and people of Mexican descent in other countries) are mestizos, of mixed indigenous and European Spanish ancestry. During the 16th century the racial composition of Mexico began to change from one that featured distinct indigenous (Mexicas and members of the many other Mexican indigenous groups) and immigrant (mostly Spanish) populations, to the population composed primarily of mestizos that is found in modern day Mexico.

The Nahuatl language is today spoken by 1.5 million people, mostly in mountainous areas in the states of central Mexico. Local dialects of Spanish, Mexican Spanish generally, and the Spanish language worldwide have all been influenced, in varying degrees, by Nahuatl. Some Nahuatl words (most notably chocolate and tomato) have been borrowed through Spanish into other languages around the world.

Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, making it one of the oldest living cities of the Americas. Many of its districts and natural landmarks retain their original Nahuatl names. Many other cities and towns in Mexico and Central America have also retained their Nahuatl names (whether or not they were originally Mexica or even Nahuatl-speaking towns). A number of town names are hybrids of Nahuatl and Spanish.

Mexican cuisine continues to be based on and flavored by agricultural products contributed by the Mexicas/Aztecs and Mesoamerica, most of which retain some form of their original Nahuatl names. The cuisine has also become a popular part of the cuisine of the United States and other countries around the world, typically altered to suit various national tastes.

The modern Mexican flag bears the emblem of the Mexica migration story.

Mexico’s premier religious icon, the Virgin of Guadalupe has certain similarities to the Mexica earth mother goddess Tonantzin.

For the 1986 FIFA World Cup Adidas designed the official match ball to show in its “triades” Aztec architectural and mural designs [2].

Historiography

Before the development of archaeology in Mexico in the 19th century, the historians mainly interpreted the ancient written sources to reconstitute aztec history. Archaeology allowed to reconsider and criticise some of those interpretations and contradictions between the primary sources. Now, the scholar study of aztec civilization is most often based on scientific and multidisciplinary methodologies.

Ancient sources

A painting of Tlaloc, as shown on page 20R of Codex Rios

Aztec codices

There are few extant Aztec codices created before the conquest and these are largely ritual texts. Post-conquest codices, like Codex Mendoza or Codex Ríos, were painted by Aztec tlacuilos (codex creators), but under the control of Spanish authorities. The possibility of Spanish influence poses potential problems for those studying the post-conquest codices. Itzcoatl had the oldest hieroglyphics destroyed for political-religious reasons and Bishop Zumarraga of Mexico (1528–48) had all available texts burned for missionary reasons.^[23]

The conquistadors

The accounts of the conquistadors are those of men confronted with a new civilization, which they tried to interpret according to their own culture. Cortés was the most educated, and his letters to Charles V are a valuable firsthand account. Unfortunately, one of his letters is lost and replaced by a posterior text and the others were censored prior to their publication. In any case, Cortés was not writing a dispassionate account, but letters justifying his actions and to some extent exaggerating his successes and downplaying his failures.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo accompanied Cortes, but he wrote decades after the fact, he never learned the native languages, and he did not take notes. His account is colorful, but his work is considered erratic and exaggerated.

Although Francisco López de Gómara was Cortes’ chaplain, friend, and confidant, he never visited the New World so his account is based on hearsay.

Priests and scholars

The accounts of the first priests and scholars, while reflecting their faith and their culture, are important sources. Fathers Diego Durán, Motolinia, and Mendieta wrote with their own religion in mind, Father Duran wrote trying to prove that the Aztec were one of the lost tribes of Israel. Bartolomé de las Casas wrote instead from an apologetic point of view. There are also authors that tried to make a synthesis of the pre-Hispanic cultures, like “Oviedo y Herrera”, Jose de Acosta, and Pedro Mártir de Anghera.

Perhaps the most significant source about the Aztec are the manuscripts of Bernardino de Sahagún, who worked with the surviving Aztec wise men. He taught Aztec tlacuilos to write the original Nahuatl accounts using the Latin alphabet. Because of fear of the Spanish authorities, he maintained the anonymity of his informants, and wrote a heavily censored version in Spanish. Unfortunately the Nahuatl original was not fully translated until the 20th century, thus realising the extent of the censorship of the Spanish version. The original Nahuatl manuscript is known as the Florentine Codex.

Native authors

Other important sources are the work of native and mestizo authors, descendants of the upper classes. These authors include Don Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc, Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin, Juan Bautista de Pomar, and Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl. Ixtlixochitl, for example, wrote a history of Texcoco from a Christian point of view. His account of Netzahualcoyotl, an ancestor of Ixtlilxochitl’s, has a strong resemblance to the story of King Solomon and portrays Netzahualcoyotl as a monotheist and a critic of human sacrifice.

Diego Muñoz Camargo (1521 – c. 1612), a Tlaxcalan mestizo, wrote the History of Tlaxcala six decades after the Spanish conquest. Some parts of his work have a strong Tlaxcala bias.

Contemporary studies

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The mexicanista movement

Laurette Séjourné, a French anthropologist, wrote about Aztec and Mesoamerican spirituality. Her depiction of the Aztecs as a spiritual people was so compelling that new religions have been formed based on her writings. Some parts of her work have been adopted by esoteric groups, searching for occult teachings of the pre-Columbian religions. Séjourné never endorsed any of these groups.^{[citation needed]}

Miguel León-Portilla also idealizes the Aztec culture, especially in his early writings.^{[citation needed]}

Others, such as Antonio Velazco, have transformed the writings by Sejourné and León-Portilla into a religious movement. Antonio Velasco Piña has written three books, Tlacaelel, El Azteca entre los Aztecas, La mujer dormida debe dar a luz, and Regina. When mixed with the currents of Neopaganism, these books resulted in a new religious movement called “Mexicanista”. This movement called for a return to the spirituality of the Aztecs. It is argued that, with this return, Mexico will become the next center of power. This religious movement mixes Mesoamerican cults with Hindu esoterism. The Mexicanista movement reached the peak of its popularity in the 1990s.

Notes

See also

• Aztec clothing
• Aztec warfare
• History of Mexico
• Inca Empire
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• List of Mesoamerican pyramids
• List of Mexico-Tenochtitlan rulers
• Maya civilization
• Spanish Empire

References

Modern works, available in English

• Berdan, Frances F. (2004) The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society. 2nd ed. Thomson-Wadsworth, Belmont, CA. ISBN 0-534-62728-5.
• Berdan, Frances F., Richard E. Blanton, Elizabeth H. Boone, Mary G. Hodge, Michael E. Smith and Emily Umberger (1996). Aztec Imperial Strategies. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. ISBN 0-88402-211-0.
• Boone, Elizabeth H. (1989). “Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., Vol. 79, No. 2., pp. i–iv, 1–107. ISBN 0-87169-792-0.
• Boone, Elizabeth H. (2000) Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-292-70876-9.
• Carrasco, Davíd (1999) City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization. Beacon Press, Boston. ISBN 0-8070-4642-6.
• Carrasco, Pedro (1999) The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3144-6.
• Clendinnen, Inga (1991) Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. ASIN B000PRYFBS. ISBN 0-521-48585-1 (1995 paperback).
• Curl, John. ‘’Ancient American Poets.’’ The Flower Songs of Nezahualcoyotl Tempe AZ: Bilingual Press, 2005. ISBN 1-931010-21-8
• Davies, Nigel (1973) The Aztecs: A History. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-12404-9.
• Duran, Fray Diego (1994). The History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated by Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2649-3.
• Gillespie, Susan D. (1989) The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History’. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. ISBN 0-8165-1095-4.
• Graulich, Michel (1997) Myths of Ancient Mexico. Translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. ISBN 0-8061-2910-7.
• Gruzinski, Serge (1992). The Aztecs: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-2821-3.
• Guggenheim Museum (editor) (2004) The Aztec Empire (Curated by Felipe Solís). Guggenheim Museum, New York.
• Hassig, Ross (1988) Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. ASIN B000M4NNJE. ISBN 0-8061-2773-2 (1995 paperback).
• Lanyon, Anna (1999). Malinche’s Conquest. Melbourne, Australia: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86448-780-1.
• León-Portilla, Miguel (Ed.) (1992) [1959]. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Ángel María Garibay K. (Nahuatl-Spanish trans.), Lysander Kemp (Spanish-English trans.), Alberto Beltran (illus.) (Expanded and updated edition ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-5501-8. 
• León-Portilla, Miguel (1963) Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Náhuatl Mind. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. ASIN B000GPAF1I. ISBN 0-8061-2295-1 (1990 paperback).
• López Luján, Leonardo (2005) The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. Revised ed. Translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. ISBN 0-8263-2958-6.
• Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo (1988) The Great Temple of the Aztecs. Thames and Hudson, New York. ISBN 0-500-39024-X.
• Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo and Felipe R. Solís Olguín (editors) (2003) Aztecs. Royal Academy of Arts, London. ISBN 1-903973-13-9.
• Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. (1990) Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. ISBN 0-8135-1562-9.
• Restall, Matthew (2003). Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516077-0.
• Smith, Michael E. (1984); “The Aztlan Migrations of Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?”, in Ethnohistory 31(3): 153 - 186.PDF (3.15 MiB)
• Smith, Michael E. (2003) The Aztecs. 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
• Smith, Michael E, “Life in the Provinces of the Aztec Empire”, Scientific American.PDF (538 KiB)
• Soustelle, Jacques (1961) The Daily life of the Aztecs, London, WI. ASIN B000M1NS06. ISBN 0-486-42485-5 (2002 paperback).
• Thomas, Hugh (1994). Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-70518-0.
• Townsend, Richard F. (2000) The Aztecs. revised ed. Thames and Hudson, New York. ISBN 0-500-28132-7.

Primary sources, available in English

• Berdan, Frances F. and Patricia Reiff Anawalt (1997) The Essential Codex Mendoza. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-20454-9.
• Cortés, Hernan (1987) Letters from Mexico. New Ed. edition. Translated by Anthony Pagden. Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 0-300-03724-4.
• Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1963) The Conquest of New Spain. Translated by J. M. Cohen. Penguin, New York. ISBN 0-14-044123-9.
• Díaz, Gisele and Alan Rogers (1993) The Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Restoration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript. Dover Publications, New York. ISBN 0-486-27569-8.
• Durán, Fray Diego (1971) Book of the Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar. Translated by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. ASIN B000M4OVSG. ISBN 0-8061-1201-8 (1977 Ed. edition).
• Durán, Fray Diego (1994) The History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated by Doris Heyden. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. ISBN 0-8061-2649-3.
• Garganigo et al., (2008) Huellas de las Literaturas Hispanoamerica. 3 edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey. (Note, this source in Spanish). ISBN 0-13-195846-1.
• Zorita, Alonso de (1963) Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain. Translated by Benjamin Keen. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. ASIN B000INWUNE. ISBN 0-8061-2679-5 (1994 paperback).

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Aztecs.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aztec

• Aztecs at Mexicolore: constantly updated educational site specifically on the Aztecs, for serious students of all ages.
• Aztec Architecture
• “Aztec” Information: Information about the words Aztec and Aztlan, and the word that many have never heard
• Aztecs / Nahuatl / Tenochtitlan: Ancient Mesoamerica resources at University of Minnesota Duluth
• Aztec history, culture and religion B. Diaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (tr. by A. P. Maudsley, 1928, repr. 1965)
• Aztec Names: Lots of different Aztec names in the Nahuatl language/
• Aztec Indians
• Aztec Civilization (About Archaeology)
• Demographic Disaster in Mexico 1519-1595 at the Department of History at the University of Minnesota
• Michael E. Smith, The Mesoamerican Urban Landscape From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, paper presented at the Conference, “Archaeology of Complex Societies: Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces,” October 21, 1995, California State University, San Bernardino’ archived on the Internet Archive from Smith’s faculty site at State University of New York at Albany.
• Ancient Civilizations - Aztec Research site for kids
• Michael E. Smith’s student bibliography on the Aztecs.
• Article: “Life in the Provinces of the Aztec EmpirePDF (538 KiB)
• Tlahuica Culture Home Page (an Aztec group from Morelos, Mexico)
• MesoAmericas
• Recreations of Aztec music based on the Cantares Mexicanos
• Richard Hooker, The Mexican Aztecs, World Civilizations: An Internet Classroom and Anthology, Washington State University
• “The Aztecs-looking behind the myths” on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time featuring Alan Knight, Adrian Locke and Elizabeth Graham

The Helix Nebula, sometimes called the “Eye of God”

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate reality or transcendent dimension of the world;^[1] an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his or her being, or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” ^[2]. Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual’s inner life; such practices often lead to an experience of connectedness with a larger reality: a more comprehensive self; other individuals or the human community; nature or the cosmos; and/or the divine realm..^[3]

Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life.^[4] It can encompass belief in immaterial realities and/or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.

Defining spirituality

This section requires expansion with: more about how the different religions define spirituality.

Traditionally, religions have regarded spirituality as an integral aspect of religious experience. Many do still equate spirituality with religion, but declining membership of organised religions and the growth of secularism in the western world has given rise to a broader view of spirituality.

Secular spirituality carries connotations of an individual having a spiritual outlook which is more personalized, less structured, more open to new ideas/influences, and more pluralistic than that of the doctrinal faiths of organized religions. At one end of the spectrum, even some atheists are spiritual. While atheism tends to lean towards skepticism regarding supernatural claims and the existence of an actual “spirit”, some atheists define “spiritual” as nurturing thoughts, emotions, words and actions that are in harmony with a belief that the entire universe is, in some way, connected; even if only by the mysterious flow of cause and effect at every scale.^[5]

In contrast, those of a more ‘New-Age‘ disposition see spirituality as the active connection to some force/power/energy/spirit, facilitating a sense of a deep self.

For some, spirituality includes introspection, and the development of an individual’s inner life through practices such as meditation, prayer and contemplation. Some modern religions also see spirituality in everything: see pantheism and neo-Pantheism. In a similar vein, Religious Naturalism has a spiritual attitude towards the awe, majesty and mystery it sees in the natural world.

For a Christian, to refer to him or herself as “more spiritual than religious”^{[citation needed]} may (but not always) imply relative deprecation of rules, rituals, and tradition while preferring an intimate relationship with God. The basis for this belief is that Jesus Christ came to free humankind from those rules, rituals, and traditions, giving humankind the ability to “walk in the spirit” thus maintaining a “Christian” lifestyle through that one-to-one relationship with God.

Spiritual path

Spirituality, in a wide variety of cultural and religious concepts, is itself often seen as incorporating a spiritual path, along which one advances to achieve a given objective, such as a higher state of awareness, outreach wisdom or communion with God or with creation. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which appears in book VII of The Republic, is a description of such a journey, as are the writings of Teresa of Avila. The spiritual journey is a path that has a dimension primarily subjective and individual. For a spiritual path may be considered a path of short duration, directed at a specific target, or a lifetime. Every event of life is part of this journey, but in particular one can introduce some significant moments or milestones, such as the practice of various spiritual disciplines (including meditation, prayer, fasting), the comparison with a person believed with deep spiritual experience (called a teacher, assistant or spiritual preceptor, guru or otherwise, depending on the cultural context), the personal approach to sacred texts, etc. If the spiritual path is the same in whole or in part, with an initiatory path, there may be real evidence to overcome. Such tests usually before a social significance, are a “test” for the individual of his reaching a certain level. Spirituality is also described as a process in two phases: the first on inner growth, and the second on the manifestation of this result daily in the world. ^{[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]}

Religion

Whilst the terms spirituality and religion can both refer to the search for the Absolute or God, an increasing number of people have come to see the two as separate entities; religion being just one way in which humans can experience spirituality. Cultural historian and yogi William Irwin Thompson states, “Religion is not identical with spirituality; rather religion is the form spirituality takes in civilization.”^{[citation needed]}

Those who speak of spirituality outside of religion often define themselves as “spiritual but not religious” and generally believe in the existence of many different “spiritual paths” - emphasizing the importance of finding one’s own individual path to spirituality. According to one poll, some 24±4% of the United States population identifies itself as spiritual but not religious.^[18] One might say then, that a key difference is that religion is a type of formal external search, while spirituality is defined as a search within oneself.

The experience of ’spirituality’; the human emotions of awe, wonder and reverence, are also the province of the secular/scientific, in response to their highest values,^[vague] or when observing or studying nature, or the universe.^[19]

Science

A number of authors have suggested that there are spiritual consequences of quantum physics. Examples are physicist-philosopher Fritjof Capra;^[20] Ken Wilber, who proposes an “Integral Theory of Consciousness”; theoretical nuclear physicist Amit Goswami, who views a universal consciousness, not matter, as the ground of all existence (monistic idealism); Ervin László, who posits the “quantum vacuum” as the fundamental energy- and information-carrying field (”Akashic field”) that informs not just the current universe, but all universes past and present (collectively, the “Metaverse“).^[21]

Personal well-being

In keeping with a general increase in interest in spirituality and complementary and alternative treatments, prayer has garnered attention among some behavioral scientists. Masters and Spielmans^[22] have conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of distant intercessory prayer, but detected no discernible effects.

Spirituality has played a central role in self-help movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous: “…if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead….”^[23]

If spirituality is understood as the search for or the development of inner peace or the foundations of happiness, then spiritual practice of some kind is essential for personal well being. This activity may or may not include belief in supernatural beings. If one has such a belief and feels that relationship to such beings is the foundation of happiness then spiritual practice will be pursued on that basis: if one has no such belief spiritual practice is still essential for the management and understanding of thoughts and emotions which otherwise prevent happiness. Many techniques and practices developed and explored in religious contexts, such as meditation, are immensely valuable in themselves as skills for managing aspects of the inner life.^[24][25]

Near-death experience (NDE)

If consciousness exists apart from the body, which includes the brain, one is attached not only to the material world, but to a non-temporal (spiritual) world as well. This thesis is considered to be analyzed by testing the reports from people who have experienced death. However, some researchers consider that NDEs are actually REM intrusions triggered in the brain by traumatic events like cardiac arrest^[26].

Opposition

The scientific method takes as its basis empirical, repeatable observations of the natural world. Critics such as William F. Williams have labeled spirituality as pseudoscientific and opposed ideas and beliefs that include supernatural forces yet are presented as having a scientific character, citing the imprecision of spiritual concepts and the subjectivity of spiritual experience.^{[citation needed]}

Positive psychology

Spirituality has been studied in positive psychology and defined as the search for “the sacred,” where “the sacred” is broadly defined as that which is set apart from the ordinary and worthy of veneration. Spirituality can be sought not only through traditional organized religions, but also through movements such as the feminist theology and ecological spirituality (see Green politics). Spirituality is associated with mental health, managing substance abuse, marital functioning, parenting, and coping. It has been suggested that spirituality also leads to finding purpose and meaning in life.^[27]

Origin

History

Spiritual innovators who operated within the context of a religious tradition became marginalized or suppressed as heretics or separated out as schismatics. In these circumstances, anthropologists generally treat so-called “spiritual” practices such as shamanism in the sphere of the religious, and class even non-traditional activities such as those of Robespierre’s Cult of the Supreme Being in the province of religion.^[28]

Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers, often opposed to clericalism and skeptical of religion, sometimes came to express their more emotional responses to the world under the rubric of “the Sublime” rather than discussing “spirituality”. The spread of the ideas of modernity began to diminish the role of religion in society and in popular thought.

Schmidt sees Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) as a pioneer of the idea of spirituality as a distinct field.^[29] In the wake of the Nietzschean concept of the “death of God” in 1882, people not persuaded by scientific rationalism turned increasingly to the idea of spirituality as an alternative both to materialism and to traditional religious dogma.

Important early 20th century writers who studied the phenomenon of spirituality include William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)) and Rudolph Otto (especially The Idea of the Holy (1917)).

The distinction between the spiritual and the religious became more common in the popular mind during the late 20th century with the rise of secularism and the advent of the New Age movement. Authors such as Chris Griscom and Shirley MacLaine explored it in numerous ways in their books. Paul Heelas noted the development within New Age circles of what he called “seminar spirituality”:^[30] structured offerings complementing consumer choice with spiritual options.

Study

The scholarly field of spirituality remains ill-defined. It overlaps with disciplines such as theology, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology, parapsychology, pneumatology, monadology, logic (if involving a spiritual Logos) and esotericism.

In the late 19th century a Pakistani scholar Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi wrote of and taught about the science of Islamic spirituality, of which the best known form remains the Sufi tradition (famous through Rumi and Hafez) in which a spiritual master or pir transmits spiritual discipline to students.^[31]

Building on both the Western esoteric tradition and theosophy,^[32] Rudolf Steiner and others in the anthroposophic tradition have attempted to apply systematic methodology to the study of spiritual phenomena,^[33] building upon ontological and epistemological questions that arose out of transcendental philosophy.^[34] This enterprise does not attempt to redefine natural science, but to explore inner experience — especially our thinking — with the same rigor that we apply to outer (sensory) experience.

Spirituality portal

Footnotes

See also

• afterlife
• deities
• religion
• supernatural

Further reading

• A Course in Miracles. 2nd ed., Mill Valley: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1992, ISBN 0-9606388-9-X.
• Azeemi, K.S.Muraqaba: The Art and Science of Sufi Meditation. Houston: Plato, 2005. (ISBN 0-9758875-4-8)
• Bjelica, Drago The Bible For The New Age (Online). 2009.
• Bolman, L. G., and Deal, T. E. Leading With Soul. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.
• Borysenko, J. A Woman’s Journey to God. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999.
• Cannon, K. G. Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community. New York: Continuum, 1996.
• Cappel, Constance, “Dera Poetry,” Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2007.
• Cheroff, Seth, The Manual For Living. CO Spirit Scope, 2008.
• Clift, Jean Dalby (2008). The Mystery of Love and the Path of Prayer. ISBN 978-1440466373. 
• Deloria, V., Jr. God is Red. 2d Ed. Golden, Co: North American Press, 1992, ISBN 1555919049.
• Dillard, C. B.; Abdur-Rashid, D.; and Tyson, C. A. “My Soul is a Witness.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 13, no. 5 (September 2000): 447-462.
• Dirkx, J. M. “Nurturing Soul in Adult Learning.” in Transformative Learning in Action. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education No. 74, edited by P. Cranton, pp. 79–88. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.
• Downey, Michael. Understanding Christian Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1997.
• Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America. San Francisco: Harper, 2001.
• Elkins D.N. et al. (1998)Toward a humanistic-phenomenological spirituality: definition, description and measurement. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 28(4), 5-18
• English, L., and Gillen, M., eds. Addressing the Spiritual Dimensions of Adult Learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, No. 85. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
• Haisch, Bernard The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What’s Behind It All, (Preface), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006, ISBN 1-57863-374-5
• Hein, David. “Christianity and Traditional Lakota / Dakota Spirituality: A Jamesian Interpretation.” The McNeese Review 35 (1997): 128-38.
• Hein, David, ed. Readings in Anglican Spirituality. Cincinnati: Forward Movement, 1991. ISBN 0-88028-125-1
• Hein, David, and Edward Hugh Henderson. Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer. New York and London: Continuum / T & T Clark, 2004. About the spiritual theology of Austin Farrer; includes chapter on “Farrer’s Spirituality” by Diogenes Allen.
• Hein, David, and Charles R. Henery, editors. Spiritual Counsel in the Anglican Tradition. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock; Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co., forthcoming [2010].
• Holtje, D. (1995). From Light to Sound: The Spiritual Progression. Temecula, CA: MasterPath, Inc. ISBN 1-885949-00-6
• Martsolf D.S. and Mickley J.R. (1998) “The concept of spirituality in nursing theories: differing world-views and extent of focus” Journal of Advanced Nursing 27, 294-303
• Masters, K.S. & Spielmans, G.I (2007). “Prayer and health: review, meta-analysis, and research agenda”, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 30(4), 329-338.
• Percival, Harold W. Thinking and Destiny, ISBN 0911650067
• Perry, Whitall N. A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom: An Encyclopedia of Humankind’s Spiritual Truth. Louisville: Fons Vitae books, 2000, ISBN 1-887752-33-1
• Roberts, Jane (1970). The Seth Material. reprinted (2001) New Awareness Network. ISBN 978-0971119802
• Roberts, Jane and Robert F. Butts (1972). Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. reprinted (1994) Amber-Allen Publishing. ISBN 1-878424-07-6
• Roberts, Jane (1974). The Nature of Personal Reality. Prentice-Hall. reprinted (1994) Amber-Allen Publishing. ISBN 1-878424-06-8
• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That, Acorn Press, 1990, ISBN 0-89386-022-0
• Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls : The Making of American Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper, 2005. ISBN 0-06-054566-6
• Shahjahan, R. A., “Spirituality in the academy: Reclaiming from the margins and evoking a transformative way of knowing the world” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 18, no. 6 (December 2005): 685-711.
• Steiner, Rudolf, How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation. New York: Anthroposophic Press, (1904) 1994. ISBN 0-88010-372-8
• Steiner, Rudolf, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, (1904) 1994
• Thompson, William Irwin, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981).
• Wapnick, Kenneth, The Message of A Course in Miracles. Roscoe, NY: Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1997, ISBN 0-933291-25-6.
• Wakefield, Gordon S.(ed.), A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. London: SCM, 1983.
• Wilkinson, Tony, “The Lost Art of Being Happy - Spirituality for Sceptics” Findhorn Press 2007, ISBN 978-1-84409-116-4
• Zagano, Phyllis Twentieth-Century Apostles: Contemporary Spirituality in Action (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999)
• Zagano, Phyllis “Woman to Woman: An Anthology of Women’s Spiritualities (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical PRess) 1993.
• Zajonc, Arthur, The New Physics and Cosmology Dialogues with the Dalai Lama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004,ISBN 0-19-515994-2.

External links

• Religion and Spirituality at the Open Directory Project