The Mexica or Aztec: A Predatory State

1
The Mexica or Aztec A Predatory State

• Social, Political, and Economic Organization

2
Who Were the Aztec?

• We know they came from somewhere up northhow far
  north is anyones guess
• Mythically, they came from Aztlan, the Land of
  the Herons, of which Aztec is a derivation
• They were mercenaries of the Toltec centered in
  Tula, although even that is bound up in myth
• When Tula fell, the Aztec migrated to an area of
  five lakes dominated by Lake Texcoco
• An area dominated by Epigonal Toltecs

3
Epigonal Toltecs

• The first were the Otomi-speaking Tepanecs, who
  founded the city of Atzcapotzalco on the western
  shores of Lake Texcoco
• The second was Xaltocan, an Otomi-speaking state
  on the north shore of Lake Texcoco
• The third was the Acolhua who dominated the
  eastern shore of Lake Texcoco, organized also by
  Chichimeca
• The fourth was Colhuacán on the southwest part of
  the Valley of Mexico, at the cusp between Lakes
  Texcoco and Xochimilco.
• The fifth was a small state Xicco.

4
Aztec Nomenclature

• Initially, they did not settle at the site of
  Tenochtitlan
• Their names changed from Chichimec from Aztlan
  a contemptuous term that meant Barbarian
• To Tenochca after a patriarch by that name, who
  also gave the name to Tenochtitlán
• To Mexica, which they adopted after attaching
  themselves to the Colhua of Colhuacan as
  mercenaries, calling themselves Colhua Mexica

5
Formation of the Aztec

• Initially, they did not settle at the site of
  Tenochtitlán
• After numerous wanderings they settled at a
  swampy site mythically where an eagle was perched
  on a nopal cactus devouring a snake
• First, they served as mercenaries of
  Atzcapotzalco
• They then switched sides, allied themselves with
  the Acolhua of Texcoco, overthrew Atzapotzalco,
  and eventually formed a triple alliance between
  themselves, the Acolhua, and a liberated part of
  Atzapotzalco called Tlacopan
• Third, they established hegemony in 1500, 21
  years before the actual conquest.

6
Formation and Society

• Bilateral descent does allow for flexibility.
• To enjoy a rapid rise from a muddy village
  settled in 1345 or so to an empire less than 200
  years later, you have to be flexible.
• 1427 saw the formation of the Triple Alliance
• So to envision an Aztec society, the question
  arises just which society are we talking about
• Berdan describes society at it was on the eve of
  the Conquest
• But were they patrilineal groups in the past? We
  dont know records were often destroyed by the
  victors

7
What Were the Calpulli?

• What is known for sure
• There were 20 Big Houses by that name
• They were landholding groups
• They were organized territorially
• They had their own councils
• They had their own temples
• They comprised the macehual, or commoner,
  generally peasants
• The debate kin groups or peasant class?

8
Calpulli as Kin Groups

• Kin groups or clans
• Reasoning the Aztecs themselves were tribal
  groups at most 300 years before
• What kind? Evidence is lacking?
• Indication of a patrilineal bias among nobility
  preference for junior lines in allocating
  economic assets and political favors.

9
Calpulli as Social and Economic Classes

• Developed into administrative subclasses
• Could have been units organizing not only
  peasants but also craftspersons and traders
• Example in Texcoco under Hungry Coyote
  (Nezahualcoyotl), calpulli were organized
  featherworkers and goldworkers
• Pochteca (luxury good traders) may also have
  formed a calpulli we do know they were hereditary

10
Calpulli as Both Kin and Class

• Conical clans in which privileges are based on
  order of birth
• Kept wealth and privileges in the family, but
  some members were more equal than others
• Kin trace their ancestry to a founder, real or
  fictive
• But through such justification as precedence of
  birth, the lineal descendants (junior lines) get
  preferential treatment
• This suggests that unilineal descent might have
  been dominant at one time

11
Calpulli and Ethnicity

• As conquests proceeded, Tenochtitlan became more
  ethnically diverse.
• Thus calpulli included not only kin but also
  allies from the conquered provinces
• Flexibility of kin thus allowed fictive
  (fictional) ties as well
• Thus, the European Catholic tradition of
  compradrazgo fit in very well with indigenous
  society.
• Thus their flexibility is not at issue only
  their pristine characteristics.

12
Calpulli and Land Tenure

• Land was held in common in the calpulli
• System was based on usufruct
• Peasants owned their plot so long as they used
  it and paid their taxes
• Land reverted back to the commons if the peasant
  stopped using the land or pay the taxes
• Land could be rented, but not bought or sold

13
Aztec Kin Reckoning

• Reckoned kinship bilaterally traced relations
  through paternal and maternal side.
• Kinship terms bilateral e.g. tlatli is an uncle,
  whether fathers or mothers brother
• Possibly reflected the extreme instability one
  expects from a state in rapid formation
• And one in which there are shifting alliances

14
Marriage among the Aztec

• Marriage was endogamous by class pipiltin to
  other pipiltin, macehuallin to other macehuallin
• There was no other rule of exogamy outside the
  immediate family
• This meant that marriage could involve ones
  cousin cross-cousin marriage was not unknown
• Polygyny was common among nobility and tied in
  with social class wives were put to work.

15
Marriage Alliances and Power

• Nobility Marriage had a political function
  female from Texcoco married a male from the
  subordinate Teotihuacan to maintain a tie
• The son of the Teotihuacan ruler would then be
  subordinate to Texcoco because of the gift of a
  wife.
• Marriage was to mans mothers brothers
  daughterhis matrilateral cross-cousin.
• Failure to repay in Maussian terms means the
  Teotihuacan nobility would be beggar to Texcoco
  nobility.
• This would persist for generations.

16
Aztec Markets Common Goods

• There were two kinds of markets
• One dealt in ordinary goods
• Markets usually met every five days
• Trading outside the market was illegal and one
  could be imprisoned or the goods confiscated
• Reason market transactions were subject to taxati

17
Aztec Markets Luxury Products

• Texcoco had been a market town long before the
  Aztecs assumed power
• Markets were a daily affair in Texcoco major
  markets comprising up to 50,000 buyers and
  sellers met every fifth daythey were the center
  of luxury products
• A hereditary class of merchants called Pochteca
  were probably active long before the Aztecs
• They occupied a precarious position
• On the one hand, they were vital as sources of
  military intelligence to the rulers and were
  protected
• On the other hand, their economic power were a
  threat to the rulers toward the end, they hid
  their wealth.

18
Sociopolitical Organization of the Aztecs

• Society A Twofold Division
• Pilli The nobles
• Macehual The peasants
• However, the peasants themselves were stratified
• Macehuales who excelled in battle could
  themselves become noble
• This requires some background in the principles
  of political anthropology

19
Social Class Overview

• General types (Fried)
• Egalitarian societies
• Social systems with as many valued positions as
  person capable of filling them
• Exceptions age, gender, special characteristics
• Ranked societies
• Social systems with fewer valued status positions
  than those capable of filling them
• Stratified societies
• Minority control of strategic resources

20
Stratified Societies

• Access to strategic resources is unequal
• Examples
• Water in irrigation societies
• Land in patrimonial (feudal) societies
• Claims to capital assets (stocks, bonds) in
  capitalist society
• Capital goods/services used for production
• Money, stocks, bonds are also capital

21
Emergence of Stratification

• Manipulative Individuals/ Families
• Form alliances (chimpanzee-like)
• Play one faction against another
• Form dynasties (bonobo-like)
• Control over Life-Sustaining Resources
• Water systems in semi-arid regions
• Agricultural lands
• Mechanisms of Taxation
• Labor
• Tribute

22
Political Organization Basic Principles

• Power vs Authority
• Power compliance by coercion or force
• Authority compliance by persuasion
• Legitimacy Beliefs rationalizing rule
• Examples Divine Right, Peoples Consent
• Sanctions reinforcements of behavior
• Positive rewards, recognition
• Negative punishment

23
Power versus Authority

• Extreme examples
• Power concentration camps Auschwitz (above)
  Guantanamo (below)
• Authority !Kung, Inuit, Yanomamo
• Neither is absolute
• Dictatorships need to persuade Nuremberg
  rallies, Mayday parades
• Power is evenly distributed in nonstate cultures

24
Legitimacy as Justification for Political Order

• Justification necessary even in authoritarian
  states
• Monarchies the divine right to rule
• Soviet Union Socialist transition to communist
  economy
• Nazi Germany Racial purification delivery of
  full-employment (Nuremberg rallies, above)
• Democratic forms consent by the governed (below,
  State of the Union)

25
One Myth Behind Mexica Power

• War Against the Tepenacs of Atzcapotalzo
• Nobles voted for war commoners voted for peace
• The declaration of the nobles (Wolf, p. 137)
• Commoners reply on agreement if the war were
  successful (Wolf, p. 137)
• Most likely, a mythical exchange, but this served
  as one part of legitimation

26
Sociopolitical Organizations General Typology

• Bands Small, informal groups
• Tribes Segmentary groups integrated by some
  unifying factor
• Chiefdoms Group organized under a chief in a
  ranked society
• State Centralized political system with monopoly
  over legitimized force and its use.

27
States Force as Prime Mover

• Defining Characteristics
• A centralized political system
• With power to coerce
• The operating factor
• Monopoly over the use of
• Legitimate physical force
• Supports the apparatus of the state
• Bureaucracy --Army and police
• Law and legal codes

28
States Derivative Features

• Administrative structure
• Public services --Tax collection
• Resource allocation --Foreign affairs
• Delegation of force
• Police, all levels --Armed force
• Law
• Civil (dispute resolution)
• Regulatory (trade, economy)
• Criminal (crime and punishment)

29
Law Cross-Cultural Comparison

• Codified law Formally defines wrong and
  specifies remedies
• Customary law Informal sanctions or dispute
  resolution
• Restitution or Restorative law emphasizes
  dispute resolution, damage restitution
• Retributive law emphasizes punishment for crimes
  committed

30
Case Studies Restitution

• Nuer Leopard-skin chief
• Function mediate disputes leopard wrap
  identifies role
• Cannot force or enforce an agreement
• Authority is spiritual
• Zapotec in Talea, Mexico
• Function hear cases and negotiate
• Recommend settlement
• Enforce agreement by community

31
Case Studies Retribution

• Criminal Law
• Murder, Robbery, Others
• Civil Law
• Consumer Law and Small Courts
• Final Say Judge or Arbitrator
• Limitation Sheer Numbers of Cases

32
A Trisection of Society

• Relations of Production form the basis of
  sociopolitical systems.
• Political superstructure government, military,
  the law
• Ideology religion, myths, even psychology
• When the base shifts, the rest of society changes

33
Basic Political Structure of the Mexica

• The nobility expanded its privileges as the
  empire developed
• Privileges Right to wear insignia, special
  clothing
• Marital privileges polygyny and the political
  and economic power it implied.
• Had their own special courts
• Sent children to calmecatl, or schools of
  religious and ceremonial training, prerequisite
  for entry into the bureaucracy
• Commoners were tillers of the soil
• Slaves, who had their own privileges

34
Aztec Society A Study of Mobility

• Remember that the Mexica were still in a state of
  expansion when the Spaniards came
• Unfinished business The Tlaxcalans, the
  Tarascans, the unconquered lands of southern
  Mexico
• Internally, they were a mobile society
• Rulers created a nobility of service as well as
  a nobility of lineage

35
Nobility of Service

• Distinguished themselves in war or by trade
• Term Knights or Sons of the Eagle
• Also divided the commoners from those relative
  few
• A source of tension with the nobility of lineage
  over bureaucratic positions
• An aristocratic reaction curtailed their
  privileges
• Stratification became more established on the eve
  of the Conquest

36
Religious Ideology

• Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird of the Left) the
  principal god
• Presided over a world that ended in cataclysm
• The last world ended in hurricanes, preceded by
  rain, sky falling on earth, and fire the
  present one will end in earthquakes
• To forestall the inevitable end would entail the
  blood sacrifice of humans

37
Gods from the Predecessors

• Quetzalcoatl The plumed serpent god who was
  banished to the east.
• Tezcatlipoca, (smoking mirror), who displaced
  Quetzalcoatl, who demanded blood sacrificed in
  his own right, and often identified with
  Huitzilopochtli
• Tlaloc, the rain god, He Who Makes the Plants
  Spring Up.
• Xipe Totec, the Flayed One, whose skin symbolized
  the old vegetation with the promise of renewal
• The pantheon became standardized after the first
  conquest over the Tepanec
• Even so, one god might be merged with another, as
  Huitzilopochtli with Tezcatlipoca

38
Self-Concept of the Mexica

• At the edge of cataclysm
• Individuals were expected to combine bravery with
  moderation
• The ideal Mexica did not drink to excess, spoke
  softly, was sexually continent.

39
The Eve of the Conquest Cracks in the Mexica
State

• The Mexica exploited the provinces mercilessly
  for tribute and sometimes sacrificial victims
• Except for these, the provinces were left on
  their own their own customs, languages, and
  religions were left alone.
• This, coupled with the still-independent states,
  may have been their downfall.
• The domination was never absolute, and the Mexica
  armies had their limitations
• The Spaniards were able to exploit these
  weaknesses, despite initial failures.

40
Comparison with the Maya

• The Maya were competitive city states
• Even after the collapse, they were relatively
  independent
• The conquest of the Aztec was largely a one-time
  event in the Valley of Mexico
• In contrast, the Spaniards would have to conquer
  one Mayan state over a long period of attrition
• Even after 1692, there were constant uprisings
  throughout Mexico and Guatemala well into the
  19th century.