Huitzilopochtli

The beginning of 1519--the year known as Ce Acatl to the Aztec-- marked the introduction of a short but decisive episode in the history of Mexico. On the day of April 21, a fleet of almost a dozen Spanish galleons dropped anchor just off the coast of the island, San Juan de Ulúa. Under the command of the then ‘heroic’, Hernán Cortés, the vessels bore over five-hundred Spanish soldiers and sailors, as well as approximately sixteen horses, the first of the species to tread the American continent.…

Mexico is a nation found in North America, sharing a northern border with the United States and a southern one with Belize and Guatemala. To the west lies the Pacific Ocean and to the east is the Gulf of Mexico. The country is part of the Northern and Western Hemispheres. As a federal republic, it is also officially known as the United Mexican States much like the United States of America. As a one of the largest nations in the world, Mexico is almost three times the size of Texas;…

Through the collection of poetry from the works titled, When My Brother Was An Aztec, Natalie Diaz delves deep into her childhood trauma through very imaginative and often unexpected ways. This collection is broken up into three sections, the first section focuses on the racism and oppression that Diaz experienced growing up as a Native American woman with poems such as “The Gospel of Guy No-Horse” which approaches this topic through humor. The second section of poems emphasizes how Diaz was…

were wearing, prompting an Aztec rebellion against the orders of Montezuma. There are only a few surviving accounts of the Spanish conquest of Mexico as told by Aztec authors. According to Nahuatl text the Aztecs were celebrating the Fiesta of Huitzilopochtli, the god of the Sun. The Spaniards went to watch them perform this famous and praised dance, and seeing how rich they were and wanting the gold that they were wearing, he covered each of the entrances with ten or twelve Spaniards and went…

manipulate the indigenous people to feel peace among the two groups before the Europeans would have a sneak attack and kill large numbers of native people. In one instance, many Spaniards felt urged to kill indigenous celebrants at the fiesta of Huitzilopochtli after saying they wanted to learn the…

There are many words that one can use to describe the indigenous people of Mesoamerica: brilliant architects, pioneers in mathematics and astrometry. However, there are a few words that are hardly ever utter out loud; cannibals and superficial individuals who perform human sacrifice. To our modern society, the practices of the Aztec people may seem a bit strange and a little bit extreme but to the Native people it was a part of their religious practices. If you can imagine it, it would be like…

absolute power. The Aztec religion included over 1,000 gods, most of which have been taken from other tribes. The center of their religion involves public ceremonies to win the gods’ favor. The most important ritual was for the sun god called, Huitzilopochtli. He needed human sacrifices to be strong and they engaged in war to provide these human sacrifices. In 1502 AD, Montezuma II became the emperor and called for more sacrifices. This led to a revolt by tribes in the outlying areas. The new…

The advancement of Aztecan society is known as one of the most magnificent developments in history. In the words of the column, “Aztec Culture and Society,” this group’s rise to power is one of the most remarkable. Originating from a land classified as Aztlan— or better translated as the White Land (History.com Staff, 2009)— the Aztecs began as a simple system of peoples. Historians believe they were possibly nomadic, traveling from the northern valleys. Their conditions were explicitly scarce.…

Much is known about the Ancient Egyptians, but there is also much left to be discovered. There were many other ancient civilizations that followed the Egyptians, surfacing in all corners of the world. Each having their own way of life, developing on different sides of the world. However, despite the different locations of these civilizations, many of them ended up having the same practices and belief systems. To see the similarities between different civilizations, one could compare the…

An individual’s life has been judged and predicted even before they were born. The fact that individuals are judged even before they are out of the womb shows how society expects each individual to be like. Society may have negative, positive, or even neutral thoughts about each individual. Those thoughts or ideas can leave an impact on individuals, in which can influence them in their choices in life. Those ideas could urge them to do what they decided not to do because what they originally…