Aztec Indians
Uploaded by cjohnso2 on May 08, 2005
My second paper will be on the Aztec Indians, who are known for their domination of southern and central Mexico. They ruled between the 14th and 16th centuries. They built a great empire and developed very modernized ways of doing things. They had phenomenal architectural skills and waterway systems. The Aztec Indians also had very developed social class and government systems and practiced a form of religion. To begin with, the Aztecs were very skilled in the art of Architecture and waterway systems. “An example of the monumental architecture within the Aztec society is the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Montezuma I, who was the ruler of the Aztecs in 1466, created it. The pyramid was not finished until the rule of Montezuma II, around 1508”(Carrasco, Montezuma Mexico, Pg. 49). “Aztec cities and towns also had working drinking water and waste treatment systems. An intricate plumbing system using clay pipes ran down from the mountains around Mexico valley to all of the towns and cities in the valley. As the water ran into each town or city it was the dispersed to 10 or 12 places around town were it flowed into a pool for drinking water or was piped into public baths and toilets. Only nobles had working drinking and bathing systems with running water in their homes. The sewage system worked much like today, having human wastes carried to a collection pool where solids were collected, and then having liquids run off into a series of terraces which filtered the water. Solid wastes were allowed to sit in a collection pool for about six months and then were brought to the lake gardens to be used as fertilizer”(Jennings, Aztec, Pg. 220). “The Aztec social structure contained four well defined classes. At the bottom of the heap were slaves and serfs, or the Tlacotli, who worked the private lands of the nobility. Next came the Macehualtin, ‘the fortunate,’ as they were called because they were equally free of the heavy responsibility of the nobility and of the slave’s liability to being basely used. They were the merchants, shopkeepers and artisans that made up the bulk of the population. The Macehualtin belonged to localized kin groups known as calpulli or ‘big houses,’ each of which had it’s own lands, clan leaders, and temple”(Jennings, Aztec, Pg. 354). “After that came the hereditary nobility or Pipiltin, who supplied the top bureaucrats in...