r/aztec

I drew it some years ago when my special interest was the Aztec empire.

Mexica-Tenochca tradition has it that Moteuczoma Xocoyotzin ordered the construction of a new house to hold the images of foreign deities captured in war. This place--variously referred to as Coacalco, Coatcocalli, and Coatlan--is sometimes described as a temple and other times as a shrine located within the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan and protected with bars "like a prison."

Once completed, it was said that 780 captives from the rebelling province of Teuctepec were sacrificed personally by Moteuczoma and his Cihuacoatl to consecrate it.

However, the idea of collecting or "capturing" gods from neighboring or enemy cities has a long history in pre-Hispanic Mexico. In his research into Texcoco, the mestizo historian Juan Bautista Pomar credits Nezahualcoyotl as the first to collect "idols" from various parts of all the neighborhoods of the city.

Warfare was often a game of "capture of the God."

The Annals of Cuauhtitlan preserves a story of how groups employed decoys to protect their deity's true image or teixiptla in case of attack.

The famous Tizoc Stone and Stone of Montezuma I also portray scenes of conquest where the Mexica ruler, dressed in the clothing of the god Huitzilopochtli, holds the god of the conquered city captive.

According to the Dominican friar Diego Duran, several years before the arrival of the Spaniards Moteuczoma had tried and failed repeatedly to steal the god Camaxtli from Huexotzinco.

Sometimes, even the entire priesthood of a vanquished altepetl was transported with the god's image to Tenochtitlan.

This practice may also be reflected in the mythological stories where gods appropriate the clothing and insignia of their defeated foes.

In the above image, taken from the Florentine Codex, Moteuczoma is pictured in front of the Coacalco--indicated by a serpent (coatl) glyph for the word's prefix--receiving his emissaries who inform him of the iron-clad strangers who have arrived on the Gulf Coast. As scholars Rebecca Dufendach and Jeanette Peterson discuss, the depiction of the sovereign receiving the news here at the place where foreign gods are "imprisoned" may be meant to suggest the Spanish will meet a similar fate.

**References**

Alvarado Tezozómoc, F. de. (2001). Crónica mexicana (G. Díaz Migoyo & G. Vázquez Chamorro, Eds.). Dastin.

Bierhorst, J. (Trans.). (1992). History and mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca. University of Arizona Press.

Declercq, S. J. L. J. (2018). In mecitin inic tlacanacaquani: “Los mecitin (mexicas) comedores de carne humana”: Canibalismo y guerra ritual en el México antiguo (Doctoral dissertation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).

Dufendach, R., & Peterson, J. (2022). Folios alterados, historias alternativas en el Códice Florentino. Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 64, 63–107. https://doi.org/10.22201/iih.30618002e.2022.64.78093

Durán, D. (1971). Book of the gods and rites and The ancient calendar (F. Horcasitas & D. Heyden, Trans. & Eds.). University of Oklahoma Press.

Durán, D. (1994). The history of the Indies of New Spain (D. Heyden, Trans., Annot., & Intro.). University of Oklahoma Press.

Garibay K., Á. M. (1964). Poesía náhuatl (Vol. 1). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.

López Austin, A., & López Luján, L. (2017). State ritual and religion in the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan. In D. L. Nichols & E. Rodríguez-Alegría (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the Aztecs (pp. 605–622). Oxford University Press.

The great temple of Tlatelolco as pictured in the Codex Azcatitlan, mid-17th Century.

This page, opposite the coronation of the elder Moteuczoma, shows several episodes highlighting the role of Tenochtitlan's partners in his wars of expansion. Tlatelolco's place-name glyph is shown at the pyramid's base, on which is also superimposed a temple and the glyph for the town of Chalca Atenco. To its left are Chalca captives wearing the quauhcozcatl or slave collar attached to ropes. They are held prisoner by Nezahualcoyotl, ruler of Texcoco.

To the captives' right is a fire drill referring to the Toxhiuhmolpilia or binding of years ceremony of Moteuczoma's reign in 1455. At the top right this ceremony is also shown celebrated at Chalco Atenco and the town of Acolman. Below the two smaller temples two men lie dead with one--connected to the temple by a line--possibly a Chalca lord. Underneath them is shown the death of Tlatelolco's tlatoani Cuauhtlahtoa, who is succeeded by Moquihuix, leader of the city until the Mexica civil war of 1473.

The European influenced three-dimensional style of the temple stands out in this codex more than others. Its prominence here and in earlier scenes where it is shown both in the mythical homeland of Aztlan and constructed in Mexico before Tenochtitlan's together with the coronation of the Tlatelolco's first tlatoani--otherwise described in detail only in the city's famous annals--and the attention it pays to local episodes while illustrating the conquest, have been used to argue the book originated there.

Whereas some scholars have seen the Azcatitlan's presentation of history as somewhat "objective", the artists' decision to use this three-dimensional form primarily for Tlatelolco's temple and bi-dimensional depictions of Tenochtitlan's temple for most of the codex has lead others to speculate this was intended as a subversive message meant to delegitimize the Tenochcas in the eyes of its Mexica audiences.

Regardless, the attention given to Tlatelolcan narratives in general during the early colonial era--the Florentine Codex among them--was a frustration voiced by fellow Mexica rivals. The Nahua historian Alvarado Tezozomoc, who was of royal Tenochca lineage and compiled his own history, the Cronica Mexicayotl, based on the traditions told to him by other highborn noblemen from Tenochtitlan, addressed this directly while writing to their descendants:

>And as for Tlatelolco: never will [these accounts] be taken from us, for truly they were not only in [the Tlatelolca’s] keeping. But these accounts of the ancient ones, this book of their accounts in Mexico, we have inherited. These accounts are indeed in our keeping. Therefore we too, but especially our sons, our grandsons, our offspring, those who will issue from us, they too will always guard them.

In 1521, under the orders of Pedro de Alvarado the great temple of Tlatelolco was captured and set ablaze by the conquistador Gutierre de Badajoz during the war between the Mexica and allied Spanish/Tlaxcallan forces. For this he was awarded a coat of arms with two golden towers by the Spanish Crown.

Full Codex is available here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84582686/f6.item

References

Barlow, R. (1944). Gutierre de Badajoz, conquistador del Cu de Tlatelolco. Tlatelolco a través de los tiempos. Memorias de la Academia de la Historia, 2. México

Barlow, R. (1949). El Códice Azcatitlan. Journal de La Société Des Américanistes, 38, 101–135. http://www.jstor.org.kbcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/24720803

Francisco, D. (2016). Codex Chimalpahin : society and politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Culhuacan, and other Nahua altepetl in central Mexico : the Nahuatl and Spanish annals and accounts collected and recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin. University Of Oklahoma Press.

Navarrete, F. (2004). The Hidden Codes of the Codex Azcatitlan. Res (Cambridge, Mass.), 45(45), 144–160.

Rajagopalan, A. H. (2019). Reading Between the Lines: An Indigenous Account of Conquest on the Missing Folios of Codex Azcatitlan. Iberoamericana (Madrid, Spain), 19(71), 51–76.