The Aztecs
Aztec Society
Emporer
- Selected by council of nobles
Nobles
- Included high level priests, landowner, judges, heads of government
- Privileged and lived well
- Could receive tributes
- Noble status passed from parents to children
- Wore decorative capes and jewellry
- Would show walth through extravagent feasts and gifts to each other
Warriors
- Highly respected
- Most males in Tenochtitlan were trained to be warriors
- Left home at puberty to live in a warrior house
- Women could not be warriors
- Expected to be brave
- Taught it was an honour to die in battle
- Hierarchy within based on how many captives a warrior would take in battle
- For most men it was a part time profession
- Needed to take on another trade to support themselves
Commoners
- Grouped into clans
- Owned and maintained their land
- Responsible for maintaining local temples and schools
- Every child attended school
- Included low level priests, farmers, craftspeople, merchants
- Expected to pay tribute to the nobles who owned the neighbourhoods
- Could become noble through marriage or in recognition of bravery in war
Slaves
- Owned by nobles or wealthy people
- Few rights
- Peoeple became slaves if they were criminals, could not pay debts, or were captured in war
- Could marry with masters permission
- Children of slaves were born free
- Status not passed down
Roles
The role of men and women
- Family was mde up of a man, his chief wife, and his other wives, his children, and his other reelatives
- marraige arranged with help of priests who would consult the starts for suitable matches
- Girls married around 16, boys at around 20
The role of children
- Typical jobs for children ingluded fishing and weaving (above).
- Discipline was very strict, both at home and at school (left)
- Children go to school and work
- Discipline was important, and very physially harsh
Religious Beliefs in Aztec Society
- Polytheistic
- Aztec gods were considered to be demanding
- Had to be calmes through bloody offerings
- Believed their gods gave them life
- Built temples to worship their gods
- Steep pyramid structures with lots of steps
Life after death
- Believed in life after death
- Believed the way someone died, rather than how they live, determined what happened to them
- The dead were buried with a variety of goods to use in the afterlife
Human sacrafices
- Performed in honour of the gods of sun, rain and earth.
- Human sacrafice was really important
- Most common form was to cut out a victims heart
- The heart was place in a chacmool and the victims body was thrown down the temple steps
- Parts of the body (such as the thigh) were given to the victim's captor to eat
- The Aztecs believed that if they did not sacrafice to Huitzilopochtil then the sun would not rise the next morning
Life in Tenochtitlan
What evidence is there to show that the aztecs were an advanced civilisation.
- Roads
- Grid pattern of buldings
- Districts
- City planning
- Human constructed islands
- Public toilets
- Reuse of sewage as fertiliser
Explain why the system of tribute was so important to the city and its people
They were improtant to the people for religious reasons, as they thought the sun would not rise if they didn't
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