Gender: Female Location: The United Soviet Socialist Republi
I'm done!
My report's done!
Alisa -EDITED-
Aztec Report
10/8/04
The Aztecs were an ancient civilization with great power. It all started around the late 14th century (late 13 hundreds) when the first Aztec leader, Acamapichtli, guided the first Aztec settlers to an eagle with a snake in its beak perched on a cactus. This was a symbol given to them as a sign by their gods in a legend stating that when they saw this, they were to build their capitol there and start a powerful civilization.
Throughout time, there were 11 Aztec leaders. Acamapichtli, who lead from 1376 to about 1396 (20 years) guided early construction of the city, accomplished a number of local conquests. When his first son, Huitzilihuitl, came into power in 1396 to 1417, he ruled for about 21 years while he also guided early construction of the city, accomplished a number of local conquests until his younger brother, Chimalpopoca, came into power in 1417 and ended his reign in 1427 (10 years) when Huitzilihuitl’s son, Itzcoatl, came into power in 1418 and ended his reign in 1440 during this period he formed a coalition with other lakeside people against the Tepanecs, brought an end to the Tepanec Domination of the basin of Mexico by sacking the city of Azcapotzalco, founded the empire of the Triple Alliance. Then, his younger brother, Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, came into power, ending his reign in 1469. During this time he established the Aztecs' victorious military program, and greatly expanded Aztec empire
Then, Moctezuma Ilhuicamina’s daughter and Chimalpopoca’s son married and had three children who then became the next rulers. The sixth ruler of the Aztec civilization was the oldest son of Moctezuma Ilhuicamina’s daughter and Chimalpopoca’s son, his name was Axayacatl, his reign lasted from 1469 to 1481 (10 years). Axayacatl Continued to expand the Aztec empire, he lost to the fierce Tarascans of Michoacan in a major battle. Tizoc, Axayacatl’s younger brother, then came into power in 1481 and ended his reign in 1486. He ruled for 5 years and was considered a coward when it came to matters of battle. His principal achievement being to initiate a major renovation and expansion of the Templo Mayor complex, this is pretty much all he did. The third and final brother was Ahuitzotl. His reign began in 1486 and ended in 1502. He began the traditional sacrifices to their gods because he believed that people needed to be sacrificed in order to keep the sun moving in the sky. Over 100,000 people were sacrificed while he was in power. He was eventually killed in battle with neighboring Indians. In 1502, Montezuma Xocoyotzin, also known as
Montezuma II came into power. He was assumed to be the greatest leader in Aztec history and lead many military battles. He was killed in a Spanish conquest in 1520. His brother, Cuitlahuac, then took power in 1520 but died 80 days later of smallpox.
The 11th ruler, Cuauhtemoc (Ahuitzotl’s grandson), then took power after Cuitlahuac in 1520 and was hung by the Spanish in 1525 when they took Tenochtitlan, thus ending the Aztec empire.
Aztec’s were not only powerful military wise, they were incredibly smart. They discovered that the earth revolved around the sun long before the Europeans even thought that the earth was round. This gave them a 365 day long calendar. The Aztecs had two calendars, one measured time and the other recorded religious events and holidays. This calendar was called Tonalpohualli, or the "count of days." In Tonalpohualli, there were 20 months each with 18 days and five days at the end of the year. The last five days were considered bad luck days and the 20 months all had names after the “secondary” gods they worshiped, “also called the suns family.” These months were crocodile, wind, house, lizard, serpent, death, deer, rabbit, water, dog, monkey, grass, reed, jaguar, eagle, vulture, movement, flint, rain, and flower.
Besides calendars, Aztec medicine was another great thing about their civilization. Aztec doctors used many herbal remedies both to cure and prevent illness. They knew cures for all sorts of things. For fevers they suggested to take regular steam baths, and they thought that the heat would clean and relax them and also sweat out the evil spirits that were poisoning them.
For earaches, Aztec doctors suggested putting liquid rubber in their ears. For broken legs doctors tied splints to the leg, but for legs that were cut, doctors sprinkled ground-up obsidian glass on the wound to help it heal. For colds, doctors suggested putting a drop of collected dew (from the fields) into each nostril twice a day.
If you were expecting a baby, doctors suggested:
• Carry some wood ash with you to ward off ghosts if you go out after dark. If a ghost is seen, this could harm your unborn baby.
• Do not chew gum, for this could cause your baby's mouth to swell up.
• Do not look at the sun during an eclipse; if you do, then your baby will be deformed.
• Pray to one of the Aztec goddesses of women everyday. For chest pains, doctors suggested several herbal remedies.
Aztec doctors understood a great deal about the human body. There were plenty of bodies to practice on with all the wars and sacrifices.
Along with medicine and advanced calendars, Aztecs developed unique ways of farming and traded goods with other civilizations over hundreds of miles away. Aztec farms were found to be different and smart. Normal chunks of land were attached to each other with crops growing in them and set in a lake. Sense the dirt absorbed the water; the crops never needed watering even in droughts but were hard to get to and used a lot of space but were otherwise a brilliant idea.
As for the Aztec laws, they were somewhat harsh but the judicial system was much like ours today. It followed the “Innocent until proven guilty” policy and a jury decided on the guilty mans punishment. On the next page is a chart of Crime and Punishment in the Aztec society.
Crime Punishment
adultery death
commoner found wearing cotton clothes death
cutting down a living tree death
drunkenness 1st offense -head shaved, house destroyed
2nd offense - death
handling stolen property sold into slavery
moving a field boundary death
kidnapping sold into slavery
selling substandard goods loss of property
major theft death
minor theft sold into slavery
treason death, loss of property, destruction of land, children sold into slavery
The Aztecs main source of food was cornmeal. They also ate tomatoes and avocadoes. These were grown by farmers and often taken to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capitol, and sold by merchants who previously bought the food from the farmers in hopes of making a profit, much like today’s “Supply and Demand” policy. In addition to the animals hunted and the crops grown for food in the Aztec society, the Aztecs were one of the first civilizations to make chocolate. Chocolate was reserved for high priests, warriors, and emperors because it was so hard to make in that time period.
The Aztecs language was called N’ahuatl. It was made of symbols or “hieroglyphics” to represent things often seen in the world, for example: They would draw a fish for a fish, or the sun for day time, or the moon for night time, so on and so fourth. Aztecs also had books called Codices. The books were long strips of paper that folded like an accordion. At each end of the strip was a piece of wood that would act as a cover. Both sides of the paper were written on and it could be read top to bottom or left to right. They were normally 20 centimeters wide and 50 meters long. They were made from deerskin or tree bark.
All in all, the Aztecs were a powerful civilization, but, because of their power, they treated their neighbors cruelly and that led to their downfall when the Spaniards united with the surrounding Indian tribes.
All information was received at http://library.thinkquest.org/27981/,http://www.indians.org/welker/aztec.htm, and http://www.google.com/
pretty good but you could replace Cuitlahuac, then took power in 1520 but died 80 days later of smallpox with Cuitlahuac, then took power in 1520 but died 2 months later of smallpox
__________________
"After coming into contact with a religious man
I always feel I must wash my hands."
-Friedrich Nietzsche