Aztec Warrior

According to the legend, the Aztecs, who referred to themselves as the Mexica, spent years wandering through central Mexico in search of a homeland. In AD 1325, the Aztecs founded their new capital Tenochtitlan (Moctezuma, 9). Years later, the Aztecs started to build their renowned empire. The Aztec Empire was made up of the Triple Alliance: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan (Moctezuma, 55). Agriculture was the basis of the Aztec’s economy, but conquest and warfare lead to economic expansion and the accumulation of tributes from conquered towns (Moctezuma, 21). War was vital, for it maintained and expanded the economic and religious basis (Moctezuma, 55). The Aztec warriors were the driving force of much of the Aztec empires success because of their training, weaponry, wardress, sacrificing, and combat.

Aztec military training starts when a male child is twenty days old. There are two separate military training schools, Telpochcalli and Calmecac, whichever school the child entered was weighted heavily by heritage. Commoners usually went to Telpochcalli, to become soldiers, or Calmecac, to become a priest. Nobles, (privileged status from heritage), could become a priest, political, or military leader at Calmecac, which involved rigorous training of intellect and the training taught at telpochcalli. From here the youths would train until ready to be sponsored by veteran warriors that would take the youths to battle and watch over them. The youths would experience the war early to learn to courageously face death on the battlefield.

Warfare provided commoners an opportunity for social advancement. Achievement on the battlefield would offer elevation of social status, honor and material awards. A distinguished military care...

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...presenting Aztec gods). The eagle represented the images of the sun while descending and the jaguar represented the death of the sun (when the sun was not present in the sky). “This solar association refers to the Aztec warrior’s primary function, acquiring victims to nourish the sun” (Pasztory, 82). The ixcahuac, obsidian stone knives can be found in the Museo Nacional de Antropoligia, Mexico.

Atzec Atlatls can be found at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico two feet in length and one and a half inches thick with a hook at the upper end (Hassig, 76). The darts used with the atlatl, where made of wood and the butts were feathered, they would be fire hardened, and had obsidian, fishbone, copper, or flint points. Stone engravings of a warrior with an atlatl, dart, and shield originally from Tenochtitlan, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico, (Hassig, 78).