The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (82 page)

Some subject provinces paid their tribute to the Aztec in slaves, in lieu of any other desirable resource. Other slaves were prisoners of war. An average slave could be purchased for 20 cotton mantles; an exceptional dancer might be worth 40. Male slaves were used as field laborers, domestic servants, or burden carriers; female slaves worked in kitchens and textile workshops. Slaves were allowed to acquire land, property, and even slaves of their own. Some worked their way up to positions of responsibility or married free citizens.

Some neighborhoods at Tenochtitlan, like those seen earlier at Teotihuacan, featured immigrants from other ethnic groups. Many were artisans who transformed gold, copper, silver, jade, turquoise, and rock crystal into sumptuary goods; made cloaks from the feathers of macaws, cardinals, quetzals, and hummingbirds; produced polychrome ceramics for the tables of nobles; and wove multicolored mantles that the tlatoani, like a film star in a Versace gown, is said to have worn in public only once.

Long-distance trade was in the hands of a special guild of wealthy commoners called
pochteca.
The pochteca lived in more than a dozen altepemeh, concealing their wealth behind high walls and coming and going by night. They used slaves as porters and, because they often traveled through hostile territory, had their own armed guards. One of their favorite destinations was Xicalango, a port-of-trade on a coastal lagoon in the Mexican state of Tabasco. There the pochteca exchanged highland products such as gold, rock crystal, obsidian, polychrome pottery, and fine textiles for lowland products such as quetzal feathers, jaguar pelts, chocolate, coral, and seashells.

Many of these lowland items were considered sumptuary goods by the tlatoani and tecuhtin, who frequently invested in the pochteca for personal gain. They also encouraged the pochteca to act as spies, debriefing them on the defenses and military strength of foreign peoples.

Xicalango, of course, was not the only important market of that period. Tenochtitlan’s sister island, Tlatelolco, maintained an open market whose size impressed even the sixteenth-century Spaniards. There, thousands of market women displayed their wares, while vigilant officials settled disputes and collected the equivalent of sales taxes.

The Aztec market, or
tianguis,
was an institution for which the Inca had no counterpart. Along with tribute, slave labor, and the efforts of pochteca entrepreneurs, it was one of the pillars of the Aztec economy. Another of those pillars was intensive agriculture, including the system of swamp reclamation known as
chinampa
gardening.

Over thousands of acres of the southern lake shore, organic mud was brought to the surface and piled in long parallel ridges. Each fertile ridge was bracketed by narrow canals that allowed canoes to enter and depart. Some chinampas were so productive that three or more vegetable crops could be harvested every year. Add thousands of square miles of irrigated fields and hillside terraces producing corn, and it is no surprise that the Spaniards were impressed.

Downtown Tenochtitlan

Spanish eyewitnesses described a sacred precinct in downtown Tenochtitlan, part of which featured a truncated pyramid whose twin temples were dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc. This pyramid represented Coatepec, the sacred hill where Coatlicue was impregnated, and a stone monument found near its base depicted her dismembered daughter, Coyolxauhqui. One temple was equipped with a chac mool to receive the hearts of sacrificial victims. Archaeologists such as Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Leonardo López Luján have labored for years to expose the great temple complex, which had been enlarged and renovated many times.

To the south was a temple to Tezcatlipoca; to the west lay a temple to Quetzalcoatl. Other institutions borrowed from the Toltec included a serpent wall and a giant skull rack, built from the heads of sacrificed captives. There was also a court for the ritual ball game and a school for the children of nobles. It is significant that the palace of the ruler was built on secular ground, outside the sacred precinct.

The Logic of Aztec Imperialism

For roughly 90 years the Triple Alliance worked to acquire new territory, exact tribute from it, and keep it from breaking away. We list here some of the principles the Aztec followed.

  1. Military prowess became an increasingly important criterion for selecting the tlatoani. Some candidates were asked to demonstrate their skills by bringing back 40 captives to be sacrificed at their inaugurations.

  2. Exceptional warriors were rewarded with special costumes, reflecting the number of captives they had taken.

  3. Like the Zapotec before them, the Aztec maintained détente with their most powerful neighbors while conquering weaker ethnic groups. They subjugated people on all sides of Tlaxcala but never the Tlaxcalans themselves. The Tarascan people of west Mexico put up such resistance that their frontier with the Aztec became a buffer zone between two lines of forts.

  4. When a community on the border of their empire proved rebellious, the Aztec pacified the area by slaughtering the adults and replacing them with loyal, Nahuatl-speaking immigrants. The children of the slaughtered rebels were then brought back to the Basin of Mexico and raised to be Aztec.

  5. What the Aztec sought as tribute were goods, including corn, cotton, chocolate, vanilla beans, tropical fruits, gold and precious stones, rubber, the pelts and plumage of exotic animals, and slaves. This stands in contrast to the Inca, who preferred corvée labor as tribute.

  6. The Aztec wanted to integrate other ethnic groups into their society, so they brought back foreign idols and built temples to foreign gods in Tenochtitlan. One of the reasons the Aztec had such an extensive pantheon, in fact, was that it grew by accretion as more and more deities were added. It was only logical to the Aztec that each society would have its own deities and ancestors. There was no forced conversion in Mexico until the Spaniards arrived, bringing with them the Inquisition.

  7. Aztec war had its protocols, its pre-Hispanic equivalent of the Geneva Convention. For example, major campaigns were never fought until the corn harvest was in and the dry season had begun. The logic behind this rule was that commoner foot soldiers, who were drafted as needed, should not be prevented from producing their crops, as this would impoverish even the victors.

The Later Aztec Kings

At the request of the Spaniards the Aztec recounted the exploits of their past kings, both through oral histories and through carefully painted picture-writing. From these histories we learn that Itzcoatl (1427–1440), first head of the Triple Alliance, sent his armies southwest to subjugate towns in what is now the Mexican state of Guerrero. He was succeeded by Motecuhzoma I (1440–1469), who had been a highly ranked general. Motecuhzoma solidified Aztec control of Morelos and Guerrero and then began a series of eastern campaigns against the Huastec people to the east. During this campaign the Aztec never strayed more than a one-day or two-day march from a friendly town that could supply them with food. This contrasted with the strategy of the Inca, who created their own extensive system of roads and imperial storehouses.

Motecuhzoma I was succeeded by his son, Axayacatl (1469–1481). The latter’s preinaugural campaigns had taken him to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and he went on to conquer Huatulco on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. He was forced to reconquer Guerrero and the Huastec region.

Axayacatl was succeeded by Tizoc (1481–1486), the first Aztec king to be considered a military failure. Tizoc’s problems began during his preinaugural campaign. In a region called Metztitlan, Tizoc’s troops were defeated but took the requisite 40 prisoners to be sacrificed at his inauguration. Upon his return to Tenochtitlan, Tizoc therefore commissioned a stone monument that depicted him taking captives. This monument was Tizoc’s version of a “mission accomplished” banner; it failed to mention that the battle had cost him 300 of his noble officers.

Tizoc continued to disappoint his supporters; two years later, he proved unable to prevent the people of Metztitlan from killing an Aztec tribute collector. After less than five years on the throne, Tizoc died, allegedly poisoned by people he trusted.

Tizoc was quickly replaced by his more aggressive brother Ahuitzotl (1486–1502). Ahuitzotl put down regions that had resisted Tizoc and conquered (or reconquered) parts of Guerrero, Puebla, and Veracruz. According to one account, he wiped out several rebellious communities and repopulated them with 9,000 loyal, Nahuatl-speaking married couples, 600 of whom came from the cities of the Triple Alliance. In the process, the thousands of orphans he created were relocated to other parts of the empire.

One of Ahuitzotl’s major accomplishments was his annexation of Xoconochco, a chocolate-growing region on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. The most direct route to Xoconochco was through Zapotec territory, but the Zapotec refused to allow the Aztec free passage through the Oaxaca Valley. Ahuitzotl therefore attempted to open a route by conquering Zapotec communities.

Under pressure from the Aztec, the Zapotec ruler Cociyoeza (1487–1529) moved his army from the Oaxaca Valley to a fortified mountaintop in the tropical Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The Zapotec troops were joined at Tehuantepec by a contingent of Mixtec-speaking allies from a kingdom called Achiutla. Soon Ahuitzotl’s army was under attack from two sides.

The Aztec received reinforcements three times in seven months but made no inroads into the Zapotec and Mixtec defenses. Finally, Ahuitzotl, his troops weakened by casualties and demoralized by the tropical heat, realized that his best strategy was to arrange a truce.

The key ingredient of the truce was a political marriage: the Aztec princess Coyolicatzin (“Cotton Flake”), daughter of Ahuitzotl, was betrothed to the Zapotec ruler. To make this union palatable to both ethnic groups, a romantic legend was created. It was alleged that Cociyoeza came upon Cotton Flake bathing in a mountain pool and was instantly smitten. Note how similar this is to the Hawai’ian legend of Liloa and Akahi, the parents of ‘Umi.

Ahuitzotl was succeeded by Motecuhzoma II (1502–1520), who solidified the conquests of his predecessors and added new territories. Unfortunately for Motecuhzoma, he happened to be on the throne when the Spaniards arrived in 1519.

Although outnumbered, the Spaniards had cannons, blunderbusses, crossbows, horses, and armor. They were joined by troops from Tlaxcala, skilled warriors who had a vested interest in seeing the Aztec defeated. The Spaniards also took the Aztec by surprise by attacking during the agricultural season, a breach of pre-Hispanic protocol. European diseases for which the Aztec had no immunity preceded each Spanish advance. In a relatively short time, Mexico’s last indigenous empire had collapsed.

PERU’S SECOND-GENERATION EMPIRES

When we last turned to the Andes it was to describe the Moche empire, which spread over 15 valleys on Peru’s north coast. The Moche were one of Peru’s earliest monarchies. Another was the Nasca kingdom of Peru’s south coast.

Even before the decline of the Moche and Nasca, two new expansionist states had begun to form. In contrast to the Moche and Nasca, both of which were centered on the Pacific coast, these second-generation states arose in the Andean highlands. Both would create institutions that were adopted by the later Inca.

Wari

We have identified the southern highlands of Peru as a place where the long-term gathering of tubers and hunting of guanacos led to farming and herding. The rugged Ayacucho basin, averaging more than 9,000 feet above sea level, is embedded in this region.

At the moment we do not understand the early history of the Ayacucho basin well enough to explain why the capital of a new expansionist state would arise there. We do know that between 200
B.C.
and
A.D.
200, perhaps half a dozen communities in the basin had temples and elite residences.

Archaeological surveys show that a place called Wari was already a large village with public buildings at that time, but it was not the most important community in the basin. That distinction belonged to Ñawinpukyo, a hilltop civic-ceremonial center that continued to grow for the next 500 years. There is no evidence, however, that Ñawinpukyo’s influence extended beyond the southern part of the basin.

Sometime between
A.D.
500 and 700, Wari began to grow. It eventually came to cover a square mile of volcanic plateau, swallowing up smaller communities as it expanded. At least five towns that may have been Level 2 centers in Wari’s administrative hierarchy arose to the west.

At Wari’s peak (
A.D.
600–900) many of its residents lived in large rectangular compounds, surrounded by stone walls 20 to 40 feet high. Some of these compounds had three stories and measured more than 900 by 400 feet. Craft activities were well developed, with mass production of mold-made pottery. The bones of llamas (raised as burden carriers) and alpacas (raised for their wool) have been found in the refuse at Wari.

Water was brought to Wari by a long canal that tapped into high-altitude sources. This main canal fed secondary canals that irrigated thousands of hillside terraces. The style of agriculture used at Wari anticipated, and perhaps provided a model for, later societies such as the Inca. While potatoes and other Andean tubers were among the staple crops, hundreds of terraces at lower elevations were used to grow corn for
chicha,
or maize beer.

Chicha was used by the Wari both as a ceremonial beverage and as a reward for labor gangs. The Wari drank it from special beakers called
keros,
a tradition carried on by later Andean peoples. Wari administrators kept elaborate accounts, using a system of knotted cords called
khipu
or
quipu.
This technology was also adopted by later societies such as the Inca.

The number and spacing of knots in the cords of a khipu allowed its owner to keep count of numbers of animals or units of commodities. It was, in other words, analogous to an abacus. There have been attempts to argue that khipu information was a kind of writing, but we find this unconvincing. In writing, there is a relationship between a set of symbols and the grammar of a spoken language. The mathematical relationships of knots do not meet this definition, and the information being recorded on one person’s khipu would not necessarily have been clear even to another person speaking the same dialect.