My people call ourselves Mexica, but the Europeans people call us Aztecs. We live in Central American, known now as Mexico, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Our people are known for their military strength, which allowed us to conquer all the tribes in what now is our enormous territory. We believe in the god Huitzilopochtli, who is the god of war. We believe that we had to sacrifice human flesh the Huitzilopochtli to keep the Sun from going out. We often use captives from military conquests to be used as our sacrifices.
Our society is broken into two social classes, the nobility and the commoners. The nobility makes up only ten percent of our people. Most of our wealth goes to the nobility. This wealth comes mainly from tribute which we force conquered tribes to pay. This tribute is in the form of goods such as food, gold, and even the humans themselves. Over time we have acquired enough wealth to build great cities and to fill our storehouses with large amounts of treasures.
Our main source of food, other than tribute goods is through the farming of our own maize, squash, and beans. As our population has grown we used irrigation and converted mountainsides and swamps into usable farmland to sustain the population. Our women use cotton to produce textiles such as clothing. We also create pottery for cooking and religious affairs. We use obsidian to create razor sharp tools and weapons that propel our society forward. We have large marketplaces where we use cotton textiles and cocoa as currency for purchases, but like money.
Our society lies in a brittle balance between us and our conquered territories. We haveto make sure we keep control over them or else they could ally with other and revolt. (The Spanish allies with the conquered tribe's peoples to take over the Mexica).
Web Source:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/Smith-AztecCulture-WWW.pdf
Good description of the Mexica.
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