Moctezuma II was the last great Aztec king or ruler of the Mexica people in today’s modern day Mexico. His reign saw the arrival of the conquistadors from Spain and it was Hernan Cortés who most famously defeated this strange kingdom in the New World and took hold of ht enew lands in the name of the Spanish King.
Quite a few years ago I went and saw the Moctezuma exhibit at the British Museum in London. It was only a guest exhibit and the museum had acquired a trawl of beautiful, authentic artifacts from during the reign of Moctezuma II. The ornate turquoise, dragons and face masks adornesd the exhibit. It was almost totally alien to the Western eye. A lost culture, a distant land a forgotten world where ideals and values were obviously quite different. This book was written to accompany the exhibit at the British Museum and it is richly decorated with colour photgraphs of many of Moctezuma’s sacred items as well as providing illustrations of the art in his native land that depicted him performing his rituals.
Moctezuma II’s reign as the last leader of the Aztecs occurred at around the turn of the sixteenth century. He had ruled with no contest for about 18 years prior to Cortés’ arrival with the conquistadors from Spain. This exploratory force arrived on the Atlantic coast and with their horses and advanced muskets, proceeded inland until they caught sght of Moctezuma’s sacred capital island city, Tenochtitalan, in 1519. The empire that Moctezuma II had governed, up until that point, was the most extensive and powerful empire ever known in Mesoamerica.
The Aztecs were a Nahuatl speaking group that migrated from the North and settled in the Basin of Mexico in about 1200 AD. They justified their actions accordig to a divine mandate and exacted tribute to their Empire from those around them. Thie rhumble origins as a migratpry tribe from the North were revealed in the yth told of their creation in seven caves in a place called Aztlan. This creation myth was projected into being represented in their new sacred capital, Tenochtitlan, whoch stood in Lake Tetzcoco and is presently where Mexico City now lies, the capital city of the modern world country of Mexico.
The long journey of the Aztec migration was prophesied to end at the sight of a magnificent eagle, symbol of the sun, percvhed on a prickly pear actus, eating the red fruits that resembled a human heart. This was where they chose to build their capital. For those familiar with flags, you will realise that this very image can be seen in the middle of the red, green and white colours of the flag of Mexico.
Aztecs worshipped the sun, among a pantheon of deitites, and Moctezuma II, as King or Emperor, had a job of appeasing the Gods. This was primarily achieved through bloodletting. At scarificial altars, Moctezuma would drain blood from his pumping veins on a regular basis. Bloodletting was not quite enough though. Prisoners of war, slaves, children and indeed successful winners of Palenque games, were all queued up at Temples, prepared to lay down their lives in the ultimate sacrifice to appease the Gods. Moctezuma would preside over human sacrifice ceremonies, where he would lay out the victim on his altar at the top of the Temple or Pyramid, in full view of the Sun itself and also the throngs of people. The live beating human heart would then be but directly out of the victim’s body and while it was still beating, be held up to the sun and then placed into Moctezuma’s sacrificial turquoid sacrifice-collecting bowl.
At the exhibit at the British Museum, I was lucky enough to actually be able to see this very bowl that was used in these ceremonies. It was so beautifull and at first I wondered exactly what it could have been used for. It was pretty huge and I would say must have been able to hopld about 50 or so live beating human hearts at any given time. The image of that bowl has persisted in my imagination and it does make you wonder about ancient societies, distant from us, and what their beliefs actually meant and whether they had value or not?
The book explored the history of Moctezuma II and how he came to be on the throne. It analyses with good available archeological evidence a lot of the featues of his reign. He was a well adept military leader, with much success (except with the Spanish). His Eagle and Jaguar orders for the military were elite and loyal troops.
We look at the various Gods as worshipped by the Aztecs.
These include:
Huitzilopochtli, the tribal God of the Mexica.
Tlaloc, the rain God.
Tezcatlipoca, an omnipotent God of war, destiny, sorcery, divination and night.
Quetzalcoatl, or plumed serpent, the patron deity of rulers, God of wind and creator of humankind.
Xiuhtecuhtli, or turquoise lord, a God associated with fire, heat and the sun.
Moctezuma used to become one with Xiuhtecuhtli in public ceremonies, which is probably why so much of his personal items as plundered from his Empire, are coloured in rich turquoise.
Moctezuma II was a well-liked and powerful ruler of an Empire that, due to the unpredicatble nature of civilization clashes unfortunately led to the end of the Aztec civilization. The conquistadors brought advanced weaponry in mounted horses and muskets, that was a technologically revolutionary advancement in the known Aztec world. After Moctezuma was tricked by being imprisoned and then killed off by his Spanish guests, the lands of his old empire were incorporated into the Spanish King’s new global Empire in the New World. Much of the native population ended up getting ravaged by brutal, imported European diseases such as smallpox. The religion was crushed by Catholic priests hell-bent on converting the heathen natives and much of the valuable temple and palace treasures were plundered for Conquistador booty.
A famous Spanish explorer who was with the conquistadors recorded the Spanish version of events during this clash of continental civilizations. His name was Bernal Díaz del Castillo and I am currrently also embarked on reading his ‘The Conquest of New Spain.’
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