Aztecs Hey My name is Sam Cornwell, this is my reasearch page on Aztecs.

Where They Originated From. The Aztec people were originally from Asia that crossed to America across a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.They took this great journey in search of animals and food. Gradually these first migrants moved south into Mexico and South America. Source: "The Aztecs" written by Pamela Odjik

Length of Occupation These first migrants of the mexico region (Mesoamerica) were believed to have first inhabited central America, around 11,200 years ago. This is the most accepted theory but another theory has arisen that people have inhabited central America for up to 40,000 years.This theory is not yet accepted but more reaseach is underway.   Source:   www.wikipedia.com

Religion & Sacrifice     The Aztec religion was very complicated and the reason for this is that they inherited a lot of their practises and rituals from conquered peoples. Another aspect that makes the Aztec religion so sophisticated was that they also had a huge number of gods. They had three main gods, Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, then after them four creation gods, then followed hundreds of lower gods for human activities or aspects of nature. With all these gods that the Aztecs believed in they also believed that they all ahd to be satisfied. To satisfy them they committed alot of human and animal sacrifice.   There are two main reasons why people anywhere would engage in human sacrifice, they are to please a god or goddess or to forestall unfavourable events (usually a natural disaster or problem). The specific reason in the case of the Aztecs was to please or help a god, goddess or deity. Aztec sacrifices were generally directed at children who come from poor families or prisoners or war or from other tribes. Four of the sacrificial practises that the aztecs practised were:     * Skinning * Cannibalism * Collection of Skull Racks * Ripping out of a Bleeding heart and burning it.     Evidence of these pracitses is shown through artwork and dairies written. One example of this evidence is this picture found in the Codex of Magliabechiano.  It shows that Aztecs performed the practise of cannibalism to gain the traits of the person eaten. Knowing this, the person that was eaten was usually a strong leader or important person.  The Aztecs only ate two body parts of the human, they were, the brain and the leg.  Poor or retarded people were never eaten due to their bad traits.   Codex of Magliabechiano. Source: (www.wikipedia.com)   Here are two comparisons of the Aztec sacrifice compared to other cultures:   1 European Bog Bodies: This was another culture that carried out human sacrifice. Aztec Sacrifice was similar to the European Bog Bodies in that the sacrifice was brutal, but the European Bog Bodies didn’t always kill in the same way where as the Aztecs killed the same way every time. They are also different in that the European Bog Bodies were left whole and preserved, where as the Aztecs usually burnt the bodies and only preserved the head.    2 Inca Sacrifice: Inca human sacrifice was very different to Aztec sacrifice in many ways. Some of them are, the Inca’s did human sacrifice on important of special occasions where as Aztecs did sacrifice every day. Inca’s also only chose the finest people for the sacrifice where as Aztecs used poor children or prisoners of war or from other tribes.   Sources:   http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/AZTECS.HTM http://library.thinkquest.org/27981/  Year 8 Aztec Handbook.

Aztec Temples and Architecture        Here is a great Website that gives a good insight into the Aztec Architecture, in particualr the temples they built.  http://library.advanced.org/10098/aztec.htm

Aztec Mythology that Accounts For Their Origins  This is an exert from the Website http://www.indians.org/welker/aztecs.htm, written by Glenn Welker that explains the Aztec Creation Story.   The mother of the Aztec creation story was called "Coatlique", the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes. She was created in the image of the unknown, decorated with skulls, snakes, and lacerated hands. There are no cracks in her body and she is a perfect monolith (a totality of intensity and self-containment, yet her features were sqaure and decapitated). Coatlique was first impregnated by an obsidian knife and gave birth to Coyolxanuhqui, goddess of the moon, and to a group of male offspring, who became the stars. Then one day Coatlique found a ball of feathers, which she tucked into her bosom. Whe she looked for it later, it was gone, at which time she realized that she was again pregnant. Her children, the moon and stars did not believe her story. Ashamed of their mother, they resolved to kill her. A goddess could only give birth once, to the original litter of divinity and no more. During the time that they were plotting her demise, Coatlicue gave birth to the fiery god of war, Huitzilopochtli. With the help of a fire serpent, he destroyed his brothers and sister, murdering them in a rage. He beheaded Coyolxauhqui and threw her body into a deep gorge in a mountain, where it lies dismembered forever. The natural cosmos of the Indians was born of catastrophe. The heavens literally crumbled to pieces. The earth mother fell and was fertilized, while her children were torn apart by fratricide and them scattered and disjointed throughout the universe.   Huitzilopochtli

Extra Information  Graph on the population of Aztecs, when the Spanish invaded.   Source: http://www.alcdsb.on.ca/~mart/junior/2001gr5/aztec_projeject.htm                                                                                             The Columbain Exchange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange   Pre-Columbian Distribution of Organisms with Close Ties to Humans Type of organism Old World list (what they had) New World list (what they had) Domesticated animals camel cattle donkey fowl (several species including chickens) goat horse pig rabbit sheep alpaca fowl (a few species) guinea pig racoon llama turkey Domesticated plants bananas barley beans black pepper cabbage coffee cotton (short staple "Egyptian" variety) citrus garlic hemp lettuce oats onion peach pear rice rye sugarcane turnip wheat amaranth avocado beans cashew chia chicle (chewing gum base) chili pepper (includes the bell pepper) cocoa cotton (long staple variety, 90% of modern cultivation) maize (corn) manioc (cassava) papaya peanut pecan pineapple potato quinoa rubber squash (incl. pumpkin) sunflower strawberry (American species used in modern hybrids) sweet potato tobacco tomato vanilla Infectious diseases bubonic plague cholera influenza malaria measles scarlet fever sleeping sickness smallpox tuberculosis typhoid yellow fever Chagas' disease[citation needed] syphilis (possibly. See the syphilis article for details) yaws yellow fever (American strains