The Aztec Empire was the dominant power in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The astronomical and cosmological traditions they created were extremely fascinating but are still subject to prejudice.
Host | Matthew S Williams
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/matthew-s-williams
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Episode Notes
The Aztec Empire was the dominant power in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The astronomical and cosmological traditions they created were extremely fascinating but are still subject to prejudice. Like their peers in Eurasia and East Asia, the Aztecs watched the heavens avidly and discerned patterns that influenced their worldview, calendar systems, and even urban planning.
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Resources
Aztecs Used an Extremely Accurate Solar Observatory to Manage Their Farming - Universe Today: https://www.universetoday.com/159220/aztecs-used-an-extremely-accurate-solar-observatory-to-manage-their-farming/
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For more podcast Stories from Space with Matthew S Williams, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/stories-from-space-podcast
Indigenous Astronomy: The Legacy of the Aztecs | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams
[00:00:00] The authors acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the
traditional unceded lands of the Lekwungen peoples. Good day, and welcome to
another episode of Stories from Space. I'm your host, Matt Williams, and today,
we're picking up in our series about indigenous astronomy. In our last episode,
we looked at various nations in North America, focusing largely on the Cree
nations.
And also the efforts to restore and revitalize these and other indigenous
astronomical traditions. Well, today we're going to be looking at Mesoamerica,
which is to say Mexico and Central America prior to contact made with the
Spanish and the conquistadors, which is also known as pre Columbian America.
And specifically, we're going to be looking at the Aztecs, the civilization
established by the Nahuatl speaking indigenous people [00:01:00] of Mexico
that ruled much of the Mexican Plateau from circa 1300 CE to 1521 CE. And
like all pre Columbian cultures, the Aztec had astronomical and cosmological
traditions, which are very fascinating, and which were very much the product of
their environment, and certain universal sources of inspiration.
Essentially, the night sky, the planets and the stars, the sun and the moon and
their passage through the heavens, and how humans have an undeniably
universal gift for finding patterns and seeing incredible significance in the
heavens. And what we know about these traditions is unfortunately limited to a
few, what are known as codices, which is to say, Aztec artistic representations
or pictograms.
That were traditionally written out on these long scripts, [00:02:00] fashioned
out of animal hides or fig tree bark. But which today is used to refer to all
Mesoamerican texts that have since largely taken on the form of folio style
volumes. And even though only a handful of these codices survived the
genocide of the Americas, much like the Mayan Inca, cultural scholars,
anthropologists, they continue to learn more and more about the ancestral
traditions of these people, and are finding that Well, previously held notions
were often largely mistaken, informed by cultural prejudice or outright racism,
or just a certain lack of knowledge, a lack of balance in terms of perspective.
And, of course, the indigenous people who've maintained these traditions
throughout the past few centuries, Modern scholars are doing a better job than
their predecessors by actually listening to the [00:03:00] practitioners andpreservers of these traditions and incorporating them into their academic
outlook.
And so what we've learned in the past few decades has not only been incredibly
fascinating, but it is really allowed for a much more detailed reconstruction of
what the beliefs and practices and worldviews of these ancient cultures had
been. So, to give a quick breakdown on their history, the Aztecs traced their
origins to a lake that existed in the northwest of the Valley of Mexico named
Aztlan, from which the name Aztec was derived.
They also went by the name Mexica as well, from which the name Mexico was
derived. And according to Aztec mythology, they lived on an island in this lake.
but left around 1100 CE and ended up wandering through the deserts of
northern Mexico for many years. According to legend, they picked up the path
of an eagle and followed it as it landed on a central island to the [00:04:00]
south of them in what was known as Lake Texcoco.
This lake has since been drained in order to accommodate the urban sprawl of
Mexico City, but at the time, it was a large body of water with several powerful
city states arranged along the waterfront. And when the Aztecs arrived, they
were viewed by these city states as crude barbarians. But nevertheless, they also
established a reputation for being fierce warriors, and employed themselves to
these various city states as mercenaries.
In exchange, they were allotted a place to live. In the southwestern end of the
lake, where there are several marshy islands and among these brackish shallow
waters. And on the largest of these islands, they began to build a massive city.
And much like Vienna, this consisted of using rafts, bridges, and connecting all
land masses to the mainland.
And so the resulting city had many waterways and canals, and this was a
popular means of transportation. At the same time, to support their [00:05:00]
population, they turned the marshy islands and the shallow lake beds into large
islands that were dedicated to crops. And these are known as chinampas, and
they still exist in many parts of Mexico today.
And while the Aztecs did not invent this particular form of agriculture, it was
something that they inherited from the many civilizations that permeated the
region over the years. And by the 14th century CE, the Aztecs had arisen as a
major power in the Mexican Plateau region. In 1427, they formed a
confederation between three city states, Tenochtitlan, which was their capital,along with Texcoco, on the eastern bank of the lake, and Tlacopan, on the
western bank, just north of their city.
And from there, they spread outwards, and they made contact with many more
cultures, and they discovered the ruins of many ancients that had come before
them, and were heavily influenced by them, and this included the ruins of
Teotihuacan, [00:06:00] Tulan, And these were massive and amazing urban
centers that had been created by previous civilizations in the region, such as the
Olmec, Teutonic, and Toltec civilizations, among others.
And to the Aztecs, they called these places Tolan Xico Tot Itlan, which loosely
translated means Among the Reeds. So basically, ruins are cities that have
become overgrown again, and from these ancient cultures, their neighbors, and
of course their own mythology and lore, the Aztecs created a very rich culture,
including a particularly rich cosmology and astronomical tradition.
And much like the traditions that had emerged in ancient China and in Eurasia,
there was, of course, a very real, very clear connection between the charting of
the heavens and life on earth. The Aztecs believed firmly [00:07:00] that The
passage of the stars, and the planets, and the sun, and the moon, that these were
very much related to the seasons on Earth, and so, they used their calendars and
their star charts to determine when they needed to sow their crops, hold specific
religious ceremonies, such as sacrifices.
And as a means of predicting the future. And so, from this, those who are
familiar with the Aztec stone calendar, it's a, it's a very beautiful, very ornate
system, and it shows two calendars, one within the other, and it symbolizes the
wheel of time and the passage of the world through various phases or various
periods.
And what we've learned from not only the calendar system, but the surviving
codices that really explain their myths and their worldview, we know that the
Aztecs were avid watchers of the night sky, and based on centuries of
observations, Again, much like their peers in Asia and Eurasia, [00:08:00] they
discovered patterns in the stars and the movements of the planets and the sun
and the moon, and that how these were related to life on Earth.
From this they discerned that there was an order to it, which they sought to
understand and incorporate it into the structure of their civilization. So, for
example, the stone calendar, it shows two methods of recording time, and these
are known as Ponapawali, which in Nahuatl means count of days, and
Shupawali, which means count of years.So, whereas Tanapawali was a religious calendar that was 260 days long,
Chupawali was a 365 day calendar, and this was used for more civil matters,
things that didn't really fall under the heading of religious rites or ceremonies.
And the basis of Tanakhwali was the time it took for the sun to cross a certain
point in the sky.
And this was used to determine when [00:09:00] they needed to sow their crops,
build houses, conduct religious rites, and make sacrifices to the gods, as well as
inaugurating a new king, and even going to war. So this was a key aspect of the
Aztecs. They were a rather fatalistic people who believed that all things needed
to happen in due time and that one could not make certain decisions or perform
certain rites when it was not called for in the religious calendar.
In that respect, they were not unlike the Greeks, particularly the Spartans, who
believed that you could not march to war during the festival of Carnea. And
meanwhile, Chupawali is essentially a solar calendar, given the fact that it's 365
days long. It was not actually based on the sun, but the Pleiades cluster.
Aztec sun worship and the worship of the sun there among Mesoamerican
cultures is well documented, but the Aztecs looked to Pleiades. To [00:10:00]
recalibrate their calendar due to leap years, and because it passed directly over
Tenochtitlan, from their point of view, and its appearance and disappearance in
the sky, it marked the solar cycle.
When the Pleiades Cluster was not visible in the sky, it indicated that the sun
was at its highest point, which alerted them to the coming of the rainy season.
Which is near the end of April by our modern calendars. And when Pleiades
appeared again, it marked the sun's lowest point, indicating the coming of the
dry season.
Which typically lasts from November through December. Meanwhile, the moon
and Venus were also very important to them. Because the months of June to
December, they were associated with the moon and Venus, as well as the
Pleiades cluster. And that wettest period, known as Chopin, was very important
to Aztec farmers, and therefore to long term food security in their culture.
And also, like their East Asian and Eurasian cousins, the Aztecs believed that
the stars and constellations defined [00:11:00] a person's character traits and
fortune, so they assigned zodiac signs to people based on when they were born.
And they used the shorter calendar for this, the Tinopo Wali, which they
divided into 20 different signs, and each one lasted 13 days.And each had a divinity in the celestial body assigned to them, just like Western
zodiacs. Thanks for watching! And to give you an example, the fifth sign in
their calendar was named Koatl, which is the Nahuatl word meaning serpent.
Chal Ch'utlike, which in the Aztec pantheon was the deity of water, rivers, seas,
streams, and baptism, as well as storms, and was associated with fertility.
And Saturn was the associated celestial body. But, of course, no talk about
Aztec cosmology and astronomy would be complete without mentioning how
this all fit into their worldview and how they viewed the world. Well, for
starters, the Aztecs believed that the world [00:12:00] was a flat surface that
was divided into five directions, north, south, east, west, and center.
And they further believe that their city, their capital, Tenochtitlan, was in the
center. So it was the center of their universe. They further believe that there
were thirteen layers, or heavens, above their own plane of existence, and nine
layers of the underworld beneath them. And each one was occupied by different
gods and goddesses, and all these were related to the creation of the cosmos, the
sun, and the world.
So Tenochtitlan united all these levels, it was the, to them, sacred center of the
cosmos and the foundation of heaven. And in terms of timekeeping, they also
took a really long view. They believed that four worlds had existed before the
current one, and each one was destroyed. And the first world, they believed,
was destroyed by a great flood, and humans were turned into fish.
This gave rise to the second world, which was [00:13:00] destroyed by violent
winds, at which point humans then were turned into monkeys. The third world
was destroyed by fire, while the fourth was eliminated by famine, and the fifth
world was eliminated by famine. And this led to the fifth and final period, or
world, that the Aztecs believed they inhabited.
And the time period of it, the Aztecs called the Era of Movement. And they
believed that their world would someday be destroyed by a giant earthquake.
So, much like the ancient Greeks, or Sumerians and Babylonians and Egyptians,
The forces of nature played a very important role in their outlook, in their
worldview.
Calamities that had come before was something that they were rather fascinated
by and preoccupied with. And, of course, these beliefs also contained a good
deal of existential fear. The fear of the next Great Calamity that would destroy
the world and be the end of time. Another interesting thing to note is the Great
Flood myth.[00:14:00]Something that appears to be very universal across time and space. Among
cultures that had no contact with each other, they nevertheless had a ancient
narrative about a great flood that nearly wiped out all of humanity and
destroyed civilization as it was known at the time. But what was especially
interesting was how their worldview was reflected in their urban planning.
They used horizontal line astronomy when they built their capital, meaning they
used the horizon as a line on a graph, along which they would mark the motions
of the heavens, and they planned the layout of the city accordingly. So as
archaeologists have reconstructed, They know that the Pyramids of the Sun and
the Moon, which were at the center of their capital, these were built in order to
align with the Sun and the Moon, where they would rise in the sky and set.
And other pyramids that they built were in exact proportion to the other known
planets of the solar system. [00:15:00] So this method of urban organization, it
provided a way for the Aztecs to calculate time, And also created spatial
boundaries by linking buildings on earth with celestial bodies, reinforcing the
notion that Tenochtitlan was the center of the earthly world, the place that stood
between the underworld and heaven.
And this is not dissimilar to the Chinese concept of Tianxia. Meaning all under
heaven, which referred to in ancient times to the extent of the Chinese empire,
but also the geographical boundaries of the world or the boundaries of the
physical realm in which mortals lived. And to give you a little bit more detail on
both the urban planning and how it reflected the heavens, as noted, the Pyramid
of the Sun was at the center of their city, it was the largest, and therefore
showed the significance that the Aztecs ascribed to the sun, and between
[00:16:00] the appearance of the Pleiades cluster on the eastern horizon, the sun
would pass along the pyramid's central staircase.
And this is not dissimilar to what the Mayans established with their large temple
complex in Chichen Itza. They say that when the sun hits it just right, you see
the shadow of a serpent cast along the staircase. Venus, meanwhile, occupied an
interesting spot in the Aztecs cosmology, and in many respects played the role
that Mars did in other cultures.
Venus was associated with Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, which was
associated with death as well as rebirth. And so, to them, Venus was The helical
rise of Venus in the night sky was seen as a bad omen, so the Aztecs kept track
of this so that they could forecast the next day when Venus would be rising in
the sky, so that they could prepare for whatever calamities were coming their
way.[00:17:00]And last, as mentioned, the Pleiades Cluster was extremely significant to the
Aztecs, which they named Tien Kisli, which in traditional Nahuatl translates to
Marketplace. And as noted, this was how they calibrated their calendars. They
would follow the Pleiades cluster's motions through the heavens for a cycle of
52 years.
At which point, their two calendar systems would line up. Now, the term for
this alignment, which I believe is a loose translation, is century. Although I
believe that there's some ambiguity there, that it could mean, in fact, cycle. So
in the same way that every century is marked and considered significant among
Western historians and timekeepers, the 52 year period carried with it the same
significance.
And with every new century, there was a new fire ceremony, which would
happen in late October or early November. And the purpose [00:18:00] of the
ceremony was to ensure that the movement of the cosmos and the rebirth of the
sun would happen for yet another cycle. And so this coincided with a human
sacrifice. And usually a very important prisoner of war or a general was
sacrificed on this particular occasion.
And this would consist of their heart being removed and burned, but also a new
fire being kindled in their chest cavity. And if the fire was successfully lit, they
knew the sun would appear yet again, and that the world would be safe for
another 52 years. And the Aztecs would confirm this by watching the
movement of the stars until midnight, until Pleiades had reached the zenith, its
highest point in the sky, and the coming of the sun the next morning would
indicate that they were successful.
And then runners would be sent out to light torches from this fire that was
kindled in the sacrificial victim's chest, and then take those torches and light
[00:19:00] fires all throughout the community to celebrate the successful
completion of the ritual. And then the body of the sacrificial victim would be
burned along with a bundle of 52 sticks.
So there too, there's another cultural similarity there, which is the fasci
ceremony. Which, in ancient Rome, was a bundle of sticks, along with an axe,
tied together and burned, to celebrate the future, and hopefully the prospect of
good times ahead. And one can see the influence of these traditions, how both
the Aztecs were influenced by the other cultures surrounding them, not the least
of which included the Maya, but how even today some of these cultural
traditions survive in Mexico among its indigenous populations, aside from thehuman sacrificial element of it, of course, but rather the cosmology, the
worldview, and the astronomical names and traditions.
And [00:20:00] the great works, the massive pyramids that were built by
Olmecs and the Mayans and other cultures, they're seen as a testament to the
genius and the highly civilized nature of the people that were there in the pre
Columbian era before the arrival of the Spanish. And, unfortunately, in the case
of Tenochtitlan, much of that architecture and much of that beautiful urban
planning, it was torn down or destroyed in the Colombian era by the
conquistadors and the Spanish settlers that followed.
And, what is left of it today sits beneath Mexico City. And, as I said, Lake
Texcoco. Which had been a hub for so many city states and powerful empires in
the region, that has been completely drained. And the fact that Mexico City sits
on this ancient lake bed, it is the reason why there is the current problem of the
city sinking into the [00:21:00] ground.
Apparently at a rate of almost 50 centimeters or 20 inches per year. And so,
from this basic introduction, we can see that what had been created in the
Mexican Plateau, in Mesoamerica, not just by the Aztecs, but by cultures going
back thousands of years, were some very, very fascinating, very rich traditions,
and these were reflected in the architecture, in the daily activities, and they were
also recorded in one form or another.
And it really is staggering how much of this knowledge was suppressed for so
long. When one looks at the popular myths surrounding the Mesoamerican
cultures and the Aztecs, certainly, it has really only been within the past few
decades that academics themselves entertain beliefs about these cultures that
were entirely false.
For example, the belief that they were non literate, or [00:22:00] that they didn't
possess the wheel. And the extent of their accomplishments, too, is something
that few people outside of academic circles today truly appreciate, unless
they've taken the time to really look into it. It is really amazing to find out the
extent to which the Americas were very well peopled and towned.
Which was how early explorers and settlers described the eastern seaboard of
modern day United States. And to look further south, into the Mexican Plateau
and Central America and in the Andes, you see examples of what were, by
European standards at the time, megalopolises. The massive cities, with
hundreds of thousands of people.In fact, at its peak, Tenochtitlan was the largest pre Columbian city in the
Americas, with an estimated population of 200, 000 to 300, 000. [00:23:00] And
like other indigenous cultures that were subsequently conquered, wiped out,
were brutally oppressed, or all of the above, by Europeans, their traditions were
very rich, certainly on par with anything that had come out of Eurasia or Asia.
And are thankfully the subject of renewed interest and reconsideration by
Western academics. And as we noted in the previous episode when discussing
Cree astronomy and those of other nations that lived across North America,
there are modern day attempts to revitalize these traditions. And ensure that the
coming generations understands that these beliefs, these practices, and the
significance they have, that they have survived, and are making a comeback.
So I strongly encourage anyone interested to check out all the information they
can on Mesoamerican cultures and their practices, [00:24:00] and what those
civilizations looked like prior to contact with Europeans. And stay tuned for
more episodes in the series where we will look at Mayan astronomy, Incan
astronomy, as well as the astronomical traditions of the New Chalnith,
Hul'q'umi'num, and other indigenous nations who were the original inhabitants
of the Pacific Northwest.
In the coming weeks, we'll also have an interview with Sir Peter Beck, founder
and CEO of Rocket Lab, the company that is poised to break the near monopoly
currently enjoyed by SpaceX. All that and more is coming. In the meantime,
thank you for listening. I'm Matt Williams, and this has been Stories from
Space.