Aztlán

Aztlán (, from Nahuatl Aztlan ) is the legendary ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. "Azteca" is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".

The legend

Nahuatl legends relates that seven tribes lived in Chicomoztoc, or "the place of the seven caves". Each cave represented a different Nahua group: the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalan, Tepaneca, Chalca, and Mexica. Because of a common linguistic origin, those groups also are called "Nahuatlaca" (Nahua people). These tribes subsequently left the caves and settled in Aztlán.

The various descriptions of Aztlán are contradictory. While some legends describe Aztlan as a paradise, Aubin Codex says that they were subject to a tyrant elite called the Azteca Chicomoztoca. Guided by their priest, the Aztec fled, and on the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbid them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica (pronounced "meshica"). Ironically, the scholars of the 19th century would name them Aztec.

The role of the homeland of Aztlan is less important to Aztec legendary histories than the migration to Tenochtitlan itself. According to the legend, the southward migration began around 830 CE. Each of the seven groups is credited with founding a different major city-state in Central Mexico. The city-states reputed to have an Aztec foundation were:

Xochimilco,
Tlahuica (in the modern-day state of Morelos),
Alcohua,
Tlaxcala,
Huexotzinca (the modern-day city of Puebla, Puebla),
Tepaneca (now Azcapotzalco, a delegación of the Mexican Federal District),and
Matlazinca (whose language was not of the Uto-Aztecan family).

These city states formed during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica (1300-1521 CE).

According to Aztec legends, the Mexica were the last tribe to emigrate and they took 302 years to reach their destination. When they arrived at the Anahuac Valley, the present-day Valley of Mexico, all available land had been taken, and they were forced to squat on the edge of the Lake Texcoco.

Places identified as Aztlan

While Aztlán has many trappings of myth, similar to Tamoanchan, Chicomoztoc, Tollan and Cibola, archaeologists have nonetheless attempted to identify the geographic place of origin for the Mexica.

The name of Aztalan, Wisconsin (a Mississippian site) was proposed by N. F. Hyer in 1837 because he thought it might have been Aztlán, following a suggested etymology of "Aztatlan" by Alexander von Humboldt.

In 1887, Mexican anthropologist Alfredo Chavero claimed that Aztlán was located on the Pacific coast in the state of Nayarit. While this was disputed by contemporary scholars, it achieved some popular acceptance. In the early 1980s, the Mexican President José López Portillo suggested that Mexcaltitlan, also in Nayarit, was the true location of Aztlán, but this was denounced by Mexican historians as a political move. Arqueologia Mexicana, in Spanish Even so, the state of Nayarit incorporated the symbol of Aztlán in their Coat of Arms with the legend "Nayarit, cradle of Mexicans".

Eduardo Matos Mocteuma presumes Aztlán to be somewhere in the modern day states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacan. Mocteuma, p. 38

Primary sources

The primary sources for Aztlan are the Boturini Codex, the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, and the Aubin Codex. Aztlan is also mentioned in the History of Tlaxcala, by Diego Muñoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo from the 17th century as well as Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.

Probable etymology

Aztlan is believed to mean "place of whiteness" or "place of herons", derived from the Nahuatl words "aztatl" (herons or white-plumed birds) and "tlan(tli)" ("the place of"). The priests of the Aztec religion used esoteric language. In their interpretation, white symbolizes "origin", so Aztlan may be interpreted simply as "The place of origin". (Laurette Sejourne: "Burning water"). This explanation gives Aztlan a more of a lengendary and symbolic significance than a definition as a concrete place.

Aztlán is the Spanish language spelling and pronunciation of Nahuatl Aztlan . The spelling Aztlán and its matching last-syllable stress cannot be Nahuatl -- words in this language being always stressed in their second-last syllable. The accent mark on the second a added in Spanish marks stress shift (from oxytone to paroxytone) typical of several Nahuatl words when loaned into Mexican Spanish.

After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the story of Aztlán gained importance and it was reported by Fray Diego Durán in 1581 and others to be a kind of Eden-like paradise, free of disease and death, which existed somewhere in the far north. These stories helped fuel Spanish expeditions to what is now the Southwestern United States.

Use by Chicano Movement after 1968

Due to the association of Aztlan with Mexican national identity and an indeterminate northern location, the name Aztlán was taken up by some Chicano activists of the 1960s and 1970s to refer to the area of the Southwestern United States ceded to the United States after the Mexican-American War. Aztlan appears in the title of the 1968 manifesto issued by the Chicano youth movement, the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, as well as the names of several organizations, such as MEChA, (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán") and the Nation of Aztlan.

In fiction

"Aztlán" has been used as the name of speculative fictional future-states that emerge in the southwest US and/or Mexico after the central US government suffers collapse or major setback. The novel Warday and the role-playing game Shadowrun offer two such examples. In Michael Flynn's alternate history story "The Forest of Time", Colorado is part of a nation-state called Nuevo Aztlán.

References

Eduardo Matos Mocteuma, The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan. New York: Thames and Hudson (1988).

Footnotes

External links

"Aztlan and the Origin of the Aztecs" Laputan Logic, December 3, 2004
Sanderson, Susana, "Tenotchtitlan and Templo Mayor", University of California at Chico.

Aztec history | Aztec mythology | Mexican-American history | Nahuatl

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