The Amazing
Aztecs
Who were the Aztecs?
• The Aztecs were rich and powerful people from
the valley of Mexico.
• They were farmers, warriors, traders, engineers,
artists and sculptures.
• They ruled over a great empire in Central America
until about five hundred years ago.
• At its height, the Aztec empire contained 200,000
square kilometres of land and 3 million people.
Settling Down
• No one knows exactly where the
Aztecs came from. They arrived in
Mexico about 700 years ago, looking
for a new home.
• After a long journey, they arrived at
Lake Texoco in a large Mexican
valley.
• The Aztecs believed that a god had
sent them a sign telling them where to
live.
• The sign was an eagle with a snake in
its mouth. It was perched on a cactus,
as shown in this painting.
• It was very hard to build on the
lake because the Aztecs only had a
small piece of land in the
surrounding marshes.
• The Aztecs made the swampy,
shallow lake into chinampas. They
made islands by piling up mud and
reeds in the water. They used them
as their city foundations.
• Over the next few years they
expanded their empire by
building canals, gardens,
aqueducts, temples and a
very grand palace.
• They named their new home
Tenochtitlán.
• It grew to become one of the
largest and most beautiful
cities in the world.
Then they built causeways and bridges to
connect the city to the mainland.
The
palace
was so
big, there
was even
a zoo
inside.
The Speaker
• The Aztecs were ruled by a very
important man called the Speaker.
• No one was allowed to disobey an
order from the Speaker.
• The speaker was carried when he
went outside. The ground was
swept in front of him.
• No one was allowed to turn their
back on the Speaker, even when
they were walking away from
him.
• This is an old painting of
Montezuma II. He was the last
Aztec speaker.
Insert
picture
p9
Aztec
book.
What to Wear?
• There were very strict rules about
what people were allowed to wear.
• Only rich nobles were allowed to
wear bright, patterned clothes.
• Ordinary Aztecs wore plain clothes
that were made out of rough
material.
• Priests dressed in black and never
washed their long, tangled hair.
• The best warriors were allowed to
wear clothes with lots of feathers
and decoration.
Insert
p11
Get the Aztec Look!
• Men and women painted
their bodies.
• For women, the
fashionable colour was
yellow.
• They painted their faces
with a yellow paste
made from crushed
insects.
• They dyed their hair
black with mud or a
deep blue colour.
Aztecs and Food
• The Aztecs were skilled farmers
growing maize, beans, tomatoes,
chilli peppers and other
vegetables.
• People also ate dogs, monkeys,
frogs, tadpoles, lizards, ants,
caterpillars and insects.
• Many kinds of animals and
birds were sold live at Aztec
markets.
• They used cocoa beans, feathers
and tools as money.
• The Aztecs made special cakes from the green algae they
collected from the surface of lakes.
• At banquets, the rich sometimes gave their guests tobacco
and drugs made from poisonous frogs skins, cactus tops or
mushrooms that gave them hallucinations.
• Alcohol was drunk at weddings and festivals. It was made
from the sap of the maguey cactus.
• Drunkenness was a serious crime. If anyone was caught
drunk in public, they had their head shaved in front of a
mocking crowd.
• If caught a second time, they were beaten to death!
• The Aztecs even had
a god of chocolate!
• They used cocoa
beans to make a rich
chocolate drink.
• They added chillies
to make it spicy.
Ball Sports
• Their favourite sports included a rough
ball game that often ended in injuries or
even death!
• This ball game was played by teams of
players using a hard rubber ball on a
stone court.
• Players scored points by knocking the
ball through goal rings high up on the
walls of the court.
• They were not allowed to kick or handle
the ball. They had to use their elbows,
hips or knees.
• The winners could claim clothes or
jewellery worn by spectators. The losing
team was sometimes killed as a sacrifice
to the gods!
Birdmen
• The Holy Birdman game or
‘Volador’ was a bit like bungee
jumping.
• They dressed up as birds and
climbed a 70-metre high post.
• One sat on a platform at the top
playing a flute and drum.
• The others tied ropes around their
bodies and jumped off the post.
• They each swung round 13 times,
getting upright just before they hit
the ground!
Picture
p13 large
aztec book
Board Games
• The Aztecs also enjoyed board games and gambling.
• Players prayed to the god of gambling before they
began.
• Some people gambled away their belongings such a
clothes, houses and even their children!
• They used cocoa beans with dots painted on them as
a dice.
Religion
• Religion was very
important part of Aztec
life.
• The Aztec religion was
based on worship of
gods who represented
the Earth, Rain and Sun.
• They held lots of festivals
to worship them.
• This is the mask of a
very powerful god called
Feathered Snake.
• It was made from
turquoise stone.
• The god of sun and war was
Hummingbird on the Left.
• Hummingbird on the Left’s
mother was an earth goddess
called Snake Skirt.
• The Aztecs believed that the
god of water brought rain,
thunder and lightning.
• Smoking Mirror was god of
the night sky. He decided if
people would be lucky.
Human Sacrifice
• The Aztecs believed that
their gods had to be fed
with human hearts and
blood.
• People thought this was a
good way to die as it
helped the gods.
• More than 10,000 people
were once sacrificed in
just four days.
Music
• Music was a huge part
of religious
ceremonies, festivals
and story-telling.
• The instruments they
used were shells,
rattles, whistles,
horns, bells and
drums.
Aztec Children
• The Aztecs brought up their children with strict rules
and punishments to make them good, obedient
citizens.
• If children were rude or naughty, they were tied up
and left outside in the cold all night.
• Many children died as infants from diseases or
accidents at home.
• Those who survived had to start
working from the age of four.
• The girls learned to cook and clean and
the boys worked in the fields or hunted
and fished with their fathers.
• At aged 10 the boys were sent to school
to do military training and to learn a
craft.
• At aged 15, some boys went to a
special school where they learned about
the history and religion of the tribe.
• These boys became religious leaders.
• Unfortunately, girls were only allowed
to learn about household jobs.
Childhood
Punishments
• If they didn’t pay
attention in school, the
teacher punished them by
pinching their arms or
ears or pricking them
with cactus spines.
• If the girls were naughty,
they were given extra
housework.
• The worst punishment
for naughty children was
being held over a fire of
roasting chilli peppers,
so the smoke stung their
throats and eyes.
• If a family was very
poor, children were
sometimes sold to
passing slave traders.
Other
Aztec
Customs
• The Aztecs bound their
babies’ heads so they
grew into a flatter
shape.
• Cross-eyes were
thought to be attractive.
Parents used string
down the middle of the
face to encourage them.
• They tried to make
children taller by
pulling on their necks.
Aztec Medicine
• Aztec doctors used a mix of herbs,
magic and religion.
• They made powerful ‘cures’ from
plants or mushrooms that sometimes
sent their parents mad or even killed
them.
• The Atzecs believed illnesses were
caused by evil spirits, or were
punishments from the gods.
• They tried to drive out the spirits by
making patients sweat in mud-brick
steam baths and by saying prayers and
making offerings to the gods.
Would you like to visit the Aztec
Doctor?
• To mend a broken leg, they put a
paste of cactus and lime and made a
splint.
• To clean cuts and wounds, they
used urine!
• If someone had a cold, they gave
them a steam bath and dribbled dew
from the fields into their nostrils.
• If someone had fleas, they
painted on a pine resin and set
fire to it!
• For earache, the Aztecs poured
liquid rubber into the ear.
• If someone had taken anything
poisonous, the doctor gave them
a potion made from fried
chameleon that made them sick
at once.
Spooks and Superstitions
• The Aztecs believed that every 52
years, the world might come to an
end. They held festivals to try and
stop this happening.
• They believed in witches, demons
and ghosts.
• People told tales about spooky
dwarf women and creatures
without heads and feet.
• They thought spooks appeared at
night as skulls to haunt people.
Art and
Sculpture
•
Aztec
Masks
Aztec Calendar
Aztec
Costumes
Fierce Fighters
• The Aztecs were proud, war faring people.
• Aztecs saw war as a duty to the gods.
• New born babies were given bows and
arrows and children were brought up to
fight.
• When boys were 18, they took part in their
first battle.
• Once they had captured their first prisoner,
they became a warrior.
• The more captives the warriors took, the
grander their costumes became.
• To celebrate taking their first prisoner,
young warriors had their faces smeared with
blood from a human sacrifice.
• When they heard the war drum,
every man in the city got ready to go
off to fight.
• They attacked enemy towns and took
their captives home and then killed
them as sacrifices to the gods.
• The best warriors were eagle knights
and jaguar knights. They wore
special clothes.
• They fought with knives, spears,
arrows, deadly clubs and shields.
• The Aztecs thought that brave
warriors who died came back to life
as hummingbirds and butterflies.
Under Attack
• In 1519, Spanish soldiers arrived in
Tenochtitlan. They had sailed across the
ocean searching for treasure.
• When they arrived, the Aztecs welcomed
them. However, the Spanish were shocked
when they saw that the Aztecs sacrificed
people.
• The Spanish wanted to take over the city
so they attacked it. In 1521, they captured
the city and killed lots of people.
• The Spanish destroyed a lot of the
buildings in the city and built their own.
This was the end of the Aztec era.
The Modern City of Mexico stands
on the site of Tenochtitlán.
Aztec Gods
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chalchiuhtlicue – goddess of the lakes and streams
Chantico – goddess of the hearth
Chicomecoatl – goddess of maize
Coatlicue – goddess for the pain of life
Huehuetectim - god of fire
Huitzilopochtli – god of war, sun and the nation
Mictlantecuhtl – god of the dead
Quetzalcoatl - god of knowledge, creation, priesthood, and wind
Tezcatlipoca – god of magic, war and death
Tezcatlipoca – god of speech and language
Tlaloc – god of rain
Tloque Nahuaque - Lord of everywhere, the one supreme force, bothmale
and female
• Xipe Totec – god of spring and new life, god of suffering
• Xochipilli - prince of flowers, god of dawn, dance and love