The TLaTOani in TenochTiTlan • 61. . . physically manifested in some specific presence—a
rainstorm, a lake, or a majestic mountain,” 32 and second,
the teixiptla. Both are key to understanding the ways that
space was inflected with meaning, and we will draw on
them both to understand two essential freshwater sources
of Tenochtitlan in Chapultepec and Acuecuexco.
chaPuLTePec
Chapultepec, as we saw in the last chapter, was a key site on
the Mexica migration, a prominent hill in the valley land-
scape that was filled with natural springs that oozed out
of its bottom (see figures 1.7 and 2.4). Its importance as a
water source was designated on the map that accompanied
Cortés’s Second Letter with the text set at the very top of
the map, “ex isto fluuio conducut aguā in ciuitatem” (from
here a stream of water flows into the city; see figure 1.11).
This fortuitous combination of hill and water allowed it to
serve as an altepetl maquette, a small-scale representation
of space that expressed the idealized relationship between
the flow of water and the human community. 33 This world-
in-miniature was similar to Mexica architecture, seen in
the way the Templo Mayor was conceived as a model of
Coatepec, its sculptural program recasting the events and
sacrifices that marked the birth of Huitzilopochtli, and
other altepetl maquettes are found at other sites in the val-
ley, such as Tetzcotzinco and Tepetzinco. 34
Mexica rulers had long associated themselves with
Chapultepec, and the importance of their provisioning of
the nascent Tenochtitlan with freshwater is underscored
in the historical representations of the place. The drive to
bring freshwater into the city from Chapultepec’s springs
was the antecedent to the formation of the Triple Alli-
ance in 1428. As told in Durán’s Historia, in the 1420s, the
Me xica had settled in Tenochtitlan but were still required
to pay tribute to the ruler of nearby Azcapotzalco, the alte-
petl at that point in control of much of the valley. After
seeing his people subsisting on brackish water, the third
ruler of the Mexica, Chimalpopoca (r. 1417–1427), who was
also the grandson of the Azcapotzalco ruler Tezozomoc,
asked his grandfather for the right to build an aqueduct
from the springs at Chapultepec, on the western littoral
of the lake (see figure 1.1). Request granted, the Mexica
built a conduit upon the causeway that linked their island
city to the western lakeshore. Water in the raised aqueduct
flowed from west to east through the city, as non–potable
water did in the extensive ground-level canal system, which
allowed easy passage for canoes through the city (see figure
1.10). 35 This orientation was fundamental to the Mexica
sense of order in the city, and they expressed the align-
ment in their carefully arranged cached offerings set into
the Templo Mayor, wherein the objects made of worked
stone representing lightning bolts and streams of water
were set on an east–west orientation. 36 As Durán’s Historia
tells it, “Very soon, with the aid of stakes and canes, earth
and other materials, the water began to come into the city.”
However, the new aqueduct proved to be an imperfect
one, as Durán continues: “It was a difficult task because
the aqueduct was built on the lagoon and constantly
crumbled due to the great impact of the water; also the
conduit was built of clay.” Durán goes on to recount how,
soon afterward, the ambitious Mexica, “desiring that mat-
ters with Azcapotzalco come to a head so they could be
free of their vassalage,” sent a bold message to Tezozomoc,
demanding the materials for a better aqueduct. The council
of Azcapotzalco would have none of it: “We cannot permit
this; it is not our will. We would rather lose our lives. . . .
Chimalpopoca has no right to command us in this despotic
w a y.” 37 The council overrode the opposition of old and ail-
ing Tezozomoc, arranged for Chimalpopoca’s midnight
assassination, and rallied the Tepanec people into a fever
pitch against their Mexica neighbors.
Although their ruler had been violently assassinated,
the hotheaded Mexica kept their anger in check; Tezo-
zomoc died shortly after his grandson, and the infighting
between his two sons led to a civil war in Azcapotzalco,
this altepetl falling victim to the same divisions and scatter-
ing that the Florentine prayer quoted above so pointedly
abjured. On the island of Tenochtitlan, meanwhile, the
Mexica took a different path, coming together to elect a
new ruler, Itzcoatl, who organized an army to launch a vio-
lent retributive assault on Azcapotzalco, “devastat[ing] the
city, burn[ing] the houses, and spar[ing] neither young nor
old, men nor women.” 38 With this victory, the subsequent
formal establishment of the Triple Alliance with Tetzcoco
and Tlacopan, a Tepanec city that opposed Azcapotzalco,
the great Mexica expansion of the fifteenth century began.
So initial control of the springs of Chapultepec had a
unique role in early Mexica history, and some forty years
later, in 1466, after a devastating famine had visited the
city in the year 1 Rabbit (1454), Moteuczoma I rebuilt the
aqueduct. 39 This work was more substantial than the ear-
lier earthwork built in Chimalpopoca’s time; to create it,
Moteuczoma turned to his counterpart Nezahualcoyotl of