24 CHAPTER 1 ANCIENT AMERICA
themselves in battle. Originally assigned for life,
these lands tended to become fi efs that were held
in permanent inheritance. Thus, warfare created
new economic and social cleavages within Aztec
society. In the process, the original kinship basis of
the calpulli was eroded, and in the Valley of Mex-
ico, at least, it lost most of its autonomy, becom-
ing primarily a social and territorial administrative
unit. Composed mostly of macehualtín(common-
ers) who owed tribute, labor, and military service
to the Aztec state, the calpulli continued to be led
by hereditary elite families who were completely
subject to superior Aztec offi cials whose orders
they carried out.
In the Valley of Mexico, and in other highly
developed areas, the communal landownership
formerly associated with the calpulli also suffered
erosion as a result of growing population pressure
that forced some members to leave, internal eco-
nomic differentiation, and the need to sell or rent
communal land in times of famine or some other
crisis. Calpulli of the original kinship, landowning
type survived better in areas where the process of
class stratifi cation and state formation was less
pronounced. By the time of the Spanish Conquest,
however, landlessness and tenant farming were
very widespread over much of central Mexico,
with serfl ike peasants (mayeque) forming perhaps
the majority of the Aztec population. These un-
free peasants enjoyed only the usufruct of the land
and had to render tribute and service to the noble
owner. The picture that emerges from recent stud-
ies is one of a society “like medieval European so-
ciety, highly complicated and locally diverse.” The
growing cleavage between commoners and nobles
found ideological refl ection in the origin myth that
claimed a separate divine origin (from the god
Quetzalcóatl) for the Aztec nobility.
Other ideological changes included the eleva-
tion of the tribal god Huitzilopochtli to a position
of equality with, or supremacy over, the great na-
ture gods traditionally worshiped in the Valley of
Mexico, the burning of the ancient picture writ-
ings because these books slighted the Aztecs, and
the creation of a new history that recognized the
Aztec grandeur. A new emphasis was placed on
capturing prisoners of war to use as sacrifi ces on
the altars of the Aztec gods to ensure the continu-
ance of the universe.^3
The successors of Itzcoatl—sometimes indi-
vidually and sometimes in alliance with Texcoco—
extended Aztec rule over and beyond the Valley of
Mexico. By the time Moctezuma II became ruler in
1502, the Triple Alliance was levying tribute on
scores of towns, large and small, from the fringes
of the arid northern plateau to the lowlands of Te-
huantepec, and from the Atlantic to the Pacifi c.
Within this extensive area only a few states or
kingdoms, like the fi erce Tarascans’ state or the
city-state of Tlaxcala, retained complete indepen-
dence. Others, like Cholula, were left at peace in re-
turn for their benevolent neutrality or cooperation
with the Aztecs. According to some controversial
modern estimates, the Aztecs and their allies ruled
over a population of perhaps 25 million.
The Aztecs waged war with or without cause.
If a group refused to pay tribute to the Aztec ruler
or if patrons of an area injured traveling Aztec mer-
chants, it was considered a valid motive for inva-
sion. Aztec merchants also prepared the way for
conquest by reporting on the resources and defenses
of the areas in which they traded; sometimes they
acted as spies in hostile territory. If they returned
home safely, these valiant merchants were hon-
ored by the ruler with amber lip plugs and other
gifts. If their enemies discovered them, however,
the consequences were horrid. “They were slain in
ambush and served up with chili sauce,” reports a
native account.
Victory in war always had the same results:
long lines of captives made the long journey to(^3) Some social scientists have attempted to explain the Aztec
practice of mass human sacrifi ce and its accompaniment
of ritual cannibalism by the lack of protein in the Aztec
diet. This theory is contradicted by the variety of animal
foods available to the Aztecs and by the fact that neither
Indian nor Spanish sources refer to the practice of can-
nibalism during the great famine that hastened the end of
Aztec resistance to the Spanish conquest. For the rest, the
sacramental feast, which was designed so the participants
could share the blessings of the god to whom the prisoner
was sacrifi ced, was simplicity itself, and the captor could
not eat of his fl esh because of an assumed mystical kinship
relationship between the captor and his prisoner.