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Slaves or tlacotin constituted an important class. Aztecs could become slaves because of debts, as a criminal punishment, or as war captives. [5] While some slaves were punished as criminals or prisoners of war, others sold themselves or their children into slavery due to economic hardship. Slaves could free themselves by repaying their ...
Aztec society was a highly complex and stratified society that developed among the Aztecs of central Mexico in the centuries prior to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and which was built on the cultural foundations of the larger region of Mesoamerica.
As Aztec society was in part centered on warfare, every Aztec male received some sort of basic military training from an early age. Typically by the time the child reached three years of age, the boy would begin to take simple instruction at the hands of his father on the tasks expected of men, no matter what social class they fell into. [5]
Aztec 'high lords', who were in the top social class. Folio from the Codex Mendoza showing a commoner advancing through the ranks by taking captives in war. Each attire can be achieved by taking a certain number of captives. Jaguar warrior uniform as tax pay method, from Codex Mendoza. The highest class was the pīpiltin [nb 7] or nobility.
The teocalli, or pyramid-temples, were significant to Aztec religious practices. They were the sites of religious celebrations and rituals. [3] The temples represented ascension. There were multiple torn levels, which each correlated with different classes. The Aztecs believed that ascension was the process of preparing oneself to please the gods.
Sacrifice was a common theme in the Aztec culture. In the Aztec "Legend of the Five Suns", all the gods sacrificed themselves so that mankind could live.Some years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, a body of the Franciscans confronted the remaining Aztec priesthood and demanded, under threat of death, that they desist from this traditional practice.
The empire was composed of different social classes: kings (thought to be gods), nobles, generals, priests, peasants, and finally slaves. Politically, the society was based around the independent city-state, called an altepetl, composed of smaller divisions (calpulli), which were again usually composed of one or more extended kinship groups ...
The warrior would thus ascend one step in the hierarchy of the Aztec social classes, a system that rewarded successful warriors. [ 22 ] During the festival of Panquetzaliztli, of which Huitzilopochtli was the patron, sacrificial victims were adorned in the manner of Huitzilopochtli's costume and blue body paint, before their hearts would be ...