the awesome aztecs - thomas county school district awesome … · when the aztecs first arrived in...
TRANSCRIPT
The
Awesome
Aztecs
History
The Aztec tribe lived in ancient
Mexico for about 400 years.
For the first 200 years, the Aztecs
were constantly on the move. No
one wanted the Aztecs as
neighbors. The Aztecs practiced
human sacrifice. They believed that
if their gods were not fed, they
would not do their jobs. The sun
god would not bring up the sun,
and everyone would die.
Religion
To keep their gods happy, the Aztecs believed
that human sacrifice was necessary. They used
people to feed their hungry gods.
Some of the people they sacrificed
were Aztecs. However, most of
the people they sacrificed were
captured from neighboring tribes.
This did not make them popular
with their neighbors. Sooner or later,
their neighbors would band together to
chase the Aztecs away.
Settlement
When the Aztecs first arrived in the Valley of
Mexico, other tribes were already living on
the best land in the area.
This time, rather than fight for the best land
or for captives to feed their hungry gods,
the Aztecs quietly settled along the
swampy shores of Lake Texcoco.
They built canoes so they could fish, hunt
waterfowl, and trade with other tribes
for the building materials they needed.
The capital city of
the Aztecs was at
Tenochtitlan, what is
today Mexico City,
and the extent of
their empire
covered almost all
of what is today
Mexico.
At the time of
Spanish conquest,
the capital was a
cosmopolitan city,
with different
ethnic groups from
all over Mexico.
Language
Náhuatl (pronounced NAH-wah-tuhl) was
the language spoken by the Aztec/Mexica,
and it is still spoken today by thousands of
people, mainly in Central Mexico.
Finally, many Nahuatl words have passed
into the English dictionary through
Spanish, such as coyote, chocolate,
tomato, chili, cacao, avocado and many
others.
The state
language,
Nahuatl, allowed
for a written
documentation
that was kept on
bark cloth
manuscripts (most
of which were
destroyed by the
Spanish).
Chocolate
The Aztecs attributed the creation of the cocoa
plant to their god Quetzalcoatl who, descended
from heaven on a beam of a morning star carrying
a cocoa tree stolen from paradise. In both the
Mayan and Aztec cultures cocoa was the basis for
a thick, cold, unsweetened drink called xocoatl…
believed to be a health elixir. Since sugar was
unknown to the Aztecs, different spices were used
to add flavor, even hot chili peppers and corn meal
were used!
Free School for Everyone
To build the city they wanted, they
knew that they would need many
engineers, builders, and traders. This
required an educated population. To
solve this problem, the Aztecs set up
a system of public schools.
Attendance was mandatory for all
Aztec children, even girls and slaves.
The Aztecs were the only people up
to that time in history to have free
schools that every child had to attend.
All students were trained to be
specialists in whatever they did.