Oh wait, that’s America. Same difference.
But anyways, the capital of Mexico was Mexico City. You following? Is it to difficult? This is pretty deep stuff here man, if you need to take a break I understand. Try drinking some water.
Anyways, Mexico City was inhabited long ago by a people called the Aztects. Not to be confused with the Mayans, who wrote the 2012 theories. No no, the Aztects were the ones who were known for their brutal human sacrifices to their fearsome gods. YAAAY.
For a while they were nomadic. They were like most tribes, fighting for wives, prisoners, slaves, all that. However, they thought they were being led by THE ALMIGHTY LEFT-HANDED HUMMINGBIRD GOD OF WAR AND THE SUNNNN.
No lie. He was a left-handed (?) Hummingbird god, who was the god of war and the sun. I promise. His name was Huitzilopochtli, pronounced wee-tsee-loh-pohch-tlee. They believed they were being led to a special place by him, and they would know they were there when they saw a sign. What was the sign? An eagle eating a snake on top of a blooming cactus. Well then. (By the way, this is the symbol on the Mexican flag.) Well supposedly, they left their home island of Aztlán to follow Mr. Hummingbird. The island of Aztlan has never actually been found, so...
Anyways, in their search, they came under rule of another tribe. The chief of said tribe offered his daughter in marriage to the chief of the Aztec tribe. Now normally, this would be a wonderful, nice gesture. “OH, HOW WONDERFUL, THIS CHEIF IS OFFERING ME HIS BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER!” Well, in the wedding, while the father was arriving to see his little girl get married to /the/ chief, guess what?
HE FOUND HIM CUTTING HER HEART OUT AND OFFERING IT AS A GLORIOUS SACRIFICE TO THE ALMIGHTY LEFT-HANDED HUMMINGBIRD GOD OF WAR AND THE SUNNN.
:D
For some reason, the chief and father did not find this pleasing. Hmh. How odd.
Of course, this might be the chief’s fault. I mean, HE offered his daughter. You have to think ahead! I mean, MAYBE this guy MIGHT offer my daughter’s heart as a GLORIOUS SACRIFICE TO THE ALMIGHTY LEFT-HANDED HUMMINGBIRD GOD OF WAR AND THE SUNNN.
But anyways, after they were thrown out of the tribe by the daughterless-chief, they went off and kept looking for their eagle eating a snake on top of a flowering cactus. So somehow, they found said eagle. Don’t ask me how, but I’m thinking it might have been a hallucination from the heat or something. I dunno. But they had very strict rules and very structured lives.
The average day of an Aztec started with the blowing of a conch-shell and the beating of drums.
A woman would start grinding some corn. FOR TORTILLAS. OMNOMNOM.
Ahhahaha. A man would take a lovely steam bath, and then go off to work in the fields. The city in which they lived was actually pretty swampy. It was pretty wet, so they had plots of a lot of mud and trees growing all around said plot of mud. PICTURE TAYM.
That’s what it looked like. Canal boats were used to cross between each of them. Some of these things are still in existence today.
About 10:00 in the morning, the conches are blown again. FOOD TAYM. They probably went back to work after that, and then in the after noon this was done again for a big community meal.
They would eat chilies, veggies, fruits, fish, turtles, frogs, snakes, a buncha stuffz. Something interesting is that food was portioned to age. A 3 year old would get a half-tortilla, 5-6 would get a whole, 6-12 would get one and a half, and 13 and up wold get two.
Children would work. Hard. Laziness was not tolerated, and they’d get punished severely. They’d prick them with cactus needles, make them inhale smoke from chillies, and they’d be tied up overnight and thrown in a mud puddle.
Poor boys would learn to fight and farm, and rich boys would learn astrology, history, fighting, warrior-skills and dream-interpretation. The rich boy wuld give blood offerings at school, bathe in cold water, and fast. Bravery was valued by the rich and the poor. Also, when one captured a soldier in war, they could advance into society and cut a long strand of hair in the back.
Noblemen played a game like basketball. It was that one game they have in The Road to El Dorado, you know? That that that one....
I can't find a good picture of it. It's called Ullamaliztli. And it is srsbrsns. IF you lost, you died.
Men were normally married by the age of 20 to a girl around 16, whose arms were covered in red feathers. Hmh.
Women would sew, cook, and shop at a market.
Before the night ended, a man would sharpen his tools and work on his home. Normal homes were mud houses with dirt floors, but noblemen had adobe-style houses. The night ended with... A CONCH-SHELL.
Besides a strict time guide, they also had a strict clothing guide. Each of the three classes had different styles. Nobility had long, soft capes and wore sandals. They had a piercing below the lip, sorta on the chin-area. Most people had earrings, but only kings could wear turquoise earrings. OHGURL LOOK AT MAH TURQUISE EARRINGS DON’T I LOOK FABULOUS~
Commoners wore shorter cloaks, which could only rise ABOVE THE ANKLE. NO LOWER THAN THE ANKLE. OR ELSE. Or else what? YOU MUST SHOW YOUR ANKLES, AND IF YOU DON’T THERE IS A PENALTY OF DEATH. Or was, at least. NO LONG CLOAKS FOR YOU. And they were made out of cactus fibers. Not the prickly fibers though! The ok-kind.
The slaves, the lowest class, wore the shortest and the most uncomfortable clothes. Men wore loin-cloths. You know what that is.
Also, hair was interesting. Single wome-
.-.
Single women worse her hair long and free. However, married women wore their hair up in two wrapped braids that ended at the side of her head.
So, we learned that human sacrifice was common, right? Right. Well, why did they preform it? Because they were under the belief that the sun would cease to shine if they didn’t. Sometimes Cannibalism was a part of their rituals. The priests who preformed said rituals were dark-robes and stunk of blood for obvious reasons, so they burned incense all the time.
Something very interesting is that they believed that death/sacrifice was necessary for their redemption, saving, and general life for all of humanity.
SO. WE END ON DEATHS OF THOUSANDS AND AN INTERESTING FACT.
HMH.
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