The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice in order to preserve their empire. Because they ruled hegemonically and oftentimes left conquered nobles in power, their imperial cohesion was based upon a perception of power. If a tributary rose up in rebellion, they would often crush the rebels with brutal, overwhelming force in order to terrify other potentially recalcitrant tribes into submission. This fear of retaliation was largely based on the Aztec Empire's performance in war.
Many times in the empire's history, a weak leader or failed military campaign would result in secession from some of its conquered provinces who sought to take advantage of the empire's weakened position and fight for independence. As such, the Aztecs expanded into surrounding territories carefully and almost always with superior numbers. By sacrificing captives of war in massive ritualistic shows of strength, the empire effectively held itself together by inspiring fear in it's potential enemies, and awe in it's citizens and allies.
Gabriel Powell
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Julian Ross
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Blake Rivera
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Justin Gray
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Luis Cook
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Nicholas Wright
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Xavier Cooper
What were the Cihuacoatl functions? How did the position evolved from Tlacaelel up to Tlilpotonqui? Why was it related to a deity?
Landon Anderson
Why did Maya cities rise and fall so often? Why were they never merged together like other societies?
Blake Gutierrez
because turns out burning every forest in site to obtain the material to build your cities tends to fuck up your soil and ability to produce food for big societies
Jordan Reyes
Also when the mayan collapse happened around 800-900 AD, it was gg no re for them
Jack Thomas
What's the origin of these pics?
Nolan Fisher
He was the closest advisor that the Hueyi Tlatoani had. He controlled a lot of what happened within the city of tenochtitlan itself, as the king's attention was primarily focused on war and foreign policy.
Tlacaelel was the most well known, but none of the others are even discussed in any of the histories. So my guess is, it lost a lot of it's prestige after Tlacaelel died.
Not entirely sure. Perhaps just as a formality?
William Harris
Blog called aztec vault. I found the second one in another thread on /his thought.
Isaiah Hill
if it was in charge of Tenochtitlan why Maxixcatzin went after Cortes and Cuitlahuac stayed in the city?
Xavier Taylor
Because the Maya only had a shared culture. They didnt even speak the same language, they used one for diplomacy and their written language, but they were different. The closest they came to this was the league of Mayapan. But this is only for the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala was fractured between feudal kingdoms. It would take a conqueror to unite them all, and in the Classic period there were too many competitors. At most you had Calakmul and Tikal. Just look how complicated relations were in pic related among the Classic cities.
Easton White
The Maya languages.
Alexander Taylor
How did Aztecs have bows?
Connor Mitchell
what do you mean?
Aaron Hernandez
Maxixcatzin was tlaxcallan and formed an alliance with cortes. Cuitlahuac stayed in the city because protecting it from invasion was of paramount importance at this stage in the war.
Colton Wood
Bows reached central mexico in the 12th century. That coincides with the original nahuatl migration, suggesting that the aztec-chichimec tribes had learned the technology of bowmaking from tribes in the north, then brought it to mexico where it spread.
Michael Adams
>Maxixcatzin fug I meant Matlatzincatzin
Adrian Reed
What's the best english translation of Cortes's letters to Charles V and The True History of the Conquest of New Spain?
