Role Of Peasant Women In Aztec Society

Ileana Valdes AP World History
Homeroom: 210
Spice Chart 11

Social-
Family:
Prominent families in the calpulli where the once that dominated leadership roles and formed a kind of local nobility, eventually they were overshadowed by the military and administrative nobility of the Aztec states

Social Classes:
Dominated by kings
Slaves
Nobles had two storied homes of nobles
New class almost like serfs were created to serve as laborers on these lands
Scribes
Artisans
Healers
Nobles had private estates which where worked by servents or slaves
Special merchants controlled Tlatelolco
Pochteca specialized in long distance trade in luxury items such as plumes of tropical birds and cacao
Inspectors and special judges regulated and controlled
markets
Citizens where born into their class
Competition between corporate groups often was more apparent and more violent than competition between social classes
Nobles controlled the priesthood and the military leadership

Life styles:
Women worked in fields but their main priorty was working in the home
Women in the maze based economy spent 6 hours a day grinding corn by metates
Inca women required to weave high quality cloth for the court and for religious purposes
Women spent 30 to 40 hours a week into preparing basic foods
Gender Relations/ Inequalities:
Peasant women helped in fields but their main role was in the home
Women were expected to know how to weave
Training younger girls was the responsibility on the older women
Arranged marriages
Virginity was required for marriage
Polygamy existed among the nobility but peasants where monogamous
Aztec women inherited property and pass it to their heirs
Father was a source of lineage head of the household he rears and he teaches
The bad father is uncompassionate negligent unreliable and a sullen worker
Good Mother: Full of anxiety loving caring attentive she serves other
Bad mothers: Evil dull stupid sleepy lazy a thief and a fraud
Good Ruler: the ruler is a shelter fierce revered famous esteemed well reputed renowned
Bad ruler: A wild beast a demon an ocelot a wolf he makes the world rumble
The Noble: Obedient resembles his parents has a mother and father Bad Noble: Ungrateful and forgetful a debaser
Women were taken to concubines
Women served as slaves
Women worked in
fields
Cared for the household
Mature comman Woman: Firm of heart strong beautiful brave like a man
Bad woman: Thin tottering weak unfriendly
The Weaver: Concern wih her thread skilled a blender of colors
Bad Weaver: Silly foolish unskilled unobservant
Physician knows the herbs conducts examination professional trustworthy
Women in the maze based economy spent 6 hours a day grinding corn by metates
Women spent 30 to 40 hours a week into preparing basic foods

Political
Leaders/ Elites:
Hernan Cortes the Spanish captain who first entered the city reported the "the stone masonry and the woodwork are equally good; they could not be better anywhere."
Bernal Diaz del Castillo admired the Aztecs city so much words could hardly explain
Topiltzin- Toltec leader and apparently a priest dedicated to the god Quetzalcoatl who later became confused with the god himself in the legends Topilitzin a religious reformer who was involved in a struggle for priestly or political power with another faction. When he lost him and his followers went into exile they promised to come back on the same date on the cyclical calendar
Nezhualcoyotl was a leading Aztec king of the 15th century.
State Structure:
Political units claimed authority on the basis of their military power and their connections to Toltec cultures
Aztecs distrusted by everyone however they were seen as good use due to their fighting skills. This made them attractive as mercenaries or allies.
Flowery death or death while taking prisoners for the sacrificial knife, was the end to a nobles life and ensured eternity in the highest heaven a reward also promised to women who died in childbirth
Subjects were forced to pay tribute, surrender lands, and sometimes do military service for the growing Aztec empire
Mexica had become a stratified society under the authority of a supreme ruler
Greatly expanded into an enormous cult in which the military class played a central role as suppliers of war captives to be used as sacrificial victims.
Aztec state was dominated by a king who represented civil power and served as a representative of the gods on earth
Human sacrifice and conquest was united with the political power of the ruler and the nobility
Banners, cloaks, and other insignia marked off the military ranks
Military was organized by ranks based on experience and success in taking captives
Military virtues where linked to the cult of sacrifice and infused the whole society
Nobility broke free from their old calpulli and owned private lands
Long distant merchants formed a sort of calpulii with patron gods, privileges and internal divisions; served as spies or agents of Aztec military
The state controlled the use and distribution of many commodities and redistributed the vast amounts of tribute received from subordinate peoples
Tribute levels were assigned on whether the subject people accepted Aztec rule or fought against it
Tribute payments where things such as food , slaves, and sacrificial victims, served political and economic ends
120,000 mantles of cotton cloth alone were collected as tribute each year and sent to Tenochtitlan
Aztecs divided into seven Calpulli, or clans, a form of organization that they later expanded and adapted to their imperial position.
-Included neighbors, allies, and dependents
Wars/Revolutions:
"flower wars" could be staged in which both sides could obtain captives for sacrifice
Diplomacy:
Treaties:
Courts, Law:
Feeding the great population of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec confederation in general depended on traditional forms of agriculture.
Lands conquered peoples often were appropriated, and food sometimes was demanded as tribute.

Nationalism:
Human sacrifice, long a part of Mesoamerican religion, greatly expanded into an enormous cult in which the military class played a central role as suppliers of war captives to be used as sacrificial victims.
Interaction-
Geography:
Lakes contained cities
Rise of lakes made it impossible to continue an irrigated system Disease:
Patterns of Settlement:
Migration:
Migrated to the shores of Lake Texcoco
Chichimec migrants came from the northwest and various groups of sedentary farmers
Aztec domination expanded from the Tarascan frontier about a hundred miles north of present day Mexico city
Technology:
Canoes which allowed transportation
Many bridges at intervals
Wood work
They built artificial floating islands about 17 feet long and 100 to 330 feet wide
Millar- a machine that grinded helped female have more spare time helped trade
Demography:
1.5 million to 25 million people
20 million people excluding the Maya areas
Aztecs were a group of about a 10,000 people
Culture-
Religions:
Mesoamerican
Belief Systems:
Aztecs where tough warriors and fanatical followers of their gods
Human sacrifice
Aztecs would settle when they saw an eagle perched on a cactus with a serpent in its beak
Mexica people who served gods
Mesoamerican religion believed in human sacrifice
Gods of rain, fire, water, corn, the sky, and the sun
128 deities
Each deity had a male and female form
Believed gods might have different manifestations similar to avatars of the Hindu deities
Certain gods were thought to be the patrons of specific cities, ethnic groups, or occupations
Festivals and ceremonies that involved feasting and dancing along with penance and sacrifice
God of Fertility called Tlaloc
God of the Rain Chac
Gods and Goddesses of water, maize, and fertility
Creator deities - gods and goddesses who created the universe
Huitizilopochti was the old sun god and saw him as a warrior in the day and in order to live he needed the human blood
Human hearts and blood sustained the gods
Believed the world had been destroyed four times before and we would be destroyed again
Food was offered as tribute
Philosophies and ideologies: fatalism in Aztec thought and a premonition that eventually the sacrifices would be insufficient and the gods would again bring catastrophe.
Math and Science:
Cyclical calendar system
The arts and architecture:
Palaces
Temples
Built stone masonry and where good in woodwork
Toltec art portrayed cult sacrifice and war
Art was filled with images of flowers and birds and song
Writing/Literature:
Many people spoke Nahuatl
Wrote hymns to the lord of the close vicinity
Poetry where filled with images of flowers and birds and song
Mexica people spoke the Nahuatl language
Quechua language
Economic-
Type of system:
Industry trade and commerce:
Markets had chocolate and elaborate textiles and from parrot feathers to precious slaves and

Types of businesses:
Markets

Capital/ money:
Cacao beans and gold dust where used as currency