Daily Life of the Aztecs by Jacques Soustelle

Author:Jacques Soustelle [Soustelle, Jacques]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: General, History, Social Science, Anthropology, Sociology, Cultural, Latin America, Mexico, Native American, Social life and customs, Aztecs, Indians of Mexico, Aztecs - Social Life and Customs
ISBN: 9780486424859
Google: WMrNE7uq-tMC
Amazon: 0486424855
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 1961-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

and gem-stones; and above all agriculture. Of course there was no question of a Mexican noble working on the land like 'a labourer or a gardener'; the suggestion is that he should direct the exploitation of his estate.

The notion of high blood which certainly exists here, in spite of the disillusioned warning 'Nobody has ever seen a man live on nobility alone', does not follow the same boundaries as it did in our own feudal society, for example. The noble can work with his hands: but he may not become a plain peasant, nor a trader.

As we have seen, the estates that members of the ruling class controlled were many and extensive, often far, and sometimes very far, from Mexico. Although in theory the land belonged to the state, these people had in fact a tenancy that was becoming more and more like downright ownership: they therefore devoted a considerable portion of their time to visiting their estates and seeing to their proper cultivation. They might, however, be replaced by majordomos, calpixque, some of whom were trustworthy slaves who at length succeeded in growing wealthy and who often freed themselves.

It must be realised that the household of a great Aztec lord, with its fields and woods, lakes and rivers, its workshops with many women spinning and weaving, and with craftsmen working for the master himself, formed a considerable economic entity which was partially self-supporting and which was a producer of food and clothing. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the unceasing wars and the increasing labour of administration prevented the high officials from giving their own affairs anything but the most general supervision. The gentleman-farmer was becoming more and more an officer, a judge, a courtier or a statesman, and the most important part of the work had passed into the hands of stewards.

The business of the state and of the 'high command', tlatocayotl, took up the energies of the ruling class to an ever-increasing extent. In the first place there was the war, for which all the young men had trained themselves from their childhood, being so anxious to rise to be tequiuaque, and, if they could, to be promoted to the higher ranks. Then

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