Aztlán
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- For other uses, see Aztlán (disambiguation).
Aztlán (/as.ˈtlan/, from Nahuatl Aztlan /ˈas.tɬaːn/) is the legendary ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. "Azteca" is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".
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[edit] The legend
Nahuatl legends relates that seven tribes lived in Chicomoztoc, or "the place of the seven caves". Each cave represented a different Nahua group: the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalan, Tepaneca, Chalca, and Mexica. Because of a common linguistic origin, those groups also are called "Nahuatlaca" (Nahua people). These tribes subsequently left the caves and settled in Aztlán.
The various descriptions of Aztlán are contradictory. While some legends describe Aztlan as a paradise, Aubin Codex says that they were subject to a tyrant elite called the Azteca Chicomoztoca. Guided by their priest, the Aztec fled, and on the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbid them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica (pronounced "meshica"). Ironically, the scholars of the 19th century would name them Aztec.
The role of the homeland of Aztlan is slightly less important to Aztec legendary histories than the migration to Tenochtitlan itself. According to the legend, the southward migration began around 830 CE. Each of the seven groups is credited with founding a different major city-state in Central Mexico. The city-states reputed to have an Aztec foundation were:
- Xochimilco,
- Tlahuica (in the modern-day state of Morelos),
- Acolhua,
- Tlaxcala,
- Huexotzinca (the modern-day city of Puebla, Puebla),
- Tepaneca (now Azcapotzalco, a delegación of the Mexican Federal District),and
- Matlatzinca (whose language was otomian and not of the Uto-Aztecan family).
These city states formed during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica (1300-1521 CE).
According to Aztec legends, the Mexica were the last tribe to emigrate and they took 302 years to reach their destination. When they arrived at the Anahuac Valley, the present-day Valley of Mexico, all available land had been taken, and they were forced to squat on the edge of the Lake Texcoco.
[edit] Places identified as Aztlán
While Aztlán has many trappings of myth, similar to Tamoanchan, Chicomoztoc, Tollan and Cibola, archaeologists have nonetheless attempted to identify the geographic place of origin for the Mexica.
In the mid-nineteenth century, fringe theorist Ignatius Donnelly, in his famous book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, sought to establish a connection between Aztlán and the fabled "lost continent" of Atlantis of Greek mythology; Donnelly's views, however, have never been recognised as credible by mainstream scholarship.
In 1887, Mexican anthropologist Alfredo Chavero claimed that Aztlán was located on the Pacific coast in the state of Nayarit. While this was disputed by contemporary scholars, it achieved some popular acceptance. In the early 1980s, the Mexican President José López Portillo suggested that Mexcaltitlan, also in Nayarit, was the true location of Aztlán, but this was denounced by Mexican historians as a political move.<ref>Arqueologia Mexicana, in Spanish</ref> Even so, the state of Nayarit incorporated the symbol of Aztlán in their Coat of Arms with the legend "Nayarit, cradle of Mexicans".
Eduardo Matos Mocteuma presumes Aztlán to be somewhere in the modern day states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán. <ref>Mocteuma, p. 38</ref>
It has also been proposed that Lake Powell, Utah was originally the site of Aztlán. Part of the migration legend also describes a stay at Culhuacan ('leaning hill' or 'curved hill'). Proponents of the Lake Powell theory equate this Culhuacan with the ancient home of the Anasazi at Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park, Arizona.[citation needed]
As of today, despite serious efforts of many scholars and activists, there is no evidence of actual existence of Aztlan, never mind any proof of its specific location. Claims, unsupported by evidence, that Aztlan was situated in (what is currently known as) Colorado or Utah seem to contradict a well established consensus among scholars that these areas were inhabited by North American Indians who, as opposed to Aztecs, left enough artifacts in these areas to document their existence there.
[edit] Primary sources
The primary sources for Aztlan are the Boturini Codex, the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, and the Aubin Codex. Aztlan is also mentioned in the History of Tlaxcala, by Diego Muñoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo from the 17th century as well as Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.
It should be noted that all the mentioned above documents were written (in Spanish) after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
[edit] Probable etymology
Aztlan is believed to mean "place of whiteness" or "place of herons", derived from the Nahuatl words "aztatl" (herons or white-plumed birds) and "tlan" ("place among"). The priests of the Aztec religion used esoteric language. In their interpretation, white symbolizes "origin", so Aztlan may be interpreted simply as "The place of origin". (Laurette Sejourne: "Burning water"). This explanation gives Aztlan a more of a lengendary and symbolic significance than a definition as a concrete place.
Aztlán [asˈtlan] is the Spanish language spelling and pronunciation of Nahuatl Aztlan [ˈas.tɬaːn]. The spelling Aztlán and its matching last-syllable stress cannot be Nahuatl -- words in this language being always stressed in their second-last syllable. The accent mark on the second a added in Spanish marks stress shift (from oxytone to paroxytone) typical of several Nahuatl words when loaned into Mexican Spanish.
After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the story of Aztlán gained importance and it was reported by Fray Diego Durán in 1581 and others to be a kind of Eden-like paradise, free of disease and death, which existed somewhere in the far north. These stories helped fuel Spanish expeditions to what is now the Southwestern United States.
[edit] Use by Chicano Movement after 1968
Due to the association of Aztlan with growing Mexican nationalism among residents of Mexican ancestry in the United States and its allegedly northern location, the name Aztlán was taken up by some radical Chicano activists of the 1960s and 1970s to refer to the area of the Southwestern United States that ceded to the United States after the Mexican-American War and that they claimed "rightfully" belonged to Mexico. Aztlan appears in the title of the 1968 manifesto issued by the radical Chicano youth movement that called for "liberation" of that area from jurisdiction of the United States, the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, as well as the names of several organizations, such as MEChA, (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán"), an organization that gain notoriety for making territorial claims against the United States on behalf of Mexico. Many in the Chicano Movement attribute poet Alurista for popularizing the term Aztlan in a poem presented during the Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in Denver, Colorado, March 1969.
For the most recent trends in Aztlan controversy and Chicano movement, see a book "Occupied America" by Rodolfo Acuna (Pearson Longman 2003), that has been acclaimed one of the best selling textbooks used across the U.S. in public colleges and universities at Chicano Studies departments.
[edit] In fiction
"Aztlán" has been used as the name of speculative fictional future-states that emerge in the southwest US and/or Mexico after the central US government suffers collapse or major setback; examples appear in such works as the novels Warday, The House of the Scorpion and World War Z, and the role-playing game Shadowrun. In Michael Flynn's alternate history story "The Forest of Time", Colorado is part of a nation-state called Nuevo Aztlán.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Eduardo Matos Mocteuma, The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan. New York: Thames and Hudson (1988).
[edit] External links
- "Aztlan and the Origin of the Aztecs" Laputan Logic, December 3, 2004
- Sanderson, Susana, "Tenotchtitlan and Templo Mayor", California State University, Chico.
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