Inscribed Landscapes: Marking and Making Place

Thirteen. Imperial Inscriptions in the Aztec Landscape

I n this chapter I explore the hegemonic nature of place marking in the Aztec state.1 When Spaniards arrived in the Valley of Mexico in 1519, they found a highland basin occupied by about one million people (Figure 13.1). At its political and demographic center, the Mexica city of Tenochtitlan and its satellite Tlatelolco, sharing an island in the lake filling the Valley bottom, together probably had 100,000 inhabitants. Other zones of the Valley were occupied by some fifty city-states of lesser size. These city-states consisted of an urban capital, the altepetl (literally, water-mountain, plural altepeme), with one or more hereditary tlatoque (plural for tlatoani, speaker), adjacent lands, and dependent towns, villages, and hamlets. At an altitude of 2,200 m above sea level (7,200 feet), the Valley was intensively worked to support this population . Productive zones consisted of the lake itself, where products like birds, fish, and algae were gathered ; the lakeshore, with its salt-collecting areas and artificial chinampa gardens; the rich Valley bottomlands , with corn, beans, and other crop fields, plus forests; and the terraced maguey fields on the foothills of the surrounding volcanic ranges.2 187 thirteen Imperial Inscriptions in the Aztec Landscape Emily Umberger NATIVE LINKS BETWEEN NATURAL AND CULTURAL TERRAINS The annual travels of the sun marked the parameters of time and space, and the gods of crops and weather, whose powers waxed and waned according to season, were the objects of human petition through contracts of reciprocity. Despite constant rituals, the rains could be unpredictable and agriculture precarious. Documented in Aztec historical sources (all dating from the early colonial period) are a number of years when too much runoff from the hills led to flooding or too little rain led to drought. The basin had no natural outlet and all waters settled in what was actually a group of five lakes in the center. One system of aqueducts brought potable water from lakeshore springs to the islands, and another system brought water to the Acolhua-Texcoco region from the piedmont of Mount Tlaloc to the east. The gods who controlled water were the rain god Tlaloc (He Who Is Made of Earth) and Chalchiuhtlicue (Jade Her Skirt), the goddess of surface water, lakes, and rivers. Other deities were concerned with weather, like Ehecatl (Wind), Figure 13.1. Map of the Valley of Mexico with surrounding inner provinces of the Aztec Empire (now the modern states of Mexico, Hidalgo, Morelos, and Puebla). Solid circles: modern settlements; open circles: important mountain peaks, most of which have pre-Hispanic remains, with height indicated in meters; solid triangles: ancient settlements (after Pasztory 1983: pl. 10; courtesy of Harry N. Abrams, New York). who preceded the rains.These gods were petitioned at shrines on the hills and mountains dedicated to them. Hills were considered the containers of water and seedsandtheircavesweremythicalsitesofhumanand agricultural origins.3 Local and imperial polities controlled the shrines themselves; concern with the solar cycle and water were very much the prerogative of the tlatoque of the various altepeme. Rulers were the negotiators between their subjects and the gods; and their continued rule depended largely on food production andassociatedprosperity.Thus,earth,water,andsolar imagery figured large in the architecture and monuments of city centers and in the shrines and rock carvings at springs and hilltops. Perhaps the images most expressive of the ruler’s relationship to these cosmic powers are those carved in relief on a pyramid-throne found in 1926 beneath the foundations of the National Palace in Mexico City (Umberger 1984). The National Palace is on the site of the former governmental palace (tecpan) of the last Mexica Aztec hueitlatoani (great speaker), the emperor Motecuhzoma II (ruled 1502–1520), and this throne bears his name. The throne takes the form of a pyramid, an artificial mountain, with an “earth monster” serving as the seat and a solar disk on the seat back (see miniature versions of such thrones in Figure 13.2). On the reverse side of the monument the hieroglyphic symbol ofTenochtitlan, a prickly pear cactus, names the city itself, rising from the waters of the lake. In placing himself on this throne, the ruler sat on the earth-mountain surrounded by water; he carried the emerging sun on his back.The successes of the Mexica Aztec ruler and his patron god Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird, left) were intimately associated with the sun, as expressed in verbal...