7
Making Landfall

Defining the Landscape

In the early 1200s the Mexica/Aztec entered into the high mountainous Valley of Mexico after a purported one-hundred-year migration. According to ethnohistorical sources and corroborating archaeological evidence, the Basin of Mexico was crowded with a network of peoples whose political leaders had organized into diversely sized polities that settled around Lake Texcoco (figure 7.1).¹ The combination of dense settlements and the physical attributes of the highlands of Central Mexico created a highly competitive, internecine environment in which its inhabitants continually jockeyed for power. After several attempts at settling around the lakeshore, the Mexica made a daring move: they established their capital Mexico-Tenochtitlan (Tenochtitlan hereafter) within a marshy island located in the midst of Lake Texcoco.

Figure 7.1. Basin of Mexico, showing the largest post-Classic settlements around Lake Texcoco and the Mexica political capital, Mexico-Tenochtitlan. (Drawing by Jennifer Munson)

Mexica leaders actively engaged in a variety of sociopolitical exchanges that included warfare, coercion, and diplomacy from roughly AD 1375 to 1519 so as to thrive within this ambitiously aggressive social environment. The success of this diverse approach facilitated Mexica dominance over most political contenders within the Basin and its surrounding areas. At the height of their power, in the early 1500s, the Mexica inhabited one of the most densely populated areas in the world and their efficacious tactics gained them lordship over an impressively vast political realm.

In The Political Landscape, Adam T. Smith calls attention to the marginal role landscape has played in examinations of politics for early complex polities.² Counter to this trend, Smith argues, the physical and socially constructed landscape has always played an eminent role in shaping the ways in which complex polities maintained power and exerted dominion. Within the field of Aztec studies, the spatial depths of political acts are seldom fully explored. With a few notable exceptions, studies examining Mexica space and architecture mostly focus on the popular discussion of sacred space to accommodate overarching discussions of spatial interests that mostly address religious precepts.³

Henri Lefebvre asserts that “space is not a scientific object removed from ideology and politics; it has always been political and strategic.”⁴ Furthermore, he contends that the privileging of the image in studies of culture has led to a poor understanding of space.⁵ In this essay, I argue that the Mexica (like other cultures written about in this volume) were acutely aware of the substantial role that spatial environments play in shaping human interaction and influencing the outcome of political activity. For the Mexica, social memory and politics were intimately fused to images set in space. In fact, this essay along with the others in this book clearly advance Smith’s claim that “the creation and preservation of political authority is a profoundly spatial problem.”⁶ It is for this reason that I argue here that the Mexica blurred boundaries between image and space by integrating both elements seamlessly to produce environments that convinced visitors of their supreme authority; I identify the ways the Mexica addressed the universal human necessity to give political agendas spatial form.

In order to understand the depth of Mexica transactions with their political equals and subjects, an analysis of the spatial environments created by the Mexica is needed. Such a study must take into account archaeological evidence, pictorial representations in codices, and especially the generous ethnohistoric literature available on Nahua culture in general (that is northern people who spoke the Nahuatl language and entered in to the Basin in the thirteenth century), which can comment on the sociopolitical interaction among the Mexica and their political allies and adversaries. This investigation into the political denotation of space is a first contribution to a much needed comprehensive analysis of the spatial dimensions of politics for the Mexica. As it is, this study constitutes an extension of important works by scholars who have addressed the political landscape of the Basin during the late post-Classic (ca. AD 1200–1519).⁷

Because all social activity is a spatial endeavor, my examination of Mexica politics centers on identifying the ways their history continuously referenced their physical and culturally constructed landscapes.⁸ In particular, I examine Mexica political action based on a selective reading of historical events that transpired during their pilgrimage into the Valley of Mexico and that led to the settlement of their capital and the establishment of their expansionistic agendas. My analysis examines this history to show that Mexica carefully assessed the spatial dimensions of their political aspirations. I then explore the ways the Mexica advanced their political agendas by adopting, appropriating, and modifying the social and visual expressions of the physical landscape as well as those of the people inhabiting their immediate and distant environment(s). Accordingly, this essay notes how the Mexica used the planning and spatial layout of Tenochtitlan to publicly and privately assert their sovereignty across time.

This investigation concentrates on Mexica visual tactics mostly around the Basin and at their capital. These strategies, I argue, made repeated economic, artistic, and symbolic references to the physical, cultural, and political realm under their dominion. This essay shows Mexica recognition of this diversity came to them early on during their migration phase, a time when they first inspected, experienced, and traversed the vastly contested cultural ecumene of Central Mexico. From the beginning, I contend, the Mexica assessed the entirety of this landscape as a place where they could cunningly plot their cartographic vision of authority and fulfill their political ambitions of domination by supervising a landscape endowed with diverse subjects.

Migration, the View from the Mountaintop, and Surveying Political Rivals

Mexica political consciousness was shaped by time and space—that is, by the physical, cultural, and social qualities of the landscape they explored during their purported migration from their northern homeland, Aztlán (“place of white”), as well as the events that transpired on the way to their final destination in the Valley of Mexico. This odyssey across diverse regions gave the Mexica an opportunity to survey and assess their geopolitical opponents within their own settings.⁹

The series of events that occurred during the migration pilgrimage are recounted in a number of sources.¹⁰ The varied postconquest narratives recount an array of happenings that occurred both before and after the arrival of Nahua peoples into the areas around Lake Texcoco. One such important event occurred in Coatepec, where the Mexica built an artificial lake and created a small island within it in after their supreme war god, Huitzilopochtli, told them to do so.¹¹ Huitzilopochtli directed this event so as to give the Mexica an idea of what their promised land would look like and a short time after the artificial environment was built, Huitzilipochtli instructed the Mexica to move on; a faction of the Mexica who had comfortably settled there also expressed their desire to reside there permanently. The narrative then states that this faction, known as the Huitznahua, was killed at that location.¹² This story and several other episodes before it present a common trope in the migration stories where the challenging of any decision taken by Mexica leadership always ended violently. In some cases the Mexica abandoned the rebellious groups trying to fracture social cohesion in the landscape only to deal with them at a later time.¹³ Mexica early history emphasizes the resolution of conflicts by consolidating social relations, separating all dissenters from the main group (sometimes abandoning them in the landscape), or in few other cases sacrificing them to Huitzilopochtli.

That their migration informed and shaped their interest to dominate is evident in what Frederick Hicks points out is a noteworthy feature of Mexica migration histories present in colonial documents: unlike others who settle the Valley, the Mexica always claim they came from somewhere else.¹⁴ This statement suggests the Mexica recognized that their status as outsiders made them special. It seems to have given them the necessary social distance to effectively appraise the crowded competition for resources, as well as note the size and spatial location of all potential political opponents. Their evaluation of this contentious setting made it clear they would have to develop an array of tactics to take control of the diversified lands in the Valley.

Mexica interest in surveying the political landscape is especially evident in their first stop upon entering the Valley of Mexico: the Hill of Chapultepec. The lure of fresh water from these springs, located in the hills southwest of Lake Texcoco, drew all who entered the Basin. Yet the threat of the menacing forces of its Tepanec landlords (one of the earliest Nahua groups to enter the region and the most pugnacious sect in the land) quelled the desires of all previous settlers. However, Chapultepec’s strategic placement on a prominent hill that provided a panorama of the Valley proved too big a lure for the Mexica upon their advent. The late-arriving Mexica were certainly aware of the violent consequences even a temporary stop would incur from Chapultepec’s belligerent landlords. Why risk the safety of their group by instigating a reaction from the most aggressive people in the Valley right from their start?

The answer seems to be that the commanding view from Chapultepec’s high hills enabled the Mexica to reconnoiter the Valley and the densely settled areas surrounding the lake. It likewise provided the Mexica an essential comprehensive view of the spatial layout and clustering of townships that comprised the political arena of the Valley, making visible the lakeshore’s most beneficial areas for settlement. Curiously, although the area was under the Tepanec domain, the Dominican friar Diego Durán mentions in his early chronicle that the Mexica were expulsed by the attacks of many in the Valley, specifically those forces belonging to the southern province of Chalco.¹⁵ This experience alerted the Mexica to the fact that the crowded spatial adjacencies of the differently sized towns in the Valley both affected and intensified all social, cultural, and political interactions/exchanges. In the case of Chapultepec, the lands may have belonged to one polity but in the populated Basin disagreements and skirmishes often involved all settlements, including those with no apparent jurisdiction over disputed areas. This first conflict taught the Mexica a valuable political lesson: their settlement in the Valley challenged the balance of the entire cultural landscape and in order to survive, not to mention dominate successfully, they would have to build relationships and incorporate all groups, not just the major power brokers on the lakeshore.

Chapultepec’s vantage point also revealed that all major activity centered on Lake Texcoco. Studies have shown that the lake was the principal commercial and communication artery of all settlements in the Valley and beyond.¹⁶ Although ethnohistoric sources emphasize that the Mexica made decisions to settle different regions based on the counsel of their patron god Huitzilopochtli, Chapultepec’s prime scouting location proves the Mexica were also deeply invested in appraising the region for more practical reasons.¹⁷ According to legend, the Mexica made their decision to settle in the marshy areas of the lake after witnessing a number of omens that their patron god Huitzilopochtli had foretold.¹⁸ How much these omens actually played in the final decision to settle there is debatable. From a mythological/religious view, the Mexica god’s communiqués substantially contributed to their settling this area, yet an equally important motive was the insight gained from the Chapultepec perspective: anyone settling this central location would be at the heart of all exchanges in the four sub-basins comprised in the Valley of Mexico.

In spite of their being expelled from Chapultepec, the Mexica made the most of this temporary defeat. While their survey from the hill helped them identify the favorable open areas in the landscape, it was their sociopolitical talents and negotiation skills that enabled the savvy Mexica to gain direct access to the Valley as they convinced the peoples to give them land where they could regroup.¹⁹

The Mexica appealed to the Culhua by offering their services as mercenaries in exchange for land to settle in Tizaapan, a region controlled by the Culhua. The military success of the Mexica in supporting the Culhua paved the way for intermarriage among their nobles and Culhua elites. This union made the northern-arriving Mexica the latest beneficiaries to inherit the direct royal Toltec lineage that the Culhua possessed. Yet, in spite of the blood relations, harmony between both groups did not last long. After a short stay in Tizaapan, the Mexica orchestrated a skirmish against their Culhua landlords and were chased out of the region and into the marshes in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Although the circumstances were not the most favorable, they found themselves in the area their Chapultepec view had identified as the most tactically advantageous position in the entire Valley. Established polities may have found some comfort keeping tabs on the new invaders in the middle of the lake; however, this placement earned the Mexica the viewpoint they sought. From the center of the lake they could maintain perpetual focus on the sociopolitical landscape they wished to possess. Now, they only needed a high platform that could yield this panoptic view.²⁰

Conceptual Spatial Arrangements and the Order of the Universe

Although there are conflicting accounts as to when Tenochtitlan was established, it is generally agreed that by 1325 settlement on the marshland had begun. Most ethnohistorical sources provide limited information about the first one hundred years of occupation, so there is a considerable information gap about this early period of Mexica history.²¹ Regretfully, the archaeological record cannot augment the available historical information for this era, largely due to the fact that modern-day Mexico City has entombed the remains of the Mexica capital. In addition, any exploration in this area is compromised by Lake Texcoco’s intrusive remaining water table, making it virtually impossible to get to the earliest, deepest remains.²² In spite of all of the compromised information, not all is lost. A bounty of pictorial documents was created in the ensuing postconquest period that provides a wealth of information with many conflicting and complementary views to those found in the archaeological or historical records. Not surprisingly, scholars move cautiously through this early period.²³

The final move to the marshes in the lake, some claim, was guided by the Mexica chieftain Tenoch who (accompanied by other nobles) saw a vision of their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, symbolically embodied in an eagle, perched on a bounty of cactus that grew out of a stony outcrop.²⁴ Ironically, this early act of discovery is celebrated in many colonial manuscripts created after Tenochtitlan’s destruction in a variety of ways. Most representations consistently show a group rather than an individual witnessing this event, underscoring the importance of group discovery and communal testimony in establishing the collective foundation of the Mexica capital.²⁵ The earliest depiction of this event, imaged on folio 2r of the Codex Mendoza circa AD 1540 (figure 7.2), shows Tenoch accompanied by nine other lords seated on mats in an area demarcated by a Formeé design.²⁶ Scholars interpret this image as a cosmogonic reference to the axis mundi and the religious precepts that dominated Mexica spatial layouts.²⁷ These scholars also point out that carefully planned spatial alignments were of great interest to all Mesoamerican cultures, and as this elegant drawing makes evident, the Mexica were no exception. In fact, as made clear in the many essays in this book, reference to four points was instrumental in spatial political constructions for many different cultures.²⁸

Figure 7.2. Folio 2r, Codex Mendoza (ca. 1540s), ink and wash on paper. (The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Arch Selden A.1, fol. 2r)

Van Zantwijk comments extensively on the spatial and sociocultural order of the Mexica capital.²⁹ His dexterous cultural, political, economic, and structural analysis of Mexica space adumbrates the ways in which spatial elements served as parts of a rigidly structured world order and points out that all Mesoamerican societies had specific identifications between location and time, direction, color, deities, and social groups. Among these, van Zantwijk identifies three organizational principles that formed the basis of Amerindian structured conceptions of space: (1) a dual principle whereby gendered deity attributions as well as internal and external aspects of society were affirmed regarding all matters related to the nuclear part of the Empire’s core and its relation to outlying provinces; (2) a triple principle that expressed the vertical structure of the universe with lower, middle, and upper sections; and (3) a quadruple principle that referenced the four horizontally planed divisions—the quarterly order of the earth—that served as a metaphor for the totality of the universe.³⁰ Van Zantwijk’s comprehensive analysis of Nahua conceptions of space expounds on the complicated and nuanced manner by which all three principles were woven into a total system used to organize the political realm socially and ideologically. His exhaustive analysis makes it clear that spatial arrangements were rich with religious-political meaning.

Elsewhere, I have argued that this Mendoza postconquest image illustrates a common trope in Mexica imagery: the depiction of political sovereignty as an incorporated body politic.³¹ Here, I would like to explore the multi-indexicality of the political space alluded to in this folio by briefly relating the presence of the three spatial principles in van Zantwijk’s work (mentioned above) to the Mendoza image. David Carrasco has argued that the blue lines that demarcate the rectangular boundary at the center of the Mendoza frontispiece refer spatially to the actual layout of the Mexica capital bounded by water.³² The two aqua lines that emerge out of the corners of this central rectangle and meet precisely at the center (where the eagle stands) divide the scene into evenly spaced quadrants that emphasize manmade order. The water, quadrant, and eagle designs rendered in this image depict the compressed spatial universe of the Mexica as tiered into three levels, the underworld (water/canal), the middle world (the quartered tableau marked by the cactus), and the upper world (embodied in the eagle).

The physical distribution of space in the Mexica capital did not actually conform to the conceptual spatial layout present in this image (the city’s areas to the southwest and northwest quadrant were physically larger). Instead, this image fixed the ideal view of the ordered world under Mexica rule with its capital at the center, its government heads distributed throughout the island capital, and a sprawling universe filled with subjects as documented in the many pages that follow this image in a variety of ways.³³ Geographically, Mexica subjects are represented by the conquests of the towns of Tenayuca and Culhuacan in the lower register of this folio. In actuality, these two towns were found in opposite spatial directions (the former to the north and the latter to the south of Tenochtitlan), not side by side as rendered here. In this image, importance fell in illustrating the conceptual bi, tri, and quadripartite indigenous ordering principles and not the precise geographic location of these polities. This dualistic spatial reference (specifically territories to the north and south) made an indexical reference to the sociopolitical matters that concerned the nuclear part of the Empire by combining the outlying (conquered) provinces with the center to confirm Mexica order over a vast terrain conceptually ordered into quarters.

As Carrasco points out, the bisected rectangle in the frontispiece symbolically references Mexico-Tenochtitlan and this is why Tenayuca and Culhuacan appear outside the main rectangle.³⁴ Not surprisingly, the Mendoza pages that follow this early page comprehensively document the remaining totality of the Mexica political realm in the years after their establishment; that is to say, these pages record the areas outside of the central tableau that were the entire domain of Mexica control.³⁵ Conceptually, the scene on the frontispiece made claim to the perfectly ordered universe the Mexica managed. The military, tributary, and behavioral divisions present in the following three sections of this document functioned as optical reminders of how Tenochtitlan’s preeminent order oversaw the physical, economic, political, and culturally distinct divided realm they controlled.³⁶ The frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza presents an idealized model of Mexica social achievements (a diversified government) and its many imaged segments rendered in a condensed cartography of their geopolitical space and spatial exploits.

Developing a Sociopolitical Network based on Spatial Principles

According to Durán’s treatise after the eagle vision, the Mexica dedicated a small wattle-and-daub chapel to their war god, Huitzilopochtli.³⁷ The erection of this chapel is of notable importance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which may be that it was the first Templo Mayor.³⁸ The building of a temple as a first act of settlement was standard practice among the Mexica; they had commemorated all previous stops by erecting a temple and supplementary structures that were subsequently abandoned.³⁹ But this time it was different. This low-platform shrine marked the final stop in their migration, located the heart of their new capital, provided first firm ground, and served as a platform for monitoring the people on the shore.

Eduardo Matos points out that preparation to settle in the fens began at Coatepec, where the Mexica built an artificial lake and created a small island within it.⁴⁰ This act, Matos argues, makes it clear the Mexica knew their final settlement would take place on the water. The creation of the artificial lake during this stop marked a research-and-development phase in their migration history. Specifically, their temporary settlement at Coatepec gave them an opportunity to test out and begin planning ways to prepare ground for settlement in a superficial body of water. Their solution involved filling in sections of the shallow lake at a time with debris and plugging compact soils over them to achieve firm ground. Matos has shown that this initial approach was perfected at Tenochtitlan by introducing a lattice-like network of large wooden stakes sunk into the shallow depths of Lake Texcoco to define a firm-ground perimeter.⁴¹ Rubble, silt, and soils from the shores were then set over a demarcated area and laid out in rectangular plots, upon which the Mexica built their settlements.

The settling of this region, the Mexica learned, would necessitate the incorporation of the physical surroundings. This realization linked expansion with the need to secure and develop favorable political relations. Future growth would always incur material contributions from their immediate neighbors and need to physically integrate the actual surrounding landscape. In the beginning, the Mexica recognized they had no other choice than to enslave themselves to dominant powers in part to secure building goods. Not surprisingly, this circumstance created a perpetual condition for the Mexica: devise strategies that obtained materials for their island home by every cost-effective and energy-saving measure possible. This tactic is confirmed in historical narratives.

The construction of their humble chapel laid the ground for ensuing social organization. After its foundation, Durán explains, the Mexica broke into four major social groups (each organized around a cardinal point) that was further divided into smaller units in a cellular pattern according to barrios within each of the four major subdivisions.⁴² This initial parceling of lands caused unrest among a certain large faction, which separated from the Mexica settlement. This bloc refused to accept the spatial covenant that would make them part of the Mexica-Tenochca group and they moved to inhabit another part of the marshy area to the north, naming that settlement Tlatelolco. Separating from Tenochtitlan did not save the Tlatelolca from the comprehensive spatial gaze of the Mexica. As van Zantwijk made clear, the quadripartite division was a metaphor for the entire universe; by marking their center and laying out four quarters around it, the newly organized Mexica city symbolically lay claim to all of the realm beyond its capital. It would take some time, but eventually all, especially their cousins who had just broken ranks, would fall into the all-encompassing political fold.⁴³ The Tlatelolca had not realized the opportunity they had squandered; their move away from Tenochtitlan’s center announced that they were no longer spatially incorporated among the core group that would eventually rule all the land. Their move out from the center was ultimately a move into servitude under the Mexica.

Organized into quarters, the Mexica moved to obtain raw materials to construct their capital by selling or trading items they could harvest in the local markets from their new location. However, reality set in quickly as they were reminded that their every action, in the middle of the lake, created sociocultural ripples and tides for the rest of the polities settled on the shore. Their move into the marshes precipitated a charged encounter with the two most powerful groups, the Tepanec and the Texcocans, the former held jurisdiction over the area the Mexica now occupied.⁴⁴ Astutely, the Mexica began their negotiations with the most dominant of the two groups, the Tepanec. Much as they had with the Culhua, the Mexica offered their martial services and became mercenaries for the Tepanec capital, Azcapotzalco.⁴⁵ The Mexica thrived in this servitude so much that Tezozomoc, the Tepanec governor, allowed them to keep control over some of the petty kingdoms they conquered as Tepanec mercenaries.⁴⁶

During this early period the Mexica not only conquered for their overlords, they also mended strained political relations and built political capital. For instance, the Mexica moved rapidly to suppress any ill-will that may have brewed as a result of their early conquest over Culhuacan by requesting that the noble offspring of a Mexica-Culhua union who had been raised during the Mexica’s prior temporary settlement in Tizaapan come take the helm at Tenochtitlan.⁴⁷ In 1376, the Culhua-Mexica descendant, Acamapichtli, became the first Mexica king, or tlatoani, literally “speaker.” This highly tactical maneuver allowed the Mexica to begin their political consolidation by claiming Toltec royal descent, a social prestige respected by all southern peoples in the Basin.⁴⁸

Every calculated social move during this early stage proved seminal for the politically talented Mexica as they turned social misfortunes into political windfall. For instance, when Acamapichtli’s first wife failed to produce an heir, Mexica nobles rushed to offer their daughters, as was customary, as brides for their new king. The Mexica, much as was the Mesoamerican tradition, solidified social ties by widely intermarrying with nobles from incorporated but not yet integrated polities. This trend continued throughout Mexica history and into the colonial period. In the case of the half-foreign Acamapichtli, his marriages firmed social bonds between the centralized government and all of the major representatives spread throughout the island. In addition, Acamapichtli wed a humble woman who sold legumes in Azcapotzalco and they had a son named Itzcoatl. Acamapichtli’s marriages and kingly achievements made him beloved among his people, but the Tepanec reacted unfavorably to the Mexica having their own king and doubled their tribute, which continued until his death.⁴⁹ Huitzilihuitl, one of Acamapichtli’s sons, followed his father to the throne (r. 1397–1417) after the Mexica council, made up of representatives from the four quarters acting as one, endorsed his candidacy.

Hoping to offset the tribute demanded from the Tepanec, the Mexica requested a bride for their new king from the ranks of the Tepanec ruling elite. Tezozomoc, the Tepanec king offered his daughter, Ayaucihuatl, who married Huitzilihuitl and their union birthed Chimalpopoca, who followed his father to the throne (r. 1417–1427).⁵⁰ Chimalpopoca continued the steady growth of the city, no longer having houses constructed out of adobe but now of stone, asserting Mexica permanence and affluence.⁵¹ The success of the Mexica did not sit well with Azcapotzalco and after Tezozomoc’s death one of his cantankerous sons by the name of Maxtla had Chimalpopoca assassinated, leading the Mexica to elect the socially dexterous Itzcoatl as their sovereign.⁵² Itzcoatl orchestrated a brilliant war campaign against Maxtla’s forces at Azcapotzalco, devising an alliance that would involve the powerful disgruntled Tepanec elite from the city of Tlacopan and a newly empowered Texcocan nobility that had been rebuilt by the Mexica. Itzcoatl recognized that to defeat Maxtla he would have to assemble a stellar team of strategists and he diversified Mexica political organization by creating the post of Cihuacoatl, a principal counselor to the king who held the second-highest rank in the Mexica government.⁵³ In AD 1428 with the most brilliant strategist at his side, the Cihuacoatl Tlacaelel, Itzcoatl and his coalition embarked on a war campaign that in 1431 defeated Maxtla’s forces and gained Itzcoatl and his people their independence.

Vanquishing Maxtla placed Itzcoatl in the privileged position of having complete command of the most powerful force in the land. Perhaps recognizing that Maxtla’s tyranny had wrecked Azcapotzalco’s dominance, this sagacious leader took the calculated risk of empowering his recently defeated enemies in order to transform them into lifelong allies. Congruent with this thinking, he devised (with Tlacaelel’s assistance) a shared governing structure that placed power in the three independent but co-ruling powers known as the Triple Alliance. This triumvirate married the emergent undisputed powers of all the land to the east and west of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. Doing so merged the most influential Tepanec elite along with their territories and tributary provinces as well as those of Texcoco into one, with Tenochtitlan at the helm.⁵⁴ By taking this political action the Mexica sewed up the largest divisions of authority in the Basin and localized power to Tenochtitlan.

No two natural forces were more palpably present in the landscape of the Basin of Mexico than water and fire, and nothing visually captured the harmonious and explosive confluence of these two elements more than the active and dormant volcanoes that punctuated the landscape of the Central Valley of Mexico and ringed the glassy shallow waters of Lake Texcoco and memorialized in the Alt-Tlachinolli glyph (water-fire). It comes as no surprise, then, that the Mexica incorporated these elements into the face of government as memorialized by the Triple Alliance.

Culturally, the Triple Alliance relocated the gods of fire and water to the center of Tenochtitlan. Alfredo López Austin’s study of the Old God of Fire, Huehueteotl, showed the fire god was the patron of one of the oldest groups in the Basin, the Otomí-Pame, who were subjugated by the Tepanec.⁵⁵ The Tepanec then made this being their tutelary deity. Inversely, Tláloc, the Central Mexican god of rain, was the supreme deity of the principal Tepanec adversary, Texcoco.⁵⁶ The forged political union between Texcoco, Tlacopan, and the Mexica, as orchestrated by Itzcoatl and Tlacaelel, fused together nature (water-mountains) and supernatural forces (fire-water deities) within government (the centralized power of the Triple Alliance). The forged Triple Alliance thus reflected the important spatial tenets of the Mexica as a tripartite division of power that embodied the cultural, physical, and socioeconomic conditions of the landscape in the Basin. This astute ideological maneuver synthesized the political endeavors of the major forces in the land and consecrated the locality of the landscape to the Mexica capital.

Giving Order Material Presence: Constructing Tenochtitlan’s Social Infrastructure

Mexica political growth and their quest to consolidate power directed the physical development of their capital. Accordingly, they strategically planned the details of their constructions, right from the start. Durán reports that the first temple dedicated to Huitzilipochtli was initially made of nonpermanent materials.⁵⁷ A few paragraphs on, he relates that this structure was later covered with a light coat of well-worked small stones. In covering this prominent structure with a different, more durable material, the Mexica asserted their permanence and alerted those on the shore that their political relations were yielding material dividends.

Improved social fortunes secured the Mexica permanent building resources and gave their political aspirations concrete spatial form.⁵⁸ Not surprisingly, the Mexica carefully planned all activity in the center of the lake, making every construction an emblematic, high profile, deliberate act of political thought. The Mexica were acutely aware that the architectural forms of every edifice wrought social consequence. In the case of their first temple, the apparent changes got the Mexica into trouble with their overlords of Azcapotzalco, who raised their tribute.⁵⁹

The establishment of this first temple and accompanying early structures marked this location as the heart of their capital (figure 7.3). It lay within a rectangular compound that housed many structures and was defined by a high, wide platform with four gates. Every gate opened to a street facing a cardinal direction within the island but only three of these connected to a wider straight causeway (elevated road) leading out to the island’s shore. The construction of the ceremonial center and its gate resonated with the all-important social ordering of the city into quarters enacted at the foundation of their capital, but it was the connection of these gates to four roads in the city and the three causeways beyond that solidified Mexica contact with those on the lakeshore. The three principal roads connected the center of the city to the north, the west, and the south—a possible reference to Mesoamerica’s tripartite cosmogonic division, but it especially established contact to the Mexica’s most important sociocultural and principal commerce areas.⁶⁰

Figure 7.3. Island of Mexico-Tenochtitlan/Tlatelolco with major barrio divisions. (Drawing by Jennifer Munson)

No highway was ever built out to the east of the city across the waters to Texcoco, making it clear the Mexica felt no need to extend the quadripartite conceptual division of the city beyond the island. The roads that extended out from the center to the island’s shore marked the ideological construction of an ordered universe and implied the continuation of this conceptual model onto the topography past the island’s shore. Practically speaking, building the fourth causeway was not in the Mexica best interest. Such a thoroughfare would have incurred overwhelming costs and caused flooding, and would have choked up the principal arteries in the large sections of Lake Texcoco. The lack of an access road connecting the eastern part of the island to the coast allowed there to be an extended eastern open shore that provided abundant places for canoes to moor in this region. This decision allowed the Mexica to gain high profits from trade and facilitated the transport of heavy raw materials used to build their major structures, as made evident in Leonardo López Luján et al.’s petrographic studies of the mainland that have identified many quarries near the lakeshore.⁶¹ The placement of a fourth causeway to the east would have redundantly asserted what the four main roads already did in the city. Mexica infrastructure seems to have been devised to focus all commercial activity toward them and in this case, the lack of a fourth access road gave all navigating the lake an uninterrupted view of the administrative capital.

Jose Luis de Rojas’s work has centered on the economy and society of Tenochtitlan, providing a comprehensive look at the social organization of the island at the time of conquest.⁶² His work, and that of notable others, has examined the social organization of the city beyond its quarterly divisions.⁶³ Tenochtitlan quarters provided a large superstructure that comprised a series of barrios organized according to social, professional, religious, economic, and familial group divisions. Barrios further subdivided into smaller cellular units and this fragmentation continued on down to the household level. The organization of the barrios reflected the many professional and social groups composing Mexica society. Not surprisingly, the relative size and shape of the barrios was irregular. A look at the layout of the barrios making up Tenochtitlan shows their size and shape were less formalized, reflecting more organic, fluid relationships based on social exchanges than rigid ideological constructs. The spatial irregularity of these barrios illustrates that the Mexica conceived of superstructures to order their world, yet they did not enforce them if they restrained the socioeconomic flourishing of political relations.

Mexica flexibility in adapting their spatial regulations to changing social circumstances explains why quarterly segments of Tenochtitlan were not the same size. The Atzacualco quarter, for instance, was the smallest of the quadrants and Teopan, the largest, was further divided into north and south partitions. The shape of the barrios reflected the particular local necessities of the island as well as the socially complex relations of those groups integrated within the corporate government. The finger-shaped barrios of Atlixco and Ocelotzontecontitlan in José de Alzate’s 1789 map, as well as areas designated Zacatlan in Matos’s recent essay on the layout of the eastern shore of Tenochtitlan, provide examples: their long shapes reflects the sensible economic interest to moor as many canoes as possible in this high-traffic region by creating a long uninterrupted shoreline.⁶⁴ Limiting the number of subdivisions meant there were fewer social groups to supervise. The layout of Tenochtitlan did not only reflect religious precepts, it adumbrates Mexica flexibility to modify sacrosanct spatial constructs that promoted more viable means to administer their expanding government.

The Diversified Spatial Planning of the Ceremonial Center and Palaces of Tenochtitlan

Modern-day Mexico City sits directly above Tenochtitlan’s vestiges. Ongoing archaeological explorations have provided a wealth of information that helps us understand the political dimensions of the art and architecture at the Mexica capital, and specifically adjacent to the principal religious-civic structure, the Templo Mayor.⁶⁵ The Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún claims seventy-eight structures were contained within the walls of the religious core known as the Ceremonial Center at the time of conquest. Although there is not enough evidence today to support this statement, every new discovery brings us closer to this reported number.⁶⁶ The structures and platforms housed within this center served several important religious and administrative purposes and provided an area to educate elite youth. The presence of numerous temples dedicated to several divinities expressed Mexica interest in incorporating the religious practices of the disparate peoples inhabiting the wide territory they governed. As López Austin has made clear, religion grew in complexity alongside of Mexica authority.⁶⁷ The accumulation and accommodation of a wide variety of cults and the multiple gods in one place symbolically unified the multicultural settlements of the Valley with the already-established barrio, temple, and household shrines found throughout Tenochtitlan. Moveable feasts filled the ritual calendar of the Mexica that honored religious cults and provided opportunities for everyone to participate in the sociopolitical events sponsored by the Mexica government.

Ethnohistoric sources are filled with reports about the ritual ceremonies performed within the ceremonial precinct. These sources make it clear the Mexica devoted a great amount of energy to staging these events, which involved dressing structures and sculptures, beautifying the city, and endlessly accommodating thousands of celebrants. Yet even the most cursory examination of these festivals makes evident that they were staged to commemorate more than a deity’s cult or assert a pilgrim’s fervor. In addition to memorializing the cult of gods, these rituals also served to welcome all visitors from the surrounding landscape to the capital.⁶⁸ Historical sources often mention that the Mexica spared no expense to ensure everyone’s participation in these events, including their principal adversaries. Visitors from all over the realm flooded the city for these ritual celebrations. William T. Sanders has argued that the size and proximity of structures in the Ceremonial Center placed limits on the availability of open space, restricting the number of participants who could engage in this area.⁶⁹ Many studies have shown Mexica celebrations spilled out of the Ceremonial Center and into the capital’s adjacent open spaces as well as the surrounding landscape.⁷⁰ In fact these historical descriptions and studies make it clear religious ceremonies were designed to extend Mexica ceremonial space onto more visible, public regions.⁷¹

The space restrictions of the Ceremonial Center affirmed the status of the high-ranking elites who directed religious ceremonies within its walls and provided the Mexica an intimate setting where certain political bonds could be forged and cemented discretely.⁷² An expansive complementary open area in the form of a capacious plaza abutting the precinct’s southern end resolved any space limitations created by the adjacency of structures encountered in the Ceremonial Center, as noted by Sanders. This ample plaza easily accommodated the multitude of visitors and constituents who came to participate in the religious ceremonies, visit the city’s market, and conduct official business. This enormous adjacent space makes it clear the city welcomed everyone and it is this preoccupation to accommodate all that certainly influenced the design of the wide roads and causeways that reached out like tentacles to the shore from the center of the capital.⁷³ Causeways and roads were designed and built to accommodate large numbers of visitors and their size was so large, flat, and straight that they astonished even seasoned Spaniards who witnessed the Old World’s most impressively planned cities and trading centers.⁷⁴

The planning of vast spaces in the center continued in the roomy palaces that defined Tenochtitlan’s core. At the height of Mexica power, on the eve of the Spaniards’ advent in AD 1519, one of the largest royal estates belonged to the emperor Motecuhzoma II. This royal mansion’s western façade fronted the large plaza and abutted the southeast corner of the Ceremonial Precinct. The other largest royal manor belonged to Motecuhzoma II’s father, Axayacatl. It was located diagonally across on the plaza’s northwest corner and was large enough to accommodate all of Cortés’s entourage luxuriously for months. Motecuhzoma’s palace was sizeable and according to some was larger in footprint than any of the structures found within the walled Ceremonial Center, making it the largest single structure on the island.⁷⁵ This palatial residence was equipped with a variety of voluminous chambers that could accommodate numerous audiences, feasts, courts, and artist’s workshops, as well as hundreds of dignitaries at a time.⁷⁶ Whereas the main purpose of the Ceremonial Center was to house religious activities, Motecuhzoma’s palace was principally used for secular/government purposes. The Mexica designed the palace’s spacious halls to impress dignitaries who came to the capital to conduct royal business, and these halls did just that.⁷⁷ The fact that the palace held the largest collection of spaces at the time of the conquest proves the Mexica saw a direct connection between owning vast spaces and social prosperity/political growth. Mexica expansion through social interaction was supremely reliant on these enormous spaces. Architecture was seminal in shaping the Mexica’s broad political aspirations.

The Majesty of the Mexica Templo Mayor

Matos’s excavations (1978–1989) of the Templo Mayor identified seven major construction phases, which he, Emily Umberger, and Michelle Graulich link to different Mexica emperors governing from AD 1376 to 1520.⁷⁸ The subsequent excavations that Leonardo López Luján has conducted have revealed a greater number of excavation phases than originally thought, making it clear that this structure grew in direct relation to the Empire.⁷⁹ The steady growth of this edifice, in its many successive extensions, provides material justification of the effectiveness of imperial politics.

Accordingly, no other structure expressed the political interest to represent the plurality of the political landscape under the rule of the Mexica more so than the Templo Mayor. In spite of its many iterations, this edifice was consistently rebuilt in the same fashion, a four-tired, ziggurat-like solid platform with a double stairway leading to dual shrines at its summit, one dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the patron god of the Mexica, and the other honoring the most important god to all Mesoamerican peoples, the storm god Tláloc.⁸⁰ The incorporation of this latter god indicates Mexica shrewdness in integrating a dual political-religious structure that would facilitate the merging of subjects into their imperial superstructure.⁸¹

An examination of the architectural composition that remains today of this supreme civic structure—that is to say, its accompanying embellishment, associated deposits, and sculptures—shows that the multiethnic Mexica used this building to visually assert, showcase, represent, and attentively construct their claims of hegemonic dominance over the sprawling landscape.⁸² Accordingly, for the Mexica, this building was the primary material representation of corporate authority on earth.

For instance, in an analysis of the materials used to construct the Templo Mayor, López Luján et al. demonstrated that the Mexica incorporated a variety of stones from quarries all over the Basin, and they cited historical accounts that the Mexica demanded this structure be built by corporate labor and not by one singly supervised group.⁸³ The many visible layers of construction exposed in the excavations of the Templo Mayor today lucidly illustrate Mexica obsession with incorporating a pastiche of differently sized, shaped, and materially distinct stonework (figure 7.4).⁸⁴ This masonry work visually indexed the vast political landscape and provided a material testimony of the physically incorporated geography. Accordingly, leaders from subject lands were summoned to quarry and supervise the transport and construction of the diverse building materials originating from a number of quarries in the Basin. It comes as no surprise then that the Templo Mayor was continually rebuilt, sometimes by the same emperor. The remodeling of the Templo Mayor marked its own construction as well as the expansion of the Empire as never-ending endeavors.

Figure 7.4. Excavated remains from the Templo Mayor. Its base shows the diversity of stones employed in building this structure. (Photo by Eulogio Guzmán)

Every Templo Mayor construction phase contained a bounty of deposits interspersed among the building layers. Interestingly, the material wealth of the deposits also corresponds directly to the expansion of Mexica political influence. For instance, the many offerings dating to construction phase IVb (figure 7.5) contained a bounty of diverse objects in terms of flora, fauna, and cultural material wealth. The contents of these many offerings directly referenced the vast political terrain incorporated during the large expansion period attributed to Itzcoatl’s successor, the emperor Motecuhzoma I (r. 1440–1469). All construction phases comprised a plethora of complex deposits, but the contents of the offerings became more complex with the expansion of the Empire.

Figure 7.5. Offering 98 unearthed at the Templo Mayor and found in construction phase IVb (AD 1469–1481). (Photo by Eulogio Guzmán)

All offerings contained in the Templo Mayor were laid out in precise patterns that constituted religious cosmograms lucidly explained in Leonardo López Luján’s landmark work on the subject.⁸⁵ Among the vast array of objects were a large number of specialized sculptures that I have dubbed two-tufted figures (Figure 7.6). They take the form of compact individuals that possess a variety of stylistic and iconographic themes and that are sculpted in a number of primary materials My analysis of these objects has shown that the placement of these figures within their associated deposits seem to have symbolically consecrated social bonds between the donors of the figures and the recipient Mexica overlords.⁸⁶ I have elsewhere argued that the compact two-tufts decorating the sculptures’ headdresses surely referenced the twin-shrines of the Templo Mayor (figure 7.7). The compact body of the sculptures themselves visually recall the temple platforms, perhaps a shorthand reference to the base of the Templo Mayor, where ultimate social covenants between the core and periphery were made and repeatedly renewed within every subsequent construction phase.

Figure 7.6. Two-tufted figures from Offerings S, L, and 20. (Photos by Eulogio Guzmán)

Figure 7.7. Drawings of temples with twin shrines illustrated in Codex Telleriano Remensis, Codex Aubin, and Codex Ixtlilxochitl. (Drawing by Lisa Boomer)

This type of social exchange is not surprising, considering established Mesoamerican practices whereby social bonds were developed through a variety of strategies, including gift exchange. The Templo Mayor offerings and their diverse contents, I have argued, outline a number of complicated social agendas that were an explicit manifestation of the Mexica penchant for cultural ingestion.⁸⁷ The offerings clearly show Mexica competitive interest in incorporating all into their political conglomeration by any means available.⁸⁸ The many objects found in the deposits from the broad geographic and historical spectrum (among them remains from Olmec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Mezcala, Huaxtec, and Mixtec cultures at the Templo Mayor) show the Mexica believed every region they coveted and attained had to be represented in every building phase of the Templo Mayor by any means available.⁸⁹ It is clear this structure symbolized not only the cosmic realm but likewise the material incorporation of all into their government. Variability was not only reserved to the materials used and deposited in the construction of this edifice, the many architectural embellishments, especially in the form of sculptural elements, that studded this edifice likewise referenced a number of styles that complemented the Templo Mayor’s pluralistic material composition. (I make this clear in a forthcoming analysis of portable and monumental sculpture present at this structure.⁹⁰)

Conclusion: Emulating the Natural Landscape, a Compact Model of Government

One of the most lucid visual representations of political power is contained in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. Its frontispiece illustrates Hobbes’s lengthy treatise on the power of sovereign authority. In it, a looming giant wields a sword and a crosier; a close look at his body reveals it comprises a miniaturized populace (figure 7.8).⁹¹ In this image, Hobbes’s colossus looms over the landscape.⁹² This scene crystallizes Hobbes’s political philosophy that a sovereign must be all-powerful and all-seeing over the territories and subjects he or she governs.⁹³ Using this image of sovereign authority as an archetype of political power helps to understand how the Mexica used the architecture of the Templo Mayor, their principal civic-religious structure, as a surrogate of their authority, from which they could guard (much as the Leviathan does) the political terrain.

Figure 7.8. Frontispiece, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, 1651. (© Trustees of the British Museum)

In The Political Landscape, Smith remarks that studies examining the built spaces of political institutions often center on hailing architectural achievements as expressions of spatial ingenuity and human creativity.⁹⁴ He also notes that more studies are needed that examine how space and physical objects can be used to assert political preeminence.⁹⁵ Most important and simply stated, Smith recognizes that there is no single, universal way to use and create landscape as a terrain for political authority, as territory can vary greatly from place to place. In other words, the constitution of authority can be articulated in many ways and take different forms. The essays in this volume apply these tenets to a wide variety of regions and provide a number of examples of ways governments modified, altered, and made political exchanges more effective by generating environments that articulated their ideological agendas. In particular this essay examines how the constantly developing political narrative in the Basin of Mexico led the Mexica to obsessively and continuously plan and manipulate the space in their capital in multiple ways.

This brief exploration of the spatial expression of authority in the Basin of Mexico during the late post-Classic (AD 1200–1521) has shown that the Mexica were acutely aware of the physical, cultural, economic, and religious traits of the landscape in the Basin of Mexico. That awareness informed their political courses of action as they planned their capital according not only to religious principles but especially to solutions that promoted their sociocultural prosperity and ideology. The Mexica’s never-ending construction and planning of their city, its ceremonial and administrative center, but especially their Templo Mayor, show that they were relentless in manipulating their capital’s spatial envelope. Space promoted, guided, accommodated, and fixed much of the social interaction of the polities in the landscape to Tenochtitlan. Their constant manipulation of space brought the Mexica the political realization that they could hold sway over an incorporated, diversified realm as long as they possessed the spatial resources needed to create favorable social conditions; their visual culture played no small role in this endeavor. The Mexica, in fact, used visual culture to assert their sovereignty over a diversified landscape that had been incorporated into their political body and further employed visual culture in all forms to memorialize the contributions from all of its constituents in their rituals, which were performed to mark space and time.