Living on the edge in an ancient imperial world: Aztec crime and deviance

Global Crime

Volumn 9, Issue 1-2, 2008, Pages 20-34

  Berdan, Frances ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Adultery; Aztecs; Drunkenness; Merchant groups; Organised crime in history; Sumptuary rules; Theft

Indexed keywords

EID: 39449096309     PISSN: 17440572     EISSN: 17440580     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/17440570701862710     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Bernardino de Sahagu'n, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 6 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1950-1982), 125.
2. Mark Galeotti, 'Criminal Histories', 1-7.
3. Mesoamerica is a culture area encompassing the area of high civilisations in Mexico and Central America. While the geographic boundary is somewhat fluid and regularly re-defined, its northern limit generally sits at the line where rainfall agriculture meets dry desert, and its southern limit falls just into the modern states of Honduras and El Salvador.
4. Bernardino de Sahagu'n, Florentine Codex, Book 10 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1950-1982), 165-70.
5. Ibid., 170-5.
6. The Acolhua peoples (with their capital city of Texcoco) resided to the east of Lake Texcoco, while the Tepaneca (with their capital at Tlacopan) lived in numerous communities to the west of Lake Texcoco. Tenochtitlan was built on an island in the midst of this lake (see Frances F. Berdan, The Aztecs of Central Mexico, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2005).
7. Ibid.
8. As a rule, enemies captured on the battlefield were headed for sacrifice to the gods. The Aztec world view stressed the concept of life deriving from death, and these sacrifices served to maintain the universe and rejuvenate life.
9. See Frances F. Berdan, et al., Aztec Imperial Strategies (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996).
10. Frances F. Berdan, 'Concepts of Ethnicity and Class in Aztec-Period Mexico', in Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica, Frances F. Berdan, et al. (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, forthcoming January 2008).
11. Ethnicity often took on greater meaning at the calpulli level than at the broader city-state level.
12. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 186.
13. Most of the extant documentary information on these issues emanates from the imperial capitals, taking the point of view of the conquering Aztecs. In many cases, we can only suppose what the conquered peoples were thinking.
14. Actually, it was more complex than this. For instance, boys were grouped together in noble or commoner schools; cadres of priests, priestesses and assorted attendants clustered around specific deities and temples; and most individuals also had occupations, some of which were organized into cohesive guild-like affairs. In addition, factions were also a possibility; see Elizabeth Brumfiel, 'Ethnic Groups and Political Development in Ancient Mexico', in Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, eds. Elizabeth Brumfiel and John W. Fox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 89-102.
15. These major sources include Sahagún's, Forentine Codex; Diego Durán's, The History of the Indies of New Spain (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994).
16. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl's, Obras Históricas, 2 vols. (Mexico: Editora Nacional, 1952).
17. Mapa Quinatzin in Sources and Authenticity of the History of the Ancient Mexicans, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 17, no.1: 1-150.
18. Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt's production of The Codex Mendoza, 4 vols. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992).
19. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 178-9, 193, 259.
20. Ibid., Book 6, 93, 95.
21. Berdan and Anawalt, The Codex Mendoza, vol. 3, 59r-60r.
22. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 8, 46, 48, 51.
23. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 6, 243, 253.
24. Berdan and Anawalt, The Codex Mendoza, vol. 3, 69v-70r. The games, patolli (much like Parcheesi) and the ball game, involved considerable gambling.
25. The drink involved was commonly pulque (called octli in the Aztec language), fermented from the juices of the maguey plant.
26. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 6, 71.
27. Ibid., 68.
28. Berdan and Anawalt, The Codex Mendoza, vol. 3, 70r.
29. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 39.
30. Ibid., Book 6, 118.
31. See Jerome Offner, Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 257-79.
32. Ibid., 260.
33. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 37-9.
34. Examples of this are legion. See, for instance, Berdan and Anawalt, The Codex Mendoza, vol. 3, 66r.
35. The outer husk of the bean was opened, the savoury chocolate interior removed and replaced with ground up avocado pits or other material, and then the opening re-sealed. These counterfeited items were then mixed in with the good ones, in the hope that the purchaser would fail to detect the small imperfection.
36. See Frances F. Berdan, 'Crime and Control in Aztec Society', in Organized Crime in Antiquity, ed. Keith Hopwood (London: Classical Press of Wales/Duckworth, 1999), 255-69.
37. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 30-1.
38. Berdan, Organized Crime in Antiquity, 266.
39. See Berdan, Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica. With the exception of some Otomí, members of these ethnic groups lived largely outside the Basin of Mexico.
40. See Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 10, 31-2, 39.
41. Ibid., 66.
42. Ibid., 61.
43. As many as 20,000-25,000 persons might attend the great Tlatelolco marketplace on an ordinary day, and as many as 40,000-50,000 would attend the 'bigger' market there every fifth day (see Berdan, The Aztecs of Central Mexico, 47).
44. Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Obras Históricas, vol. II, 188.
45. Mapa Quinatzin, leaf 3 in Sources and Authenticity of the History of the Ancient Mexicans (Berkeley, CA: University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology) 17 (1).
46. Berdan and Anawalt, The Codex Mendoza, vol. 3, 71r.
47. Losing one's hair was no small matter. The top of the head was considered to be a major 'animistic center' and therefore vital to the individual's energy and abilities. Hair also indicated 'marital status, warrior achievements, social status, mourning, elation, humiliation, and ethnicity' (Berdan, Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica).
48. Diego Durán, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar (Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 96.
49. Offner, Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco, 271-9.
50. See Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Obras Históricas, vol. I, 3250326.
51. Berdan, The Aztecs of Central Mexico, 104-5.
52. Offner, Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco, 251, 254.
53. See Ibid., 281.
54. Berdan, Organized Crime in Antiquity, 265-6.
55. Miguel Leon-Portilla and Earl Shorris, In the Language of Kings (New York: Norton, 2001), 79, 81, 96.