Aztlán

For other uses, see Aztlán (disambiguation).

Aztlán (from Nahuatl languages: Astatlan or romanized Aztlán, Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈast͡ɬãːn̥] ) is the ancestral home of the Aztec peoples. The word "Aztec" was derived from the Nahuatl aztecah, meaning "people from Aztlán." Aztlán is mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources dating from the colonial period, and while each cites varying lists of the different tribal groups who participated in the migration from Aztlán to central Mexico, the Mexica who later founded Mexico-Tenochtitlan are mentioned in all of the accounts.

Map of the migration from Aztlán to Chapultepec

Historians have speculated about the possible location of Aztlán and tend to place it either in northwestern Mexico or the Southwestern United States, although whether Aztlán represents a real location or a mythological one is a matter of debate.

History

Nahuatl histories relate that seven tribes lived in Chicomoztoc, or "the Place of the Seven Caves". Each cave represented a different Nahua group: the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalteca, Tepaneca, Chalca, and Mexica. Along with these people, the Olmec-Xicalanca and Xaltocamecas are also said to come from Aztlán. Because of their common linguistic origin, those groups are termed collectively "Nahualteca" (Nahua people). These tribes subsequently left the caves and settled "near" Aztlán.

The various descriptions of Aztlán apparently contradict each other. While some legends describe Aztlán as a paradise, the Codex Aubin says that the Aztecs were subject to a tyrannical elite named the Azteca Chicomoztoca. Guided by their priest, the Aztec tribe fled. On the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbade them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica. Scholars of the 19th century—in particular Alexander von Humboldt and William H. Prescott—translated the word Azteca, as is shown in the Aubin Codex, to Aztec.

Some say that the southward migration began on May 24, 1064, CE, after the supernova Crab Nebula events from May to July 1054. Each of the seven groups is credited with founding a different major city-state in Central Mexico.

A 2004 translation of the Anales de Tlatelolco gives the only known date related to the exit from Aztlán; day-sign "4 Cuauhtli" (Four Eagle) of the year "1 Tecpatl" (Knife) or 1064–1065, and correlated to January 4, 1065.

Cristobal del Castillo mentions in his book "Fragmentos de la Obra General Sobre Historia de los Mexicanos", that the lake around the Aztlán island was called Metztliapan or "Lake of the Moon." Another version reads:

One day a man heard a bird calling to him, saying, "Go now, go now." When the man told the chief about the bird, the chief was relieved. He had known his people must find a new land, their own land, but had waited for a sign. So the people gathered and began a long march. They followed an idol of Huitzilopochtli that the priests carried. As they went, Huitzilopochtli spoke through the priests and prepared the people for the greatness of their empire to come. He explained that they should travel until they came to a large lake; there, they should look for another sign—an eagle in a cactus.

The journey took 200 years, and the people settled for a while in the Toltec capital of Tollan. Some people stayed in Tollan and some moved on. From time to time, Huitzilopochtli changed himself into a white eagle to inspire the people, and they traveled until they came to Lake Texcoco and saw a great eagle sitting on a cactus, holding a serpent. There they built Tenochtitlán, the city that became the capital and center of the Aztec empire.

Places postulated as Aztlán

Depiction of the departure from Aztlán from an island in the 16th-century Codex Boturini. Aztlán is also depicted as some island in the Aubin and Azcatitlan codices.

Friar Diego Durán (c. 1537–1588), who chronicled the history of the Aztecs, wrote of Aztec emperor Moctezuma I's attempt to recover the history of the Mexica by congregating warriors and wise men on an expedition to locate Aztlán. According to Durán, the expedition was successful in finding a place that offered characteristics unique to Aztlán. However, his accounts were written soon after the conquest of Tenochtitlan and before an accurate mapping of the American continent was made; therefore, he was unable to provide a precise location.

During the 1960s, Mexican intellectuals began to seriously speculate about the possibility that Mexcaltitán de Uribe in Nayarit was the mythical city of Aztlán. One of the first to consider Aztlán being associated with the island was historian Alfredo Chavero towards the end of the 19th century. Historical investigators after his death tested his proposition and considered it valid, among them Wigberto Jiménez Moreno. This hypothesis is still debated.

Some scholars argue it is nearly or completely impossible to find the true location of Aztlán, due to all the conflicting accounts and narratives.

Etymology

The meaning of the name Aztlan is uncertain. One suggested meaning is "place of Herons" or "place of egrets"—the explanation given in the Crónica Mexicáyotl—but this is not possible under Nahuatl morphology: "place of egrets" is Aztatlan. Other proposed derivations include "place of whiteness" and "at the place in the vicinity of tools", sharing the āz- element of words such as teponāztli, "drum" (from tepontli, "log").

Used as symbolism by Chicano movement

Main article: Chicano Movement

Territories considered for "Aztlán" by the Chicano movement.

The concept of Aztlán as the place of origin of the pre-Columbian Mexican civilization has become a symbol for various Mexican ethno-nationalist movements.

In 1969 the notion of Aztlán was introduced by the poet Alurista (Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia) at the National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference held in Denver, Colorado by the Crusade for Justice. There he read a poem, which has come to be known as the preamble to El Plan de Aztlán or as "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán" due to its poetic aesthetic. For some Chicanos, Aztlán refers to the Mexican territories purchased by the United States as a result of the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. Aztlán became a symbol for activists who allege that they have a legal and primordial right to the land. Some promoters of the Chicanos propose that a new ethnocentric government overthrow and replace the respective United States governments in the Southwest region, a República del Norte.

Aztlán is also the name of the Chicano studies journal published by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

Aztlán has been used for Chicanos to associate with their heritage and past. The myth has become a sort of shared memory that has united many people in the diasporic community. Like the Aztecs, Mexican-Americans migrated out of their homeland to seek a better life or more opportunities. Some Chicanos feel that they are repeating what their ancestors did or at least they feel a symbolic association with the myth. Many Chicanos simply consider Aztlán as a spiritual guiding force rather than a tangible location.

Movements that use or formerly used the concept of Aztlán

• Brown Berets
• MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán")
• Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
• Raza Unida Party
• Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which calls for self-determination for the Chicano nation in Aztlán up to and including the right to secession.

In popular culture

In literature

"Aztlán" has been used as the name of speculative fictional future states that emerge in the southwestern United States or Mexico after their governments suffer a collapse or major setback; examples appear in such works as the novels Heart of Aztlán (1976), by Rudolfo Anaya; Warday (1984), by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka; The Peace War (1984), by Vernor Vinge; The House of the Scorpion (2002), by Nancy Farmer; and World War Z (2006), by Max Brooks; as well as the role-playing game Shadowrun, in which the Mexican government was usurped by the Aztechnology Corporation (1989). In Gary Jennings' novel Aztec (1980), the protagonist resides in Aztlán for a while, later facilitating contact between Aztlán and the Aztec Triple Alliance just before Hernán Cortés' arrival.

"Strange Rumblings in Aztlan" is an article written by Hunter S. Thompson that appeared in the April 29, 1971 issue of Rolling Stone. The article is about the death of civil rights activist Ruben Salazar in East Los Angeles during a Vietnam War protest.

See also

• List of mythological places

Bibliography

• Andrews, J. Richard (2003). Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (revised ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3452-6. OCLC 50090230.
• Smith, Michael E. (1997). The Aztecs (first ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-23015-1. OCLC 48579073.

Further reading

• Clavigero, Francesco Saverio (1807) [1787]. The history of Mexico. Collected from Spanish and Mexican historians, from manuscripts, and ancient paintings of the Indians. Illustrated by charts, and other copper plates. To which are added, critical dissertations on the land, the animals, and inhabitants of Mexico, 2 vols. Translated from the original Italian, by Charles Cullen, Esq. (2nd ed.). London: J. Johnson. OCLC 54014738.
• Jáuregui, Jesús (2004). "Mexcaltitán-Aztlán: un nuevo mito". Arqueología Mexicana (in Spanish). 12 (67). México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Editorial Raíces: 56–61. ISSN 0188-8218. OCLC 29789840. Archived from the original on 2006-01-03.
• Kunstler, James Howard (2005). The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-888-3. OCLC 57452547.
• Lint-Sagarena, Roberto (2001). "Aztlán". In Carrasco, David L. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures :The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America vol.1. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-19-514255-6. OCLC 872326807.
• Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo (1988). The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan. New Aspects of Antiquity series. Doris Heyden (trans.). New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-39024-X. OCLC 17968786.
• Miller, Mary; Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. OCLC 27667317.
• Prescott, William H. (1843). History of the Conquest of Mexico, with a Preliminary View of Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror, Hernando Cortes (online reproduction, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library). New York: Harper and Brothers. OCLC 2458166.
• Pynchon, Thomas (2006). Against the Day. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 1-59420-120-X. OCLC 71173932.
• Smith, Michael E. (1984). "The Aztlán Migrations of Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?" (PDF online facsimile). Ethnohistory. 31 (3). Columbus, OH: American Society for Ethnohistory: 153–186. doi:10.2307/482619. ISSN 0014-1801. JSTOR 482619. OCLC 145142543.
• Smith, Michael E. (2003). The Aztecs (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23015-7. OCLC 48579073.
• Vollemaere, Antoon Leon (2000). "Chimalma, first lady of the Aztecan migration in 1064" (PDF). Gender and Archaeology Across the Millennia: Long Vistas and Multiple Viewpoints. Sixth Gender and Archaeology Conference, October 6–7, 2000 (online collection of papers presented ed.). Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University, Department of Anthropology and Women's Studies. Archived from the original (PDF online publication) on 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
• Wilcox, David R.; Don D. Fowler (Spring 2002). "The beginnings of anthropological archaeology in the North American Southwest: from Thomas Jefferson to the Pecos Conference" (unpaginated online reproduction by Gale/Cengage Learning). Journal of the Southwest. 44 (2). Tucson: University of Arizona Press, on behalf of The Southwest Center, U. of Arizona: 121–234. ISSN 0894-8410. OCLC 79456398.

External links

• Sanderson, Susana, "Tenotchtitlan and Templo Mayor", California State University, Chico.
• Aztlan Listserv (hosted by the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc.)
• League of Revolutionary Struggle, "The Struggle for Chicano Liberation" (an examination of Aztlan and the Chicano national movement from a Marxist point of view)
• Los Angeles artist protesting walls in Berlin, Palestine and Aztlán