30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreDid Aztec warriors have their own warrior code?
Original Aztec warrior helmet, British Museum
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Jedidiah: Did the Aztec warriors have their own warrior code they lived by like samurais had the Bushido code? (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Not in a formalised fashion as such, but in terms of established military justice, yes. We think the best answer is provided by Ross Hassig in his classic book Aztec Warfare, so we’re happy to quote him here in full:-
Military justice covered virtually all aspects of martial conduct. If a soldier revealed the generals’ plant the enemy, he was considered a traitor and killed and dismembered, and his accomplices, or those who had known of his treason, were enslaved... Any warrior who attacked the enemy without his leaders’ command was killed, as were any who attacked before the signal or who left their units. Anyone who fled when a withdrawal had not been ordered was punished with death, regardless of his social class. And messengers who failed to deliver a leader’s message truthfully were killed.
The military leaders also resolved disputes over who had taken a captive. If two men claimed the same captive and if no-one verified either claimant’s story or had seen how the captive was taken, the leaders decided who should receive credit. If neither proved a better claim, the captive was dedicated to the Huitzcalco temple in Tenochtitlan, where slaves were sacrificed.
Warriors, like everyone else, could also be punished for misbehaviour in peacetime. This was done by civilian judges, who were drawn from the ranks of the nobles and also from the commoners who had excelled in war. Telpochcalli youths were also judged and sentenced for various infractions of their expected code of behaviour, but by the tiachcauh [leaders of the school]. And if informers who passed information to the Aztecs’ enemies were caught in Tenochtitlan, they were executed and dismembered in the main plaza.
Source:-
• Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control by Ross Hassig, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988, pp. 110-111.
Picture sources:-
• Turquoise mosaic Aztec helmet, British Museum: photo © The Trustees of the British Museum
• Aztec warrior in battle: image from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994.
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Original Aztec warrior helmet, British Museum
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