30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreThe story of the Mexica sacrifice of a Colhua princess
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Ibod: Hi I have some confusion about the story of “Aztec sacrifice a Culhuacan princess”. How could the Aztecs sacrifice a Culhuacan princess when their first king’s mother is a Culhuacan princess, or is the story of a Culhuacan princess’s sacrifice a myth? Many thanks. (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
It’s probably, in Davíd Carrasco’s words, ‘a combination of legend and history’. No images exist of the particular incident in question, but it’s very much part of the final stages in the mythical foundation story of Tenochtitlan, and the context for it is depicted in important migration story manuscripts such as the Codex Boturini (pic 1) and the Codex Azcatitlan. Richard Townsend (The Aztecs) places it within the narrative as ‘the point [at which] the migration myth enters the realm of actual history.’ It’s worth quoting Townsend’s telling of the story in detail... (Note that Colhuacan is often also written Culhuacan)
Returning to Chapultepec, [c. 1325 CE, having earlier reached the Basin of Mexico after travelling through Coatepetl and Tula, and receiving a hostile reception from the tribes already settled in the Basin] the Mexica soon faced another threat, this time from a coalition led by the Tepanecs of Atzcapotzalco and supported by neighbouring Culhuacan... [pic 2] The Mexica were seen to be dangerous squatters and were decisively defeated [pix 1 & 3] in the woods in the area of modern Chapultepec Park in Mexico City... Eventually the main group of Mexica refugees made their way to Culhuacan to beg protection of its rulers. The council of Culhuacan decided to grant the supplicants some land at Tizaapan, an inhospitable lava-flow near today’s University City. Displaying courage and endurance, and drawing on their long experience of hunting and gathering, the Mexica proceeded to adapt themselves to this unlikely environment...
As a degree of acceptance grew, courtship and intermarriages also began. Soon the Mexica were styling themselves “Culhua-Mexica”, and by virtue of newly established bonds of kinship, they began to regard themselves in some measures as part of “Toltec” civilisation, for Culhuacan was a town where Toltecs had settled after the fall of Tula.The Mexica position within Culhuacan was strengthened when they were enlisted as allies in a small-scale war against neighbouring Xochimilco. In the ensuing battle along the lakeshore the Mexica warriors saved the day... Aspiring now to higher status the Mexica boasted of their achievements in the marketplace. This insolence failed to impress the old Culhua nobles...
As discontent arose, the Mexica themselves precipitated their own violent departure. Obeying the promptings of Huitzilopochtli’s priests, they had approached Achitometl, one of the Culhua magnates, asking for his beautiful daughter as their “sovereign” and “wife of Huitzilopochtli”*. Not understanding the implications of this request, Achitometl acceded to the honour; his daughter went to Tizaapan, where she was splendidly arrayed and sacrificed. Following an old custom, the body was flayed and a priest donned her skin in an ancient agricultural rite symbolising the renewal of life. The unsuspecting chieftain Achitometl, invited to participate in the concluding festivities, suddenly recognised the skin of his daughter on the body of the priest. The outraged Culhua took arms and were joined by others and, in the wild melee of javelins and arrows, the Mexica were once again driven into the reeds and brackish swamps of Lake Tezcoco. [pic 4] The next day they made their way in canoes and makeshift rafts across the water to the uninhabited islands.
Although this episode reads as a single event in the migration, it is also a stylised way of expressing the tribe’s intention to become a settled agricultural people by ceremonial marriage with a female who was the symbolic personification of an “earth mother” deity...
* Note Berdan & Rieff Anawalt’s comment here that ‘By the fourteenth century, Colhuacan’s greatest assets were its princesses. Because this centre could truly claim ruling lineages dating back to the revered Toltecs, the sequential, newly arrived Chichimecs were eager to marry into these royal lines so as to attain legitimacy. The Mexica were no exception.’
Sources:-
• The Aztecs by Richard F. Townsend, Thames & Hudson, London (2000)
• The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction by Davíd Carrasco, OUP (2012)
• The Codex Mendoza, Vol. II: Description, Bibliography, Index by Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, University of California Press, Oxford, 1992
• Handbook to Life in the Aztec World by Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, Facts on File, New York (2006)
• Codex Azcatitlan: Commentaire; commentary by Robert H. Barlow with Michel Graulich, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (1995)
• Códice Boturini; commentary by Patrick Johansson, Arqueología Mexicana, special edition, no. 26, December 2007.
Image sources:-
• Pic 1: image scanned from our own copy of a hand-made facsimile edition of the Codex Boturini; private collection
• Pic 2: image from the Codex Mendoza (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, Waterlow, London, 1938
• Pix 3, 4 & 5: images scanned from our own copy of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (where the original is held) facsimile edition of the Codex Azcatitlan, Paris 1995.
Comments (7)
Jorge
4th Nov 2024
There is an oddness to the story. The outrage led to chasing them to the swamp and that was it? Was it an act of revenge? As there is a message of an Mexica chief and his daughter being captured. Is there futher mention of Huizilopotchli, the priest, was he killed? It would seem that vengeance would be longer lasting and not stopped because people went to an island.
Emily S
29th Jun 2024
@dman there is some truth to the idea that the Spanish exaggerated things, but to completely deny the practice of human sacrifice is a little “noble savage” of you. There is more evidence of human sacrifices than the codices. Additionally, it’s not like the Mexica/Aztecs were the only group of humans to do this. Human sacrifice can be seen all over the world in the archaeological record. H
Daniel Acuaitzin Moteuczoma
15th May 2024
My question is this : where did this story originate from ? And are there other sources besides Ramirez Codex that speaks of this flaying ?
Ramirez was a Jesuit. Can we trust this source completely ?
Mexicolore
Townsend recounts the story as told in the ‘Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca’, but it’s also referred to in the Codex Chimalpopoca, in Tezozomoc’s ‘Crónica Mexicana’ etc. You’re right to question the validity of a source but if several sources (and scholars) confirm it, it’s probably pretty reliable...
Taytay
3rd Jul 2023
Thank you! :D
dman
30th Jun 2023
I don’t believe anything from that so-called book of codex. The artwork alone in that codex looks like the artwork of a Spanish monk. Even some of the paintings on walls in some ruins. compared to the artwork in the archettecture of the temples, the skill in the art is way superior to all those cheap Spanish drawings. It just doesn’t match up in my eyes The whole style of the drawings look like old medieval type drawings. So I don’t believe the story about how the Aztec where sacrificing people by the hundreds. I think that was propaganda made up to convince the king and queen of Spain to provide more goods and more men to take over and steal the gold. Calling them savages and convincing the royal family that these people need God in there life because of there evil lifestyle was all a lie. At least that’s what I think.
Taytay
2nd Jun 2023
Hello there!
I saw one source say that Toci is the Colhua princess, who became a deity after her death. Do you know if that is true or not?
Mexicolore
Yes, Toci (‘Our Grandmother’) was an earth goddess, associated with curing and with the sweat bath, but also with war.
According to Aztec legend, told in the Codex Ramírez, Huitzilopochtli ordered the Culhua princess to be flayed to become Toci - so she plays an important part in the Aztec migration story and in the eventual founding of Tenochtitlan.
ibod
17th Aug 2019
thank you very much for detailed response! interesting and scarry at same time. thanks to your site i could find many many interesting things about maya-aztec.
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