If you’re teaching the Aztecs, or the Maya - or both...

We use the Alfonso Caso - H.B. Nicholson correlation.

Being based in the UK we’re not able to help directly with this sort of enquiry. However we suggest you contact a good friend and very experienced musician who specialises in this whole area, Chris García. Here’s his main website - http://christophergarciamusic.com. The instrument names you give, BTW, are Aztec rather than Maya.

Thanks for writing in. We asked an academic who specialises in pre-Hispanic naming practices to answer (Dr. Anastasia Kalyuta). She generously answered both questions. Here’s her response:-
Q. Aztec naming patterns were totally different from modern European and American practices. People had a calendar name according to a cycle of 260 signs - for instance Ce Mazatl (One Deer), as well as a colloquial name for - example Tlohtli “hawk” for men or Eloxochitl (local variety of magnolia) for both men and women, often a nickname - for instance Xocuetl (lame one) and an honorific title in case of nobles like Chichimecatecuhtli (Chichimec lord). Before the Conquest the Aztecs had no surnames at all and didn’t change their names in case of marriage. A new life situation and change in social status were marked by a change of hairdo - e.g. married women used a distinctive two-horned hairstyle instead of loose long hair common for unmarried girls. Women of nobility could be referred to by the place of their origin, for example “Tollan cihuapilli” - “the lady of Tollan”.
Q2. This question isn’t clearly formulated. The tomin was the currency of the colonial period introduced by Spaniards. There were no coins before the Conquest. Some altepeme (city-states) paid Aztecs tribute in salt every 80 days but the colonial tax system was different. The viceroy could introduce a temporary tax for a particular period in extraordinary situations, for instance for market goods but generally it was the prerogative of Spanish kings who changed the tax system according to their needs. What stage in the colonial period are you thinking of?

Thank you for your encouragement - this means a great deal to us.

Many thanks, Alejandra, for your comments and encouragement.

Thanks. Providing the usage is educational and non-commercial, feel free to go ahead, within reason. Strictly we should ask you to indicate exactly which images you would like to use - we don’t have the copyright on all of them and so can only really give you permission to reproduce ones we’ve taken ourselves. Please use the email address info@mexicolore.co.uk. Good wishes.

Thanks, and good point. Not a great deal! We have a few articles that draw on Olmec roots, eg this on sculpture: https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/deep-roots-of-aztec-sculpture; or this on ‘The Jaguar in Mexico’ - https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/flora-and-fauna/jaguar.
And in our Ritual Ballgame section (under ‘Maya’, above). We’ll try and add more...1

We can’t find details! We do know this is presented in the Museum as being a representation of the goddess Xochiquetzal...

The photo of the stone sunflower sculpture shown in pic 1 on our Sunflower page (Flora & Fauna section) was taken in the Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Anthropology Museum) in Mexico City. Hope that helps...

Muchas gracias por tu interés, Teresa. ¡No tenemos sistema de suscripción a la página! Perdónanos, no estamos tan organizados...

We’ve answered this question, as far as we can, in the ‘Ask Us’ section of the site (see l/h menu).

Most definitely! The symbols attached by a line depict the person’s name. For example, the first Aztec emperor Acamapichtli’s name means ‘Handful of Reeds’ and this symbol - a hand grasping a bundle of reeds - can be seen attached to his head by a black line.

OK, we should be able to help with this one as it’s one of ours. You’ll need to let us know a bit more about your intended use of it. I suggest you email us directly...

Happy to help if we can, though we only own the copyright on some of the images on our website. Please write to us specifying which image(s) you’re interested in and we’ll let you know how to proceed...

We’ve no idea! Probably just like any other ghosts.....

They faced no more ‘health hazards’ than any other people around the globe. Mexico suffers certainly from extremes of climate, so droughts, floods, earthquakes, plagues etc were a constant threat. But don’t be thinking there were heaps of dead bodies and buckets of blood around the place: there wasn’t! That’s a complete myth. On the contrary, by all accounts Tenochtitlan was a super clean city - they had an army of 1,000 people sweeping it clean every day...

Thanks, John. That’s a good idea. We’ll discuss it here as a team...

¡Adelante, Andrea! Thanks for your kind words. We’d be delighted if you could contribute, in any capacity. Being that far away the best option might be for you to write an article for Mexicolore. When you are a fully qualified archaeologist, and if you go to work in Mexico, then, wow, there will be plenty of new ways to collaborate... We hope to hear back from you!

Yes you can! But this needs to be by prior appointment. The time to avoid visiting is during a school term, as we’re all usually out working in schools. Our address is on our Contact page.

Thank YOU, Louise! (You can read more about this story on our ‘Getting Involved’ page...)

A lovely school to visit, Ewan! Do you remember how we demonstrated the ‘atlatl’ (javelin-thrower) out on the school playground...?!

In principle, yes, Rosa, but I’m afraid it depends which images you want to reproduce! We have the copyright on many, but not all... Please refer to specific pictures and we’ll let you know...

Thanks, Zeki!

Thanks, Marcus! We greatly enjoyed visiting St. Peter’s (March 2012) - a lovely atmosphere in your school...

¡Muchas gracias, Daniel! Retroalimentación como la tuya nos anima cada vez más para seguir adelante con nuestro compromiso...

• As far as we understand the Aztecs didn’t have a symbol for grandparents; the closest we get to them in Aztec iconography would be the depiction of the elderly in general with wrinkled faces...
• No, Guadalajara wouldn’t have been part of the Aztec empire: the most westerly outpost of the empire - in the direction of Guadalajara - would have been the shores of Lake Cuitzeo, near Morelia. Remember that the Aztecs never conquered the Tarascans, whose lands fell in between the Aztec territories and present-day Guadalajara.

MANY thanks, Michelle, for your help and support!

Thank you for your interest in our work, Nathalia. Sadly at the present time we don’t have a staff member who can translate into Portuguese. Anyone out there willing/able to help Nathalia’s research on the Aztecs, but in Portuguese...?

By all means. We will do our best to help. (Please note, generally, that most of these artefact-based queries we post on the ‘Can You Help?’ pages of the site).

if you mean twins, triplets, etc. then yes, though these wouldn’t have been as common as today. In fact twins were thought to be particularly precious and ‘special’ in Aztec times.

We think it was Yaotl (warrior) for a boy and Teyacapan (‘First-born’) for a girl; but remember that ‘official’ names were based on the calendar (the day you were born on) and of course these were evenly distributed throughout the year, so we can only talk about most popular nicknames rather than names in Aztec times.

That makes two of us...!!! (Sorry, everyone else - just two of the Mexicolore team showing our feelings!)

¡Nos encantaría estar con Uds! Muchos saludos desde Londres - congelado de nieve y hielo...

Many! The museum of the Templo Mayor (main Aztec temple) in Mexico City is full of sacrifice flints/obsidian blades, and they’re finding new ones all the time. Many ‘ofrendas’ (ritual offerings) include knives, as indications that the individuals themselves had been sacrificed to the gods. But many others are found with faces depicted on them: these represent the calendar/day sign ‘Tecpatl’, which is no. 18 in the calendar cycle of 20 signs. And yet others are undecorated and represent the black, dry, cold northern region of the universe, ravaged by fierce winds, ruled by the god Black Tezcatlipoca, one of whose characteristics was an obsidian blade symbolizing black wind.

It was a sacred and ritual game that to a large extent represented the forces of the universe: the ball itself represented the movement of the Sun during the day in the sky. You can learn more about the meaning of the game in our ‘Aztefacts’ section - the article called ‘Oh balls!’

After the heart was removed and burnt in the sacred bowl (the smoke would carry the heart’s ‘fuel’ up to the Sun God), the rest of the body was disposed of - not by being thrown away as rubbish, but by being thrown down the temple steps and then ceremoniously cut up and distributed, though not just to anyone - usually to the family of the warrior who had captured the victim (in battle) in the first place.

There are two points here: the Aztecs would name a child ‘officially’ in the days following his/her birth, according to the sacred calendar (by consulting a soothsayer trained to read and interpret the day signs), but they would also (later) give the child a nickname, often linked to their features, looks or personality. You can see some examples of these on our website - go to the ‘Aztec Life’ section and click on ‘Tiger Top’.

The game is still played, though nothing like on the scale in ancient times. Where it’s still played, it’s often just for tourists - very much like the ‘Voladores’ pole-flying ceremony from Papantla. There are a few regional variations, and one researcher (Professor Manuel Aguilar-Moreno) has studied a version that’s still played today at night (and they set fire to the ball!) - in olden days this would have represented the belief in the night-time Sun God who descends every day to illuminate the world of spirits in the underworld before being born again the next morning.

We’d be very surprised if the temple-pyramids didn’t have guards in ancient times, though we can’t think of a source of evidence for this right now...

Thanks for your comments, Jose Luis. To be really honest, we feel life is too short to be too ‘hung up’ about whether we should talk about ‘gods’ or ‘representations of the forces of nature’. Human beings have surely got into enough trouble as it is over the centuries for inventing and arguing over God and gods...

Gracias Francisco; estamos totalmente de acuerdo. Vamos a hacer todo lo posible para preparar cada vez más páginas en español, empezando (abril de 2009) con un artículo acerca de las enfermedades mentales prehispánicas por Patricia Landa Durán...