Aztlán

For other uses, see Aztlán (disambiguation).

The seven caves of Chicomoztoc, from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca

Aztlán (from Nahuatl: Aztlān, [ˈast͡ɬaːn]) is the legendary ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica and, by extension, is the mythical homeland of the Aztec peoples. Aztec is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".

Legend

Nahuatl legends relate that six tribes lived in Chicomoztoc, or "the place of the seven caves". Each cave represented a different Nahua group: the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalan, Tepaneca, Chalca, and Mexica. Because of a common linguistic origin, those groups also are called "Nahuatlaca" (Nahua people). These tribes subsequently left the caves and settled "near" Aztlán, or Aztatlan.

The various descriptions of Aztlán are seemingly contradictory. While some legends describe Aztlán as a paradise, the Aubin Codex says that the Aztecs were subject to a tyrannical elite called the Azteca Chicomoztoca. Guided by their priest, the Aztec fled, and, on the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbade them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica. Ironically, scholars of the 19th century—in particular Alexander von Humboldt and William H. Prescott—would name them Aztec. Humboldt's suggestion was widely adopted in the 19th century as a way to distance "modern" Mexicans from pre-conquest Mexicans.

The role of Aztlán is slightly less important to Aztec legendary histories than the migration to Tenochtitlán itself^{[citation needed]}. According to the legend, the southward migration began on May 24, 1064 CE; 1064 is also the year of a volcanic explosion at Sunset Crater in Arizona and the first Aztec solar year, beginning on May 24, after the 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. The city-states reputed to have an Aztec foundation were:

• Tepaneca (now Azcapotzalco, a delegación of the Mexican Federal District), and
• Matlatzinca (whose language was Otomian).

These city-states formed during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology (ca. 1300–1521 CE).

According to Aztec legends, the Mexica were the last tribe to emigrate. When they arrived at their ancestral homeland, the present-day Valley of Mexico, all available land had been taken, and they were forced to squat on the edge of Lake Texcoco.

Places postulated as Aztlán

Depiction of the departure from Aztlán in the 16th-century Codex Boturini

While Aztlán has many trappings of myth, similar to Tamoanchan, Chicomoztoc, Tollan, and Cibola, archaeologists have nonetheless attempted to identify the geographic place of origin for the Mexica.

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 shortly 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.

There is a lake around Cerro Culiacan, Lake Yuriria, that makes the mountain look very much like an island when photographed from the water, and is similar to the illustration at right.

In 1887, Mexican anthropologist Alfredo Chavero claimed that Aztlán was located on the Pacific coast in the state of Nayarit. While this was disputed by contemporary scholars, it achieved some popular acceptance.

Eduardo Matos Moctezuma presumes Aztlán to be somewhere in the modern-day states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán. Indeed, scholars are all consistent in naming the measures of "150 leagues" from Tenochtitlan that were documented by the Spanish scribes taking notes from conquered Mexica as the distance to the place of origin, coinciding in all ways at Chicomoztoc, "Cerro del Culiacan", which is indeed a humped mountain when seen from the south face.

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" would be 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").

Aztlán [asˈtlan] is the Spanish language spelling and pronunciation of Nahuatl Aztlān [ˈas.tɬaːn]. The spelling Aztlán and its matching last-syllable stress cannot be Nahuatl, which always stresses words on the second-to-last syllable. The accent mark on the second a added in Spanish marks stress shift (from oxytone to paroxytone), typical of several Nahuatl words when lent into Mexican Spanish.

Use by the Chicano movement

Main article: Chicano movement

The unofficial flag of Aztlán, used by Chicano nationalists in San Diego and Denver during 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 nationalist and indigenous movements.

The name Aztlán was first taken up by a group of Chicano independence activists led by Oscar Zeta Acosta during the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. They mistakenly used the name Aztlán to refer to the lands of Northern Mexico that were sold to the United States as a result of the Mexican-American War. (The land in question being the homeland of Native American Indian tribes which were not "Aztec". Aztlán became a symbol for mestizo activists who believe they have a legal and primordial right to the land. In order to exercise this right, some members of the Chicano movement propose that a new nation be created, a Republica del Norte.

Groups who have used the name Aztlán in this manner include Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán"), and the Nation of Aztlán (NOA).

Aztlán is also the name of the Chicano studies journal published out of UCLA.

The chicano's made a mistake by using Spanish (European) maps to define their made up "Aztlan", Spaniards who came from Europe and claimed the land for the European nation of Spain. The maps used to make the claim of "Aztlan" had nothing to do with the Aztec tribe, or with any Aztec myth, but are, in fact maps of European conquest of Native American Indian tribes, most of which are not, and have never been "Aztec". The use of these maps negates the entire credibility of the false claims made by the Chicano movement.

In popular culture

In fiction

• Aztlán has been used as the name of speculative fictional future states that emerge in the southwest U.S. or Mexico after the central U.S. government suffers collapse or major setback; examples appear in such works as the novels 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.

• In Michael Flynn's alternate-history story "The Forest of Time" (1987), Colorado is part of a nation-state called Nuevo Aztlán.

• Thomas Pynchon refers to Aztlan as the "mythic ancestral home of the Mexican people" in his novel Against the Day (2006).

• Charles de Lint, in his novel The Painted Boy (2010), refers to the ancestral spirit world as Aztlán.

In music

• The Colombian heavy-metal band Kraken mentions "the old Aztlán" as the place where the Aztek governors (Uey Tlatoani) reside, in the song "Méxica", from its albums Kraken IV: Piel de Cobre and Kraken Filarmónico. American rock band Los Lobos released an album titled Good Morning Aztlán in 2002.

• Los Angeles-based band Ozomatli penned a standout song on 2004's Street Signs in solidarity with the Chicano movement called "Santiago", alluding to Uncle Sam as "Santiago de Aztlán".

• On his 1994 album Graciasland, Mexican-American rock and roll artist El Vez recorded "Aztlan" a version of Paul Simon's "Graceland" with lyrics such as, "For reasons I have explained/I'm not a part of Spain/I'm part of Aztlan."

• "Good Morning Aztlán" song and album title by Mexican-American modern music group "Los Lobos"

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. 

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 (México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Editorial Raíces) 12 (67): 56–61. ISSN 0188-8218. OCLC 29789840.  (Spanish)

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. 

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; and 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 Aztlan Migrations of Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?" (PDF online facsimile). Ethnohistory (Columbus, OH: American Society for Ethnohistory) 31 (3): 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 online publication). 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. Retrieved 2007-12-28. 

Wilcox, David R.; and 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 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, on behalf of The Southwest Center, U. of Arizona) 44 (2): 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