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From the 14th to the 16th century large parts of Mesoamerica were dominated by the Aztecs. After traveling around for 200years the Aztecs decided to settle in an isolated swampy area by lake Texcoco, Mexico. The Aztecs, who spoke the Nahuatl language, were very clever people and rapidly built canoes to fish and hunt, dames and dikes to help the land and even their own plazas all on the swampy land they had found. After a while they started seizing and conquering other tribes and quickly became the main tribe in Mexico. The other tribes offered clothes, food and many other goods to the Aztecs, they feared the Aztecs who believed in human sacrifice – yes, they would kill people for dinner!

The Aztecs seemed invincible until the Spanish sent their army to invade Mexico in the 15th century, the soldiers had modern weapons that the Aztecs had not yet seen and brought new diseases to Mexico. It was these diseases that caused the collapse of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish took control of Mexico. Today, there are around 1million descendants of the Aztecs living in Mexico and whilst human sacrifice is no longer practised, you can still see Aztec art and games being enjoyed by many.

Now that you know a brief history of the Aztecs but what can we really know about this population? Well apart from believing in human sacrifice the Aztecs also believed strongly in many gods. Just like the Greek gods, the Aztec gods represented and protected elements of everyday life such as food, wind and war. The Aztecs thought that everyone needed a rest, even the gods! In fact they worshipped two gods of war, one who would watch over them in the daytime and one who would protect them at night. This way the Aztecs were always ready for war and had a god on their side no matter when a conflict began. If the Aztecs were scared of one thing it was their own gods, they incorporated forms of worship and prayers into their daily routine and trusted priests to give them advise on how not to anger the gods.

The Aztecs thought that the gods not only needed to rest but they also needed food, which is why they would sacrifice the lives of humans to feed them. Due to their belief in human sacrifice the Aztecs were not able to settle down for quite some time as many tribes refused to live next to them. According to a legend, the Aztecs believed that they would find a place to settle the moment they saw an eagle sitting on a cactus and holding a snake; they saw this in the valley of Mexico. Apart from superstitions and religion, the Aztecs also believed strongly in education. They needed more engineers to help build their city so they created a free system of education which meant boys, girls and slaves would all go to school. Whilst killing humans is a very barbaric practice, the Aztecs exceeded in the education system which extended the right to education to all – which is a lot more than Europeans had done at the time.

Image (Aztec statue of farming gods) : http://clccharter.org/lilian1/Images/aztecthreefaces.gif