From accounts recorded by the Aztecs themselves in the codices prepared under the friars, it is clear that Motecuhzoma (Montezuma) had long dreaded the arrival of powerful men from the east. Legends that haunted them foretold the return of Quetzalcoatl, who generations before had departed Mexico on a raft woven of serpents, promising to return one day and reclaim his throne. The predicted year of his second coming translated in Romanic terms from the Aztec calendar was 1519, the very year Hernan Cortez of Spain arrived.
As soon as Montezuma got word of Spanish ships, the supposed giant raft of Quetzalcoatl, were plying his coast, the superstitious Montezuma feared he was doomed. Obsessed with old prophecies, his instincts fatalistically appealed to him to surrender from the very beginning. It was his destination, he believed, to preside over the destruction of Aztec civilization. So distraught was Motecuhzoma that he was desirous that the events which had been predicted take place immediately and get it over with.
According to one Aztec codex, nightly for a year there arose a sign like a tongue of fire, like a flame. Pointed and wide-based, it pierced the heavens to their midpoint, as to their very heart. And on the day of Cortes' arrival inexplicably an Aztec Temple burst into flames and could not be extinguished. Soon after another was set on fire by lightning. Then a comet appeared.
When Montezuma's bribes and appeals to the Spanish could not appease them, he fled, but was captured by Aztec priests who pressured him to face the Spanish. He did so, but first gave a farewell speech, then bade farewell to his wives and children.
The wonders of Tenochtitlan on Lake Texoco, the Aztec capital, was like seeing the marvels of ancient Rome at their peek, Cortez and the Spanish decided. How could these heathen accomplish so much?
The Aztec empire and glory until then had been on the rise, not nearing it's zenith.
But it was built most literally on the blood of the land.
The Spanish at first feigned to come in friendship, but had nothing else on their minds but conquest, spoils, and forced conversion to the one true God. They soon let Montezuma know that his worst fears were true, then executed him. The Aztecs were enraged over this sacrelige and betrayel. Though they vastly outnumbered the Spanish, the Conquistadors could match them in valor, fierceness, and were much superior to them in technology, even over the dreaded atlatl. The Spanish swooped down upon them with their cavalry, pulling cannon on their casons with wheels, and with their gunshot.
But still the Aztecs almost overtook them in one fierce battle that almost turned the tide. The Aztecs had made many, bitter enemies. The Aztecs didn't just defeat you, they devoured you. The subject survivors turned on their Aztec masters, but still the Aztec at long last, almost surprisingly gained for a moment the upper hand. But the seeds of their demise had been planted for decades now. The Aztecs didn't want to demolish their opponents, they wanted to capture them alive. Rewards and honors went to their warriors who managed this.
And so they attempted this with the Spanish and gave the Conquistadors the chance to regroup and finish them off.
It was not humanitarinism that made the Aztec want to capture instead of annihilate their opponents. They wanted, needed, victims. The very surival of the world, they believed required this.
Like many ancient religions around the world the Aztecs believed the world was ruled by forces of light and forces of darkness. Everyday the supreme sun god, the one who gave nourishment, warmth and light, would be devoured by the forces of night, the gods of the moon and the stars. What horror this caused the Aztecs. What could they do to aid the god of good?
What would strengthen and nourish the god that kept the world going? It surely must be the very thing that strengthened and nourished them, even all life. Blood. As much blood as could be attained. The Spanish reported back to King Philip of the thousands of human sacrifices they had seen the Aztecs give to their god. The King and any others who heard believed this an exaggeration, but surviving tribes verified it.
At the top of the temple each victim, one at a time, by a priest would have his heart cut out while still beating and held up to the god, while the body was kicked down the steps to the bottom.
And in times of drought the rain god must also be appeased. For the sake of the tribe the crops must be brought forth, therefore rain had to be maintained. What must induce the rain god to provide for them again? The tears of children obviously. Children were brought forth and terrified to produce tears, as many tears as could be provided to induce tears again from the god of rain. The children would be sacrificed, but not before tormented and terrified, until enough tears could be brought forth to finally satisify and replenish the rain god.
In 1938 scientists found buried in Aztec ruins the stone form of one such rain god, Tlaloc. They uncovered it, brought it out, set it on a wagon and took it to the archaeological museum in Mexico City. A drought was in progress in the area. But it began to rain as the stone figure was rolled along and rain followed it all the way to the museum and it continued to rain for a week there afterwards.
A warrior king named Nezahualcoytl, today known as the poet-king of Tetzcoco, near Tenochtitlan, near or part of present day Mexico City, ushered in an age of of intellectual achievement for the Aztecs in their early beginnings of empire. He ruled according to lofty principles that he developed as a youth. As a teenager he saw his father killed by invaders and spent the following eight years as a virtual exile. Hiding from his enemies for two years in the mountains, he received aid from Aztec allies and in battle win the throne that rightfully belonged to him in the first place. As Aztec ruler he became a renowned poet, was also a patron of art and science and sponseord public recitals of poetry. He built a temple without idols and dedicated them to a single deity he called the unknown god and banned human sacrifice. Somehow the sun came up the next morning anyway. Nezahualcoytl would wander as a king disguised as a commoner among his people and reward worthy citizens and redress grievances.
