And what about Aztlan-Chicomoztoc and all of that?
Close on the heels of the various “lost mines”, such as The Lost Dutchman and the Lost Adams Diggings, sought by treasure-hunters in Southwestern North America is “The Lost Treasure of the Aztecs”. The latter takes a variety of forms, some of which are certifiably crazy. However, I have to ask: is there is a kernel of truth hidden here, as there is in many such tales?
A lot of the wackier versions I’ve turned up, trawling the internet, involve remnants of the Aztec hauling their treasure north after their 1521 defeat at the hands of Hernan Cortes’ Spanish and their indigenous allies. Some versions say the treasure is hidden near Kanab, Utah (Johnson Canyon or Three Lakes), others near the junction of the Colorado and Virgin Rivers in Northern Arizona (the James White and Johnson Brothers tales).
If we go further back in time, we get to the (for me, anyway) more interesting question that the Spanish asked, to wit: where did the Aztec come from? And is there more of the good stuff they had in Tenochtitlan (gold, silver and precious stones) to be found there….wherever there is? “There” was variously know as Aztlán, Chicomoztoc, Colhuacán or Copala, Three potential sources of answers to this question present themselves: Nahuatl and Spanish written sources, linguistics and archeology. We’ll look at each of them, in turn.
Even the Aztecs wanted to know where their ancestral homeland was! Emperor Moctezuma I (1440-1469), great-great grandfather of the Moctezuma who ruled when the Spanish arrived, sent out an expedition of 60 wizards bearing precious gifts to look for Aztlan. According to Duran (1581), they found it and were granted an audience with its ruler, the goddess Coatlicue, mother of their hummingbird war god, Huitchilipotchli. She refused their gifts and told them that the reason they suffered death was that they were addicted to luxury. Two-thirds of the wizards made it back, carrying the simple gifts Coatlicue gave them and a prophecy of doom for the empire at the hands of conquering strangers. Fascinating though this is, it doesn’t give us much to go on in terms of Aztlan’s actual location other than, in animal and bird forms, the wizards parted from and returned to a place called Coatepec, near Tula, 75 km NNW of Mexico City.
The Spanish listened to and carefully recorded the origin stories of the Nahua/Mexica, (Levin Rojo, 2014) which pointed to an ancestral home or homes variously known as Aztlán (the name corresponds to herons, white flowers, reeds, whiteness, a marshy environment), Chicomoztoc, Colhuacán or Copala. Although descriptions of the place of origin are diverse, common themes are 1) near or surrounded by water 2) urban, stratified, with agriculture, temples and leadership 3) to the north or west of Mexico 4) having a hill with seven caves. The Spanish reasoned that if the Nahua had built such a rich civilization in the Valley of Mexico, might not they have left behind something similar where they came from? Hernan Cortes himself was said to have found, amongst the effects of Moctezuma, “chronicles, hieroglyphs and paintings” with evidence for a northern origin of the Mexicans. Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc (1598) was the grandson of Moctezuma II, ruler of the Aztec at the time of the Spanish conquest. He wrote the Cronica Mexicayotl, an Aztec version of their history, and had this to say about their origen: “He aquí que comienzo, aquí está el relato de los ancianos mexicanos. El lugar de su morada tiene por nombre Aztlan, y por eso se les nombra aztecas; y tienen por segundo nombre el de Chicomoztoc, y sus nombres son estos de aztecas y mexicanos; y hoy día verdaderamente se les llama, se les nombra mexicanos; pero después vinieron aquí a tomar el nombre de tenochcas. Los mexicanos salieron de allá del lugar llamado Aztlan, el cual se halla en la mitad del agua; de allá partieron para acá los que componían los siete “calpulli”. El Aztlan de los antiguos mexicanos es lo que hoy día se denomina Nuevo México; reinaba allá el llamado Moctezuma.” In English: “Here I begin, here is the story of the ancient Mexicans. There dwelling place was called Aztlan, and for this reason they are called Aztecs; they have for a second name Chicomoztoc, and they are called Aztecs and Mexicans; and today truly they are called Mexicans, but after coming here they took the name of Tenochcas. The Mexicans left from there, the place called Aztlan, which is located in the middle of the water. From there they left for here those that make up the seven Calpulli. The Aztlan of the ancient Mexicans is what is today is known as New Mexico; there reigned Montezuma”.
Independently, Pedro de Castañeda Najera (Najera, 1560s), one of chroniclers of the Vazquez de Coronado expedition, says that the motive for Nuño de Guzmán’s 1530’s expedition was to look for a land to the north, where an Indian slave told him his father had traded feathers, and from whence he had returned with gold and silver. Other participants in Guzman’s adventures speak of a search for the seven cities (=seven caves of the hill of Chicomoztoc?). Francisco de Ibarra’s 1562 expedition to lands north of Durango was described as directed toward Copala (Obregon, 1584), where people wore cotton clothing and had much silver and which was the ancient place of origin of the Aztecs. Many of the extant versions of the Aztec origin story point to a distant northern location for Chicomoztoc/Aztlan/Copala. Some specifically say that it is located in the (then, in the 1580s-1590s, recently discovered) province of New Mexico. Finally the Spanish colonists who accompanied Juan de Oñate when he founded the colony of New Mexico in 1598 believed it to be the land of origin of the Aztecs, as testified to by Villagrá in his 1610 epic poem relating his adventures with Oñate (Levin Rojo, 2014).
The central Mexican Indians who accompanied the Spanish on these expeditions were largely Nahua. They far outnumbered the Spanish and, based on the evidence Levin Rojo (2014) presents, went along voluntarily, and were (for the most part) willing participants in, and may even have inspired, this search for their ancestral lands. In a folio of the Tlaxcala Codex that records the participation of Tlaxcaltecos en Vazques de Coronado’s expedition, “Cippola” (Cibola) is shown with seven gates.
Eventually these stories morphed into “New” Mexico, initially not meaning the Spanish province nor the US State of that name but literally a new Mexico, new to the Spanish but actually the old homeland of the Nahua, with all of the riches that implied.
It is also worth mentioning that on Alexander von Humboldt’s (1804) Map of New Spain, which he compiled from sources in the archives of Mexico City, under the auspices of the Spanish King and Viceroy, there are several interesting notes. Near a Lake whose position corresponds with Utah Lake or the Great Salt Lake: “This Lake, the limits of which are very imperfectly known from the Journals of Father Escalante, is perhaps the Teguayo Lake, from the borders of which, according to some historians, the Azteques removed to the River Gila”. South of the junction of the San Juan (Rio de Nabajoa on his map) and the Colorado River (Rio Zaguananas), he notes: “First abode of the Azteques come from Aztlan in (illegible) tradition uncertain”. Near the junction of the San Pedro River with the Gila River in Arizona, he notes: “Ruins of Casas Grandes, second Abode of the Azteques, from whence they passed by Tarahumara to Hueicolluiacan (Culiacan). Then at approximately the location of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua (Paquime) he notes: “Casas Grandes. Third abode of the Azteques”. A similar body of water appears with a similar notation on the 1768 map of Jose Antonio de Alzate y Ramirez. Clavijero (1780) places Aztlan “to the north of the Gulf of California”, then traces the Aztec’s journey to the Colorado and Gila Rivers, to Casa Grandes (Paquime) Chihuahua and Culiacan.
Another possible line of evidence for a northern origin of the Mexican’s comes from archeology and its interpretation. Lekson (2015) says that Chaco Canyon and its satellite villages are characterized by Great Houses, large imposing formal constructions, such as Chaco’s White House, that reflect a stratified society dominated by a palace nobility. He suggests that their form of government may have been the altepetl: a kingship that rotated amongst 6-8 noble families and whose occupant was elected for life. This was the norm in central Mexico at the same time Chaco was in its heyday. He gives further evidence of strong connections amongst Chaco, Paquime, the Mimbres (and, to a lesser extent, Aztec, New Mexico) with Mesoamerica, based on finds of luxury trade goods such as macaws (and macaw feathers), which don’t occur naturally anywhere north of central Mexico, chocolate, copper bells and turquoise.
Lekson (2015) thinks that the historical Pueblos (Zuni, Hopi, Acoma and along the Rio Grande) were founded by peoples who were subjugated by the Chaco nobility, but then revolted and freed themselves from their yoke during a time of extreme environmental stress (drought) in the 12th C-13th C. The egalitarian, ritual-based agricultural societies they founded were a reaction to the hierarchical system of Chaco.
Finally, Lekson (2015) even suggests (if I read him right) that the migrating Chacoan nobility might ultimately turn out to be the Nahua/Mexica, whom we know as the Aztecs. According to their traditions, their last stop en route their mythical northern home, Aztlan, to the Valley of Mexico was Culiacan. Working backwards from this: could Aztlan have been Chaco? Or was Chaco at least a stopping point on their long journey south from Aztlan?
One of the interesting points Levin Rojo (2014) develops in her book is that favorable climatic conditions allowed the expansion of central Mexican peoples to the north from the 7th-12thC AD, taking their characteristic agriculture (maize, squash and beans) with them. This trend reversed and there was a southward return migration forced by deteriorating climate beginning in the 12thC AD. This is testified to by tree ring data from the Colorado river drainage which shows a 50 year cold spell/drought starting in about 1130 AD. The Nahua migration stories, which are tied to their famous calendar, date their departure from Chicomoztoc/Aztlan in the year 1 Tecpatl, which corresponds to either 1168 or possibly 1116. Lekson (2015) says that Chaco was abandoned circa 1150. There is subsequent material evidence of their cultural influence in many directions, but especially to the south along the eponymous line of longitude, through the Mimbres Valley and on to Paquime, in what is now northern Chihuahua, and from there into the cliff dwellings of the northern Sierra Madre. Tenochtitlan-Mexico was founded in either 1325 or 1345, according to their calendar. Is it too much of a stretch to bring the Chacoans that far south by then, making them at least one of the Nahua tribes that participated in its founding?
Last but not least, there is a linguistic connection between the language of the Aztecs (Nahuatl) and the north (Shaul, 2014). It is one of a large family of languages (Uto-Aztecan) spoken from the western US down into Central America, that includes the eponymous tongues, as well as Shoshone, Paiute, Hopi, O’odam (Pima), Comanche, etc. Current research suggests that their common ancestor evolved in what is now south central California, spread from there to southern Nevada, then radiated in multiple directions, including south to Mesoamerica. This fascinating, if contentious, linguistic research would place the primordial Aztlan in the Central Valley of California! Needless to say, there is a minority of linguists who think that the Uto-Aztecan homeland was in Mexico and that the language travelled north (getting simpler with time and distance from its origin) together with maize-based agriculture. Shaul (2014) argues that, while maize definitely travelled north along the Uto-Aztecan language corridor from Meso-America, the corridor itself had been established much earlier, and pretty clearly from North to South.
So what have we got? Well we’ve got at least some documentary, cartographic and linguistic evidence for a northern location of Aztlan, in either the Central Valley of California, the Chaco Canyon area of New Mexico or in the region of the Great Salt Lake - Utah Lake. Damn! Nothing is ever as simple as we’d like it to be, right?
References
Alzate, Jose Antonio Ramirez y, 1768, Nuevo Mapa Geographico De La America Septentrional, Perteneciente al Virreynato de Mexico. Retrieved from Barry Lawrence Rudeman Map Collection, Stanford University. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ruderman/catalog/rt138mb5333
Calvijero, Francisco Javier, 1780, Historia Antigua de Mexico. Mexico: Juan R. Navarro, 1853. Retrieved from http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obras/autor/clavijero-francisco-xavier-si-1731-1787-2474
Duran, Diego, Historia de los Indios de Nueva Espana e islas de tierra firme, c1581, in Angel Maria Garibay K, ed, 2 vols, Editorial Porrua, S.A., Mexico City, 1967, v.2, 215-224.
Humboldt, Alexander Von. A map of New Spain, from 16⁰ to 38⁰ North latitude reduced from the large map. [London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Browne, Paternoster Row, 1804] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,<www.loc.gov/item/2006626018/>
Lekson, S., 2015, The Chaco Meridian, RI, 2nd Edition, 284 pp.
Levin Rojo, D., 2014, Return to Aztlan: Indians, Spaniards and the invention of New Mexico, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 307 pp.
Najera, Pedro de Castaneda de, 1560s, La Relation de la Jornada a Cibola in Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint, eds., 2005, Documents of the Coronado Expedition, 1539-1542, Dallas: Southern Methodist Press, 746 pp.
Obregon, Baltsasar de, 1584, Historia de los descubrimientos antiguos y modernos de la Nueva Espana escrita por el conquistador en el ano 1584. Mexico: Editorial Porrua, S.A., 1988, 318pp. https://ahgs.gob.mx/historia-de-los-descubrimientos-antiguos-y-modernos-de-la-nueva-espana-escrita-por-el-conquistador-en-el-ano-de-1584/
Shaul, David L., 2014, A Prehistory of Western North America: the Impact of Uto-Aztecan Languages, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 377 pp.
Tezozomoc, F.A. Cronica Mexicana, 1598, in Jose M. Vigil, ed., Biblioteca Mexicana, Ireneo Paz, Mexico, 1878, 712 pp.