Aztec Daily Life
    We know something about how Aztecs lived from ruins of buildings, and remains of pottery, jewellery, and other artefacts which have been found. Archaeologists are people who piece together history from this sort of evidence. Often evidence is buried deep under the ground.
    Most Aztecs were farmers. They lived in mud-brick houses near the Chinampas- strips of land they had reclaimed from the swamps. This was done by building up layers of mud and water plants, to keep out the water. They also hunted and fished for food.
They wove rafts out of branches, piled reeds on top of these and covered them with mud from the bottom of the lake. This made up their farm land.Aztec farmers grew all sorts of vegetables and fruit on their swampy land. They also hunted waterfowl and fished.
 
 

 
 

Ordinary people had very little. Farmers used wooden sticks for gardening and knives for hunting and harvesting. People made their own clothes. They dyed cloth to make the clothes, or sell at the local market. they slept on rush mats and cooked on a clay disc on three stones over a fire and stored food in clay pots. 

Religion & Gods

The Aztecs were very religious. They believed that their gods caused the sun to rise, rain to fall, crops to grow and fire to burn.
 
 

The Aztecs believed that they lived in the fifth of five eras or "suns".Eventually this era would come to an end ,but they thought that if they kept worshipping and feeding their ,the time of destruction would be delayed.they fed their gods with human blood, which meant sacrificing people -especially prisoners of war- on top of pyramids in front of temples.
 

They had lots of elaborate ceremonies to honour their gods. The timing of these was determined by the sacred calendar highlighting important farming events such as planting, rainfall or harvest. Priests performed the rituals. they lived in the temple and spent time looking after sacred fires, praying and offering incense. They dyed their bodies black, wore black clothes and never cut their hair.


Some Aztec Gods
 
 

Smoking Mirror (Tezcatlipoca)
This is the god of the night sky. He was thought to control their fate, whether people were lucky or unlucky, rich or poor. 


 
 

Feathered Serpent (Quetzalcoatl)
This is the wind god and the god of knowledge.



Tlaloc
Tlaloc is the rain god. He also controls storms, thunder and lightning. 


 

 

This mask shows Quetzalcoatl, (which means plumed serpent) the Aztec god of wind, learning and priesthood.

Picture Writing

    We have found out a great deal about the Aztecs from studying painted manuscripts called codices. They were made up of a single sheet of paper, made from the bark of the wild fig tree or from animal parchment. The images could be painted on flat sheets which could be rolled up or on long strips which were folded like a screen.
    The aztecs wrote in pictures. There were rules for drawing people. The proportions were not normal. The head and feet were shown from the side, while the body was shown from the front.

 

Hundreds of colourful pictograms (picture symbols), like this figure, appear in the Codex Cospi.


 

Here are some examples of Aztec picture writing.
= a jar of honey= a dead body = war 

Aztec Numbers & Counting
 
The Aztecs used signs or symbols to show numbers.
The number one is shown by a dot :    .
They counted in 20s. A flag stood for 20  = 
A feather like sign stood for 400 
8000 was shown by a pouch for carrying incense 

 

 Back to Aztec page
Back to History Time Trail