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Agriculture
When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, a little less than five hundred years ago, they saw a landscape similar to this diorama. The Mexicas founded their city in the middle of Lake Texcoco, which we imagine was beautifully blue and full of flora and fauna, so that it was the great provider of food resources. With the passage of time, the Mexicas achieved a high level of urban-agricultural development. For example, they enlarged the original islet by means of the chinampa system, which allowed them to undertake intensive agricultural production and the construction of houses and buildings on these artificially constructed lands. They also built causeways, canals for canoe traffic, and streets linking different towns with the City of Tenochtitlan. Also in this hall, numerous objects used by contemporary indigenous communities are exhibited in order to exemplify the working tools that were probably used by the Mexicas for this very important activity, as part of their economic survival. Hence, their adoration of a water deity such as Tlaloc.
Agriculture was an activity regulated by a calendrical system. The creator gods, Cipactonal and Oxomoco, and Quetzalcoatl created time, in order to organize and plan earthly and divine phenomenon, and to give it sequence. Divine time --which consisted of a 260-day count-- assigned rituals to basically divinatory calendars, as we have seen; earthly time was organized according to a solar calendar, determined by dry and rainy seasons and governed by agricultural activities. It was divided into 18 months
of twenty days, plus the five days called nemontemi, and that because they were considered bad luck, no festival was celebrated during these days, but they ended the 365 cycle.
The ceremonies dedicated to patron gods of each month or veintena were regulated by this calendar; many of these festivals were dedicated to Tlaloc and to gods of fertility.
In addition to this god, there were many other deities also related to agricultural activity. One of them was Chalchiuhtlicue, companion of Tlaloc and goddess of terrestrial bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, lagoons, and probably also the sea. Other deities were Chicomecoatl, the main goddess of corn and sustenance; Xilonen, the goddess of tender young maize; Cinteotl, god of maize in general; Xipe-Totec, god of fertility, spring and vegetation; and Mayahuel, goddess of pulque and the agave plant; among many other gods who intervened in one way or another in the process of the earth's fertility.
Organized trade was another important economic activity among the Mexica. Traders, known as pochteca, were generally held in high regard and their social status was fairly elevated, although they were not exempt from paying tribute. The pochteca covered different trade routes to go to different zones -- even going as far abroad as the Maya zone or even as far as what is today Panama-- in order to bring or exchange products to trade in markets or tianguis. The means for trade were diverse: purchase, using cacao,
The tribute and trade regions under Mexica control may be seen on the map.
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Last Modified: January 11, 1998.
Museo del Templo Mayor, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e História, México.
Seminario #8, Centro Histórico. Cuauhtémoc, México, D.F. 06060
©Copyright 1997
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