MISCONCEPTION OF AZTEC SOCIETY.--CONDITION OF ADVANCEMENT.--NAHUATLAC TRIBES.--THEIR SETTLEMENT IN MEXICO.--PUEBLO OF MEXICO FOUNDED, A. D., 1325.--AZTEC CONFEDERACY ESTABLISHED, A. D., 1426.--EXTENT OF TERRITORIAL DOMINATION.--PROBABLE NUMBER OF THE PEOPLE.--WHETHER OR NOT THE AZTECS WERE ORGANIZED IN GENTES AND PHRATRIES.--THE COUNCIL OF CHIEFS.--ITS PROBABLE FUNCTIONS.--OFFICE HELD BY MONTEZUMA.--ELECTIVE IN TENURE.--DEPOSITION OF MONTEZUMA.--PROBABLE FUNCTIONS OF THE OFFICE.--AZTEC INSTITUTIONS ESSENTIALLY DEMOCRATICAL--THE GOVERNMENT A MILITARY DEMOCRACY.
The Spanish adventurers, who captured the Pueblo of Mexico, adopted the erroneous theory that the Aztec government was a monarchy, analogous in essential respects to existing monarchies in Europe. This opinion was adopted generally by the early Spanish writers, without investigating minutely the structure and principles of the Aztec social system. A terminology not in agreement with their institutions came in with this misconception which has vitiated the historical narrative nearly as completely as though it were, in the main, a studied fabrication. With the capture of the only stronghold the Aztecs possessed, their governmental fabric was destroyed, Spanish rule was substituted in its place, and the subject of their internal organization and polity was allowed substantially to pass into oblivion.[197]
The Aztecs and their confederate tribes were ignorant of iron and consequently without iron tools; they had no money, and traded by barter of commodities; but they worked the native metals, cultivated by irrigation, manufactured coarse fabrics of cotton, constructed joint-tenement houses of adobe-bricks and of stone, and made earthenware of excellent quality. They had, therefore, attained to the Middle Status of barbarism. They still held their lands in common, lived in large households composed of a number of related families; and, as there are strong reasons for believing, practiced communism in living in the household. It is rendered reasonably certain that they had but one prepared meal each day, a dinner; at which they separated, the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards. Having neither tables nor chairs for dinner service they had not learned to eat their single daily meal in the manner of civilized nations. These features of their social condition show sufficiently their relative status of advancement.