Nezahualcoyotl
Encyclopedia
Tlatoani
Tlatoani is the Nahuatl term for the ruler of an altepetl, a pre-Hispanic state. The word literally means "speaker", but may be translated into English as "king". A is a female ruler, or queen regnant....
) of the city-state of Texcoco in pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Unlike other high-profile Mexican figures from the century preceding the Spanish Conquest
Spanish conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...
, Nezahualcoyotl was not an Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
; his people were the Acolhua
Acolhua
The Acolhua are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in or around the year 1200 CE. The Acolhua were a sister culture of the Aztecs as well as the Tepanec, Chalca, Xochimilca and others....
, another Nahuan people settled in the eastern part of the Valley of Mexico
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...
, settling on the eastern side of Lake Texcoco
Lake Texcoco
Lake Texcoco was a natural lake formation within the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake. The Spaniards built Mexico City over Tenochtitlan...
.
He is best remembered for his poetry, but according to accounts by his descendants and biographers, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl
Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl
Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl was a Novohispanic historian.-Life:A Castizo born between 1568 and 1580, Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl was a direct descendant of Ixtlilxochitl I and Ixtlilxochitl II, who had been tlatoque of Texcoco...
and Juan Bautista de Pomar
Juan Bautista de Pomar
Juan Bautista Pomar was a historian and writer interested in pre-Columbian Aztec history.According to references by Fray Juan de Torquemada, he was born around 1535 at Texcoco. He was the great grandson of Nezahualcoyotl, and was half-Spanish on his father's side...
, he had an experience of an "Unknown, Unknowable Lord of Everywhere" to whom he built an entirely empty temple in which no blood sacrifices of any kind were allowed — not even those of animals. However, he allowed human sacrifices to continue in his other temples.
Early life
Acolmiztli Nezahualcoyotl was the son of Ixtlilxochitl IIxtlilxochitl I
Ixtlilxochitl Ome Tochtli was the ruler of the Acolhua city-state of Texcoco from 1409 to 1418 and the father of the famous "poet-king" Nezahualcoyotl.-Early years as tlatoani:...
and Matlalcihuatzin, the daughter of Huitzilihuitl
Huitzilíhuitl
Huitzilihuitl was the second tlatoani of Tenochtitlan, governing from 1396 to 1417, .- Family and childhood :...
. Though born heir to a throne, his youth was not marked by princely luxury. His father had set Texcoco against the powerful city of Azcapotzalco
Azcapotzalco (altepetl)
Azcapotzalco was a pre-Columbian Nahua altepetl , capital of the Tepanec empire, in the Valley of Mexico, on the western shore of Lake Texcoco.The name Azcapotzalco means "at the anthill" in Nahuatl...
, ruled by the Tepanec
Tepanec
The Tepanecs or Tepaneca are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in the late 12th or early 13th centuries. The Tepanec were a sister culture of the Aztecs as well as the Acolhua and others—these tribes spoke the Nahuatl language and shared the same general pantheon, with...
. In 1418, when the young prince was fifteen, the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco, led by Tezozomoc, conquered Texcoco and Nezahualcoyotl had to flee into exile in Huexotzinco, returning to stay in Tenochtitlan in 1422. After Tezozomoc's son Maxtla
Maxtla
Maxtla was a Tepanec ruler of Azcapotzalco from 1426 to his death in 1428. He succeeded his father Tezozomoc, possibly through assassination of his elder brother Tayauh. His reign saw a rapid decline in the fortunes of Azcapotzalco...
became ruler of Azcapotzalco, Nezahualcoyotl returned to Texcoco, but had to go into exile a second time when he learned that Maxtla plotted against his life.
The reconquest of Texcoco
Meanwhile the tenochca TlatoaniTlatoani
Tlatoani is the Nahuatl term for the ruler of an altepetl, a pre-Hispanic state. The word literally means "speaker", but may be translated into English as "king". A is a female ruler, or queen regnant....
Itzcoatl
Itzcóatl
Itzcoatl was the fourth emperor of the Aztecs, ruling from 1427 to 1440, the period when the Mexica threw off the domination of the Tepanecs and laid the foundations for the eventual Aztec Empire.- Biography :...
requested help from the Huexotzincans against the Tepanecs, Nezahualcoyotl visioned the opportunity to join a single military force in order to fight the mighty kingdom of Atzcapotzalco. After being offered support from insurgents inside Acolhuacan and rebel Tepanecs from Coyohuacan, Nezahualcoyotl joined the war. He called for a coalition composed by most of the most important pre-Hispanic cities of the time: Tenochtitlan, Tlacopan
Tlacopan
Tlacopan , also called Tacuba, was a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican city-state situated on the western shore of Lake Texcoco.Founded by Tlacomatzin, Tlacopan was a Tepanec kingdom subordinate to nearby Azcapotzalco...
, Tlatelolco
Tlatelolco (altepetl)
Tlatelolco was a pre-Columbian Nahua altepetl in the Valley of Mexico. Its inhabitants were known as Tlatelolca. The Tlatelolca were a part of the Mexica ethnic group, a Nahuatl speaking people who arrived in what is now central Mexico in the 13th century...
, Huexotzingo, Tlaxcala
Tlaxcala
Tlaxcala officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala is one of the 31 states which along with the Federal District comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipalities and its capital city is Tlaxcala....
and Chalco
Chalco
Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, also known as Chalco , is a multinational aluminum company headquartered in Beijing, People's Republic of China...
. Once declared a shared war and a single effort, the coalition army of more than 100,000 men under the command of Nezahualcoyotl and other important tlatoanis headed towards Azcapotzalco from the city of Calpulalpan. A military offensive that in 1428 would reconquer Acolhuacan
Acolhuacan
Acolhuacan or Aculhuacan was a pre-Columbian province in the east of the Valley of Mexico, inhabited by the Acolhua. Its capital was Texcoco . Other altepetl in Acolhuacan included Coatl Ichan, Ecatepec, Teotihuacan, and Tepetlaoztoc....
, capital city of the kingdom of Texcoco.
The campaign was divided into three parts. One army attacked Acolman
Acolman
Acolman de Nezahualcoyotl is a town and municipality located in the northern part of Mexico State, part of the Greater Mexico City area, just north of the city proper. According to myth, the first man was placed here after being taken out of Lake Texcoco. In the community of Tepexpan, the...
to the north and the second Coatlinchan
Coatlinchan
Coatlinchan is a town in the Mexican state of Mexico.A colossal statue over a thousand years old that was thought to represent Tlaloc was found in the town of Coatlinchan Mexico. This statue was made of Basalt and weighed an estimated 168 tons. It was moved to the National Museum of Anthropology in...
to the south. A contingent led by Nezahualcoyotl himself was intended to attack Acolhuacan, just after providing support upon request by any of the first two armies. The coalition conquered Acolman
Acolman
Acolman de Nezahualcoyotl is a town and municipality located in the northern part of Mexico State, part of the Greater Mexico City area, just north of the city proper. According to myth, the first man was placed here after being taken out of Lake Texcoco. In the community of Tepexpan, the...
and Otumba
Otumba
Otumba may refer to:*Otumba, Mexico State, a municipality in the State of Mexico, Mexico*Otumba de Gómez Farías, a town and the municipal seat of Otumba municipality, State of Mexico*Otompan, a pre-Columbian altepetl...
, sacking them only due to the sudden Tepanec siege of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco. In a tactical move, the split armies united again and then divided into two. One of them, under Nezahualcoyotl again, headed towards Texcoco laying siege over Acolhuacan on its way, while the other attacked and destroyed Azcapotzalco. At the time the armies met again, Nezahualcoyotl reclaimed Texcoco and decided to conquer Acolhuacan, enteering from the North while the Tenochca and Tlacopan allies coming from Azcapotzalco attacked from the south. The two armies simultaneously attacked the north and south of Acolhuacan until they gained dominance of the city's main square. After their victory, the coalition began a series of attacks to isolated Tepanec posts throughout the territory of Texcoco. The defeat of the Tepanecs, and the cease of existence of the kingdom of Azcapotzalco gave rise to the Aztec Triple Alliance
Aztec Triple Alliance
The Aztec Triple Alliance, or Aztec Empire began as an alliance of three Nahua city-states or "altepeme": Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan...
between Texcoco, Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan. Nezahualcoyotl, the wisest ruler that had ever ruled over Anahuac
Anahuac
Anahuac is an ancient name for a Mesoamerican, particularly Aztec, area or areas, usually identified as located within or even coterminous with the Valley of Mexico...
Valley -as he was known at that time- was finally crowned Tlatoani of Texcoco in 1431.
Achievements
Tlamatini
Tlamatini is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is analyzable as derived from the transitive verb mati "to know" with the prefix tla- indicating an unspecified inanimate object translatable by "something" and the...
, generally translated as "wise men". These men were philosophers, artists, musicians and sculptors who pursued their art in the court of Texcoco.
Nezahualcoyotl is credited with cultivating what came to be known as Texcoco's Golden Age, which brought the rule of law, scholarship and artistry to the city and set high standards that influenced other cultures. Nezahualcoyotl designed a code of law based on the division of power, which created the councils of finance, war, justice and culture (the last actually called the council of music). Under his rule Texcoco flourished as the intellectual centre of the Triple Alliance and it possessed an extensive library that, tragically, did not survive the Spanish conquest. He also established an academy of music and welcomed worthy entrants from all regions of Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
.
Texcoco became known as "the Athens of the Western World" -- to quote the historian Lorenzo Boturini Bernaducci
Lorenzo Boturini Bernaducci
Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci was a historian, antiquary and ethnographer of New Spain, the Spanish Empire's colonial dominions in North America.-Early life:...
. Indeed, the remains of hilltop gardens, sculptures and a massive aqueduct system show the impressive engineering skills and aesthetic appreciation of his reign.
Many believe, however, that of all the creative intellects nurtured by this Texcocan "Athens," by far the greatest belonged to the king himself. He is considered one of the great designers and architects of the pre-Hispanic era. He is said to have personally designed the "albarrada de Nezahualcoyotl" ("dike of Nezahualcoyotl") to separate the fresh and brackish waters of Lake Texcoco, a system that was still in use over a century after his death.
Legacy
The date of Nezahualcoyotl's death is recorded as being June 4, 1472, survived by many concubines and an estimated 110 children. He was succeeded by his son NezahualpilliNezahualpilli
Nezahualpilli was ruler of the Mesoamerican city-state of Texcoco, elected by the city's nobility after the death of his father, Nezahualcoyotl, in 1472....
as tlatoani of Texcoco. His great-grandson Juan Bautista de Pomar
Juan Bautista de Pomar
Juan Bautista Pomar was a historian and writer interested in pre-Columbian Aztec history.According to references by Fray Juan de Torquemada, he was born around 1535 at Texcoco. He was the great grandson of Nezahualcoyotl, and was half-Spanish on his father's side...
is credited with the compilations of a collection of Nahuatl poems. Romances de los señores de la Nueva España, and with a chronicle of the history of the Aztecs. A species of the Xiphophorus
Xiphophorus
Xiphophorus is a genus of euryhaline and freshwater fishes in the family Poeciliidae of order Cyprinodontiformes. The many Xiphophorus species are all called either platyfish or swordtails. The type species is X. hellerii, the Green swordtail. Platyfish and swordtails are Live-bearers, meaning...
freshwater fish is named after Nezahualcoyotl.
Poetry
Nezahualcoyotl has been remembered as a poet. This is because a number of poems in the Classical NahuatlClassical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
language written in the 16th and 17th centuries have been ascribed to him. In fact this attribution is somewhat doubtful since Nezahualcoyotl died almost 50 years before the conquest and the poems were written down another fifty years after that. One of the writers who put Aztec Poems in writing, Juan Bautista de Pomar
Juan Bautista de Pomar
Juan Bautista Pomar was a historian and writer interested in pre-Columbian Aztec history.According to references by Fray Juan de Torquemada, he was born around 1535 at Texcoco. He was the great grandson of Nezahualcoyotl, and was half-Spanish on his father's side...
was a grandson of Nezahualcoyotl, and he may have attributed the poems to his grandfather.
Poems attributed to Nezahualcoyotl's include:
- In chololiztli (The Flight)
- Ma zan moquetzacan (Stand Up!)
- Nitlacoya (I Am Sad)
- Xopan cuicatl (Song of Springtime)
- Ye nonocuiltonohua (I Am Wealthy)
- Zan yehuan (He Alone)
- Xon Ahuiyacan (Be Joyful)
One of his poems appears in tiny print on the face of the 100 peso note.
- Amo el canto del zenzontle
- Pájaro de cuatrocientas voces,
- Amo el color del jade
- Y el enervante perfume de las flores,
- Pero más amo a mi hermano, el hombre.
- I love the song of the mockingbirdNorthern MockingbirdThe Northern Mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos, is the only mockingbird commonly found in North America. This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Turdus polyglottos....
,- Bird of four hundred voices,
- I love the color of the jadeJadeJade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...
stone- And the intoxicating scent of flowers,
- But more than all I love my brother, man.
External links
- http://www.ku.edu/~hoopes/506/Lectures/Aztecs.html
- http://www.economist.com/diversions/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2281561
- http://www.nndb.com/people/773/000095488/
- http://red-coral.net/Hungry.html