The Aztec Empire is mostly associated with the spirit of warfare, which was a distinct characteristic of the Aztec people during their rise from complete historical anonymity, as well as during the duration of their powerful and well-organized empire. However, a comprehensive understanding of the Aztec Empire is only possible if we take into account two other equally important internal characteristics – a deep intertwining with religion and a special inclination towards poetry and art in general. These three features were interconnected and intertwined: poetry and art found endless inspiration in mythical and religious content, in the connection between the human and the divine, and in the search for a path to God; warriors often turned to prayer, preparing for battle through meditation and fasting, and warrior hymns composed in their honor emphasized the virtues expected of warriors.
At the height of its power, the Aztec Empire encompassed multiple peoples. In addition to the Aztecs, the peoples of Texcoco and Tlacopan played important roles with whom they formed a tripartite alliance, and the entire The cultural efforts of the conquered nations annexed to the empire were largely a synthesis of various influences that all these peoples, to a greater or lesser extent, inherited from the so-called Nahuatl tradition celebrated by outstanding artists and craft masters, the Toltecs. The Aztecs spoke of them: “Everything they did was beautiful, magnificent, worthy of respect.” The Toltecs themselves were heirs to even older cultures, such as the Olmec and the city of Teotihuacan, from whom they took over an almost identical pantheon of gods, monumental pyramidal structures and sculptures, the calendar, hieroglyphic writing, and ritual ball game. The Aztecs thus had the historical role of being the last bearers of a long and vibrant tradition whose impulse had been continuously maintained for thousands of years.
Like the representations of their deities or the images in the codices, Aztec poetry often appears complex and full of difficult-to-understand metaphors. However, this is only the first impression. To those who are persistent and seek to understand their traditions and aspirations, these works reveal a profound and meaningful expression of their cultural values. revealing all of its true and immediate beauty. About this, the Spanish priest Duran from the 16th century tells us: “… words, expressions, metaphors seemed meaningless to me at first, but later, when I delved into them and sought explanations, I realized that they were worthy of admiration.”
Philosophical questions of the wise poets
To grasp the meaning of poetry and its symbolism, it is necessary to say something about their philosophical aspirations, the questions that occupied the minds of the tlamatinime, the wise men and priests. They were the main teachers of artists and poets, and they were poets themselves. Through hymns and songs, they expressed fundamental philosophical questions in a more direct way, thus providing impetus and direction to all other poetic endeavors. One poem about the wise men, preserved from destruction and oblivion by the well-known friar Sahagún, who played a crucial role in saving many ancient and valuable texts in the period after the Spanish conquests, emphasizes the importance and role of the wise in the life of the Aztec Empire:
Wise man: light lost, torch, a large smokeless torch…
His ink is black and red, from him come codices…
He himself is a letter and wisdom.
He is the path, a true guide to others…
A true sage is careful (like a doctor) and preserves tradition.
His wisdom is passed on, he is the one who teaches, follows the truth.
The teacher of truth never stops warning.
He makes others wise, makes them take on a face (personality), makes them develop it…
The teacher is a guide to others, showing them the way,
everyone depends on him.
He sets up a mirror in front of others, makes them wise, careful;
With his light, he illuminates the world.
He knows what is above us (and), the realm of the dead…
Everyone he advises corrects themselves, accepts instruction.
Thanks to him, people humanize their desires and receive strict instruction.
He comforts the heart, comforts people, helps, heals, and brings healing to all.
(Madrid Codex)
The most important question for sages and poets like Netzualcóyotl, king of Texcoco, Tecayehuatzin from the city of music Huexotzinco, Ayocuana. from Tecamachalco and others is related to the mystery of God. They give it the meaning of Tloque Nahuaque, the Master of proximity and unity, which is inherited from the Toltec doctrine. In their verses, they express how God is not directly understood and redirect attention to the relationship between man and God and the mystery of man himself. The problem of the obvious transience of everything on earth is first brought up, as Netzaualcóyotl says:
Do we truly live on earth?
Not forever on earth: we are only here for a short while.
And if it is jade, it will break.
And if it is gold, it will shatter.
And if it is the feather of a quetzal bird, it will tear.
Not forever on earth, we are only here for a short while.
A world in which everything passes and flows does not offer man any security, but confronts him with the meaning of his life and leads to the question of whether it is possible to express and leave something true and lasting in such a world:
Are we even speaking something true here, Giver of life?
We are only dreaming, only waking up from a dream,
it is just a dream…
No one here speaks the same Well…
(Mexican songs)
Poets often express doubt intentionally to enhance the significance of this question:
…perhaps no one on Earth is telling the truth.
(Mexican songs)
Countless songs are inspired by reflections and attempts to find answers to these two intertwined key human questions about the knowledge of God and the search for truth here on Earth. Wise men and poets tell us that these questions cannot be directly answered. But there is another way, the path of intuition that man walks with the “flower and song” (in xochitl, in cuicatl), which is an Aztec metaphor for art and poetry. If life is a dream, there is one word, one meaning in it – flower and song, as emphasized by Tecayehuatzin in a conversation about the flower and song at the famous gathering of poets in Huexotzinco.
The wise men believed that we are surrounded by a magical universe of symbols that true artists can penetrate, but only if they persistently and correctly seek it. According to the Toltec vision adopted by the Aztecs, a true artist is Flow, he who is capable of conversing with his own heart, and his heart is described as a book of pictures. The artist is a thief of flowers and poems, one who, through a long dialogue with himself, searches and finds the appropriate divine symbol within his inner being, brings it into words, embeds it in stone, puts it on codices or in noble metal, delicate feathers, clay. In this way, he conveys symbols that can help another person to find the truth and their own roots in the same way. The artist had the role of humanizing the human heart through his works and making their faces wiser. That is why artists received systematic instructions in the high educational centers of the Nahuas, especially in the houses of hymns, cuicacalli, where they learned ancient traditions, embracing ancient ideals in order to bring them to life and pass them on. Along with the learning of the craft itself, artistic talent was a necessary prerequisite, but neither of them was enough to awaken a true artist. In order for the artist to fulfill his true role, he had to become the master of his own craft. of good admonition, to be constantly reminding oneself so as to be worthy of it. He had to be aware of his responsibility to others so as not to create like a bad artist who approaches things haphazardly, mocks the world, obscures things, deceives…
In Aztec educational centers, as well as in the upbringing of children, great attention was paid to cultivating beautiful words and noble speech. Sahagún provides us with a description of a good storyteller who, unlike a bad one, uses words to set things in order, brings structure and enlivens speech, and flowers, a metaphor for art, come out from his mouth:
A good storyteller:
with pleasant and joyful words,
flowers adorn his lips.
His speech is full of advice,
correct words,
flowers gush forth from his mouth.
A bad storyteller:
twists words,
mispronounces them unclearly.
Stutters, pronounces poorly.
Tells and describes clumsily,
utters empty words,
he is shameless.
However, the flowers and poems that the artist-poet lowers from the depths of the sky are not, According to Netzaualcóyotl, cattle ownership is like this:
We only borrowed them,
here on earth,
so that we could carry them
into His courtyards,
flowers and songs.
The artist-poet is the one who brings them to life, his power lies in the inspiration he conveys to others. Only in this way do flowers and songs last:
My flowers will not wilt,
my songs will not be silenced.
I, the singer, elevate them…
Poems and songs
Aztec songs can be divided into spiritual, warrior and lyrical.
Spiritual songs are hymns to the gods that were sung with musical accompaniment during religious ceremonies. They constantly repeated certain words, achieving the appropriate sacred rhythm, as in the traditions of other peoples. These songs were the foundation of education in higher schools, and they are difficult for us to understand because the key to their metaphors has been lost.
Warrior hymns are songs of eagles and jaguars, warrior orders like knights in Western tradition, which had a great influence on the cult. War and poetry. Warrior hymns celebrated the courage of warriors and military leaders, their humane qualities, and victories over the enemy.
Lyrical poems glorify the beauty of nature, earthly life, friendship, and the value of poetry – flowers and songs.
Poems were learned with the help of illuminated codices. A great expert on pre-Spanish literature of Mexico, A.M. Garibay, writes about it: Looking at the pictures and listening to the teachers, students collected in their hearts and minds, throughout their lives, the cultural, religious, and literary content of the lost era, shrouded in the mist of the past. There were special “guardians” – priests who took care of the correct memorization and transmission of the poems:
The guardian would
watch over the songs of the gods,
over all divine hymns.
So that no one would make a mistake,
he diligently tried to pass on to people,
divine songs in all quarters.
Aztec poetry had its specific application during religious ceremonies, of which there were many in the Aztec Empire. Poetry was associated with rituals and ceremonies, united with the they tiptoed through the hallways of the grand house, creating a melange of artistry and music. The festivities were prepared in the House of Music and Song, Mixcoacalli, where new dances were constantly rehearsed and old ones were repeated. Garibay tells us about it: Learning and perfecting song and dance was understood as a commandment given by God. They danced to the accompaniment of various instruments: talambas, drums, rattles, flutes… Participants changed their costumes depending on the region from which the song originated, and even adjusted their way of pronouncing words. They often wore masks… The sacred games performed in the great squares were called maseualistli by the Aztecs, which means “merit”, because participation in them had to be earned through virtue, acts of mercy, and sacrifice. which songs were supposed to come. That’s how the wise men called the owners of black and red color, the man being the master of the face and heart, the poet being a flowery parrot or a flowery drum, and they would say that the supreme God is like night and wind, and that a child is a necklace made of jade and quetzal feathers, and so on. These symbolic images were not accidental and contained much more than a mere play on words. Their role was a subtle and intuitive introduction into the reality of a world invisible to us, a world in which symbols and poetic metaphors are living and powerful ideas.
If someone possesses black and red, then they are the guardian of the codexes in which knowledge and tradition are stored. As myths say, the codexes were composed by the wise men in the distant beginnings of Aztec history according to divine instructions. The choice of colors is not random. Black refers to what is secret and inaccessible to everyone, and red is the color of blood, the color of the energy of life and wisdom, because wisdom has a vital impulse for humans, without it everything dies.
A man must strive to achieve a heart as firm as Stone and resilient like a tree, but with a wise face. This reminds us of the Buddhist view of a person who must have a strong and indestructible inner core like a peach pit, be strict with themselves, consistent and stable, but “soft” towards others like a juicy fruit, wise and full of human understanding.
The metaphor of the poet, the flower-parrot, or the flower-drum, clearly points out the role of the poet – they bring us and constantly repeat certain ideas through the diverse forms of their flower-poems. They do this repeatedly because humans have a tendency to forget and overlook beauty and goodness, which true poems preserve.
God is unfathomable and unreachable like the night and the wind, but every person is certain of their existence. The night is a time when the importance of the Sun becomes clearer, a time when our own lights are lit, desires are stirred, and questions are raised. The wind is an element that clears paths and opens up vistas. In Aztec myths, it is associated with the god Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl. The ancient cult of this god. The fact that the Aztecs adopted practices and knowledge from conquered peoples speaks to the importance of the impulse provided to humans by Quetzalcoatl. Not only did he create man after the flood through his own sacrifice, but he also bestowed upon him all necessary knowledge and skills, from laws, writing, and art, to agriculture, mining, metalworking, and all aspects of construction. He serves as a model and example of moral perfection and a lover of peace.
The metaphor of the child, the jade necklace, and the quetzal feather speaks to how a child is something exceptionally valuable, like jade and the feathers of the quetzal bird, which the Aztecs valued more than gold. Jade symbolizes the permanence of the soul, while the rare quetzal bird, which resides in high and inaccessible treetops, is a symbol of the spirit. This image is meant to constantly remind us that every child carries within them much more than a sweet little appearance, and that our role is to help them express that. In this sense, the Aztecs were an example of education, love, and support shown towards children, and they had a mandatory education system accessible to all. These are just some of the possible perspectives on the most common metaphors of Aztec poets, and even that has not, nor is it possible to completely exhaust all that these metaphors imply. Similarly, like moves in a chess game that can be the same but carry different weight depending on when they are played and in what combination with respect to the whole, we need to look at metaphors and symbols in the context of the development of the entire poem, because only then can we understand the meaning of a particular part.
“The Dream of a Word”
Why did the Aztecs choose a flower and a song as a metaphor for art and poetry?
A straightforward and complete answer, as in everything related to the Aztecs, is not possible to give. Perhaps because both a flower and a song seem to come from other dimensions. A flower is the crowning glory of a plant, and within it is the seed of the future. This seemingly fragile and delicate symbol carries something extremely valuable – it can connect the old and the past with the new, which is yet to come. On the other hand, Music has its own duration, we cannot suddenly pronounce or sing everything. As its verses unfold before us, we absorb a part by part of the whole idea. The entirety of the flower and the song remains within us as an imprint – they may seem to have passed, but they have awakened and brought something to life. Their true power lies in renewal, in the trace that remains.
Although short-lived, they enable the creation of a bridge that extends beyond visible boundaries, a bridge that connects humans with everything that is true and deeply human. That is why one, most important theme – friendship – permeates and hints through many different topics in their songs. The flower and the song enable the recognition, or as Tecayehuatzin says, they make the encounter of friends possible. That is why he concludes the discussion about art and poetry, the flower and the song, at the gathering of poets with a poem:
And now, oh friends!
Listen to the dream of a single word:
Every spring revives us,
Does the golden ear of corn refresh us?
The reddish ear transforms into a necklace for us. Let’s at least be grateful for the fact that the hearts of our friends are sincere! (Mexican songs)
As the days pass, bringing the strength that rejuvenates, motivates and strengthens, there is something that goes beyond these changes. There is a dream of a word that endures through time. Although it may seem like a dream, in it we are much closer to our own reality than in many ordinary, everyday moments. In this dream, we know and see with certainty what is true, what gives meaning to every endeavor – the hearts of our friends.
CONVERSATION ABOUT POETRY: The World and Poetry
Around 1490, the king of the city of Huexotzinco, poet Tecayehuatzin, invited poets and wise men of the empire to his palace to collectively try to explain what art and poetry are. Tecayehuatzin began by praising the flower and the poem and wondered if they are truly the only things that are true, carrying man’s celestial roots on earth. All the poets expressed their opinions through poems: Ayehuatzin:
Where have you been, O poet?
Hurry up, floral drum,
adorned with the feather of quetzal,
interwoven with decorated flowers.
You will bring joy to the nobles,
lords of eagles and tigers.
He certainly descended to the place of drums,
that’s where the poet goes,
unfolding his marvelous hymns,
one by one, presenting them to the Giver of Life…
Is that perhaps the only truth on earth?
Ayocuan:
Beautiful flowers, beautiful songs
come from the depths of the sky.
They are marred by our desires…
Friendship is a rain of exquisite flowers…
Didn’t you speak to God?
You saw the dawn
and began to sing…
No one will finish here
flowers and songs
they endure in the house of the Giver of Life.
Aquiautzin:
I heard the song over there,
and now I listen to it,
its flute playing,
low flowers, to King Ayocuan.
Where do you live, O my God,
Giver of Life?
I am searching for you…
Your house is present everywhere,
O Giver of Life…
Only God,
listen once here
having descended from within yourself. He arrives singing.
The princes who came to play on their flutes are already responding to him.
Cuauhtenocoztli:
Do people have truth, roots?
Will our song still have
roots and truth tomorrow?
What really exists?
If I took you there,
it would truly exist.
Motenehuatzin:
I heard a song,
I saw it in the flowery waters,
of the one who walks there in the spring,
of the one who talks to the dawn,
the fiery bird, the cornfield bird,
the red bird: Prince Motenehuatzin.
Tecayehuatzin:
My friends, you who are there,
inside the flowery house,
fiery birds, sent by God.
Come and take the quetzal feather,
so that I can see
those who make the splendid flutes laugh…
Monencautzin:
Flowers sprout, flowers sprout,
they create their crowns,
before the face of the Giver of Life.
He responds to you.
The magnificent divine bird,
that you sought.
How many have enriched themselves with your songs,
you have delighted them.
The flowers move!
Tlapalteuczicin:
Oh friends, I seek you as I walk.
I go around trying to find you,
inside the flowery house,
fiery birds that are missing. I am in the fields of flowers,
And you are finally here.
Rejoice, share your stories!
Oh friends, your friend has arrived.
Who am I?
I am a flying being,
Composing a hymn,
Singing about the flowers:
Butterflies made of songs.
They emerge from within me,
Enjoy them, my heart.
I spread my wings over the earth,
In the place of floral drums.
My song rises above the earth.
Here, oh friends, I repeat my songs.
I was born among the songs.
And songs are still being composed…
Ayoquan:
…Talambas, the turtle’s shell
Echoes in your home,
Residing in Huexotzinco.
There Tecayehuatzin keeps vigil…
Listen:
Our father God descends here.
This is his house, where the tiger drum resides,
Where the songs were conceived
To the sound of talambas…
This is how we celebrate on the land and the mountain,
This is how the only God is celebrated…
The songs were taken from the books of Miguel León-Portilla: The Croatian text I would like to have translated into English is as follows:
“Kada sam se probudio jutros, osjetio sam da je nešto drugačije. Sunce je sijalo svjetlije, ptice su cvrkutale življe, zrak je bio svježiji. Bio je to dan pun obećanja i mogućnosti. Znao sam da će biti poseban dan, pun novih avantura i izazova koje treba prihvatiti. Spreman sam se suočiti sa svime što mi život donosi danas. Neka avantura počne!”
“When I woke up this morning, I felt that something was different. The sun was shining brighter, the birds were chirping more lively, the air was fresher. It was a day full of promise and possibilities. I knew it was going to be a special day, full of new adventures and challenges to embrace. I am ready to face whatever life brings me today. Let the adventure begin!”