The Aztec Indians, known also under the name of Mexicas, were the Native American people who lived in northern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest led by Hernan Cortes in the early 16th century. As their own legends suggest, they have their origins in a place called Aztlan, somewhere in north or northwest Mexico. During that time the Aztec Indians were a small, nomadic group of tribes living at the margins of the civilized Mesoamerica. They spoke a language called Nahuatl that used pictographs to communicate though writing; some of the pictures symbolized ideas and other represented sounds and syllables.

Sometime during the 12th century the Aztecs began a period of migration, which finally ended a century later when they settled in the central basin of Mexico; nevertheless they were continually dislodged by the wars among the small city-states fighting for supremacy. They found refuge on small islands in Lake Texcoco, where they founded the town of Tenochtitlan, the nowadays Mexico City. Being a fearless and pragmatic people, the Aztec Indians created an empire during the 15th century, which was surpassed in size in the Latin America only by the empire of the Incas in Peru. As early texts and modern archaeological discoveries continue to testify, that apart from their conquests and religious practices, there was a large range of positive achievements, such as: the formation of a highly stratified society and imperial administration; the development of a very modern, sophisticated agricultural economy, and, the cultivation of an intellectual and religious outlook which envisioned society as an integral part of the universe.

Religion was an extremely important part of the Aztec Indians’ life. They worshiped a multitude of gods and goddesses, each of whom reigned over one or more human activities or aspects of the daily life and nature. They had many gods related to agriculture because their life and culture was based on farming. The rites and ceremonies which took place along the year in the city of Tenochtitlan and the neighbor city Tetzcoco, the symbolic art and architecture, are all but an expression of the Aztecs’ awareness of the interdependence of nature and humanity.

The Aztec Indians’ remains the most extensively documented of all Amerindian civilizations at the time of the first European contact in the 16th century. The documents left by the Spanish friars, soldiers and historians connect with the archaeological discoveries, the studies of the linguists and the art historians in order to give us the portrait of a unique imperial state.