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720-1116 - Toltec

A new state arose in central Mexico and culturally it was also a composite, having been greatly influenced by the Teotihuacan civilization. This was the so-called "Toltec Empire," composed of people from the north who spoke the same Náhuatl tongue which a few centuries later became the language of the Aztecs. The Toltecs, came from the semi-mythical land of Old Tlapallan under the leadership of their high priest and chief, Heumatzin, he of the big hands, and arrived at Tulancingo (a short distance north of Mexico City) in around 720, after 176 years of wandering. The new arrivals adopted the cultures of Teotihuacan and the Toltecs, and a number of city-states began to form along the shores of the great lake in the Valley of Mexico. This was the beginning of another cultural renascence, almost exactly contemporaneous with the early Renaissance in Italy. The Toltecs settled in Tula, about fifty-five miles northeast of the City of Mexico, and under the aegis of their great culture-hero, Quetzalcoatl, they gradually extended the civilization created at Teotihuacan.

Quetzalcoatl (cay-tsahl-CO-ahtl); widely known through Lew Wallace's book, "The Fair God." The name is compounded of two words, quetzal, a beautiful bird, and coatl, snake. It is variously translated Bird-Snake, Feathered Serpent, or Beautiful Serpent. Kukulkan and Gucumatz are similar names for a similar deity among the Mayas of Yucatan and the Quiches of Central America. This legend in every particular coincides so exactly with the Maya legend of Kukulkan that there can be no doubt the one's being borrowed from the other.

According to Mexican tradition, Quetzalcoatl came to the country in a boat, passing over the western ocean with a few companions ; he is said to have landed upon Mexican soil in the far north of the country, on the river Panuco. To the naked savages who then inhabited the land he was a marvellous apparition, a figure clothed in shining raiment, and wearing a beard, an appendage unusual among the natives. Quetzalcoatl soon taught them the arts of peace, in particular agriculture and weaving; he gave them writing to preserve his teaching, and the calendar to regulate his worship. After he had established a well-ordered State in the land where formerly only wandering huntsmen dwelt, he disappeared with the promise that he would again revisit his people.

Quetzalcoatl departed eastward, promising that some day he would return from across the sea. Quetzalcoatl stood for a worship which was eminently more advanced and humane than the degrading and sanguinary idolatry of which Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca were the prime objects. Tezcatlipoca, it may be said, is to be regarded as the brother of Huitzilopochtli. The god Tezcatlipoca, was Quetzalcoatl's bitter enemy. The enmity of Tezcatlipoca is said to signify the opposition of that more sanguinary cult. As the priests of the god were also called Quetzalcoatl, and some of them were probably reformers, a real historical element is also supposed to lie at the base of some of the stories. There is also an identification with Huemac, the mythical culture hero of the Toltecs; but, back of all this, there was the deification of natural forces. Tezcatlipoca, the god of the gloomy underworld, of darkness, drouth and death, in the disguise of winter, drives the warm zephyrs and all the benign influences of the atmosphere southward. The song birds accompany the banished Quetzalcoatl, who, however, will return in due season.

Soon afterward the Toltecs established populous centers at Tula, San Juan, Teotihuacan, Cholula and numerous other places and extended their power over a wide reach of country. They are said to have been a highly civilized race, to have been builders of great and handsome cities and to have extended organized commerce for hundreds of miles beyond their own territory which, at the height of their power and prosperity, stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and far southward to the border of the domains of the Maya of Yucatan, Chiapas and Campeche. They had a settled form of government and complicated, far-reaching codes of law which included military, political, social and religious regulations; and these, in their turn, were supported by racial customs and dogmas.

A number of indigenous texts describe the Toltecs in detail: they were superb artisans, devout worshipers, skillful tradesmen - extraordinary persons in everyway. Their prestige became so great that for the Aztecs the word "Toltec" was a synonym for "artist." The cultural achievements of the Toltecs spread far beyond their city at Tula; in fact their influence even reached down into Yucatan and Central America, where it can be clearly discerned in the Mayan religious center at Chichen-Itza. As a result of these Toltec influences, the Mayas experienced a major cultural renascence. But Tula, like other cities before it, was finally abandoned, perhaps because of fresh invasions from the north.

The Toltecs ruled much of Maya central Mexico from the tenth to twelfth centuries AD. The Toltecs were the last dominant Mesoamerican culture before the Aztecs, and inherited much from Mayan civilization. The Toltec capital was at Tula, 80 kilometersnorth of Mexico City. The most impressive Toltec ruins, however, are at Chichen Itza in Yucatan, where a branch of Toltec culture survived beyond the civilization's fall in central Mexico. The Toltecs were Nahuatl-speaking people who held sway over what is now central Mexico from the 10th to the 12th century AD. Their name has many meanings: an "urbanite," a "cultured" person, and, literally, the "reed people," derived from their urban center, Tollan ("Place of the Reeds"), near the modern town of Tula, about 50 miles (80km) north of Mexico City. About AD 900 they sacked and burned the great city of Teotihuacan under the leadership, according to tradition, of Mixcoatl ("Cloud Serpent"). Under his son, Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, they formed a number of small states of various ethnic origins into an empire later in the 10th century. They also were noted as builders and craftsmen and have been credited with the creation of fine metalwork, monumental porticoes, serpent columns, gigantic statues, and carved human and animal standard-bearers.

Towards the end of the Classic period, various waves of northern invaders came to Mesoamerica. One of these was the Purepecha or Tarascan people who settled around the lakes of the modern-day state of Michoacan. However, of all the recently arrived groups, the most important was the Toltec people of Tula. The invading Toltecs mixed with the people living in the valleys of the present-day state of Hidalgo and, around the year 1050, transformed Tula into a great city, the capital of an empire, which dominated the center of Mexico and spread its influence to very distant areas.

The Toltec, according to the historical annals, built the first great empire in Meso-America. At the height of its splendor, Tula had around 40,000 inhabitants who practiced agriculture by means of small systems of dams and canals, since rain was scarce in the area. Not only did the Toltecs spread their influence by means of war, but also through trade. In Tula, as in Teotihuacan, they worked obsidian and made ceramics. Their artisans were famous for producing the most beautiful and complicated objects in Mesoamerica. Tula also called Tollan, was the ancient capital of the Toltecs in Mexico; it was primarily important from about AD 900 to about 1200. Although its exact location is not certain, anarchaeological site near the contemporary town of Tula in Hidalgo state has been thepersistent choice of historians. Some scholars, however, are reluctant to accept this identification, preferring the site of Teotihuacán near Mexico City.

Civil wars, internal dissensions, famine and plague are given as the causes of the disruption of the Toltec empire which came to an end in 1116 by one account, after nearly 400 years of existence. A part of the Toltec population is said to have migrated southward and to have entered the land of the Maya. It is certain, however, that many remained behind and lost their identity in the Chichimeca and other less cultured races who occupied the valley of Mexico and surrounding country. From this union sprang the famous Texcocans, whose capital, Texcoco, on the lake of the same name, preserved the civilization of the early Nahua and finally became the most noted center of culture in the Mexican empire.

Around the year 1170, Tula and its ceremonial center were ransacked and partially destroyed. Beginning in the 12th century the invasion of the nomadic Chichimec destroyed the Toltec hegemony in central Mexico. Among the invaders were the Aztec, or Mexica, who destroyed Tollan about the mid-12th century. In general, the art and architecture of Tula show a striking similarity to that of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, and the artistic themes indicate a close approximation inreligious ideology and behaviour. In fact, many scholars believe that the Aztecs' concept of themselves as warrior-priests of the sun god was directly borrowed from the people of Tula.

Whether it was imposed on them or adopted by choice, the fact that the Maya of Chichen Itza incorporated so much of Toltec culture is significant. Although no absolute connection has been established, the emergence of Kukulcan, the Mayan version of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, coincided with the height (or possibly the collapse) of the Toltec civilization. The legend of the priest-king Quetzalcoatl of Tula and his self-imposed banishment to the East have been frequently linked to the emergence of the Mayan god Kukulcan and the assimilation of Toltec culture at Chichen Itza. Feathered rattlesnake images are everywhere at Chichen Itza.