The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

An Aztec goddess of fertility and childbirth, whose weeping and wandering the streets of Tenochtitlan at night was a bad omen for the city (Chapter 1).

An Aztec sun and war god and patron deity of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. The first Spanish acts of aggression in Tenochtitlan occurred during the fiesta of Toxcatl, the most importance religious festival for Huitzilopochtli (Chapter 9).

A Nahuatl word for a common person. A mutilated macehual first informed Motecuhzoma of the arrival of the Spanish (Chapter 2).

A Spanish word used to denote a person of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry.

A group of Indigenous Peoples in Central America, including the Toltecs and Aztecs.

A family of languages spoken by Indigenous Peoples in central Mexico, including the Aztecs. Variants of Nahuatl continue to be spoken and written today.

A name for the disastrous retreat of Hernán Cortés and his allies from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Chapter 10).

An Indigenous People of Mexico. Their sound defeat at the hands of the Spanish convinced the People of Tlaxcala to ally with Cortés (38-9).

A title for an adviser to the Aztec king.

An Aztec hero-god of wisdom inherited from an older Central American group, the Toltecs. Toltec legend had it that at the decline of the Toltec city of Tula, Quetzalcoatl departed eastward, promising one day to return. According to certain Aztec narratives, Motecuhzoma and others believed Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors to be the return of Quetzalcoatl.

The capital city of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan was a bustling metropolis. It surrendered to Hernán Cortés and his armies in 1520.

A Mexican city-state to the northeast of Tenochtitlan. In Broken Spears, Tezcoco figures most prominently as a site of mass conversion to Christianity for its citizens and its prince, Ixtlilxochitl (Chapter 7).

An enemy city-state of the Aztecs that allied with the Spanish. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the people of Tlaxcala were frequent targets of Aztec raids for sacrificial victims. After the conquest, the Tlaxcaltecas received concessions from the Spanish to maintain their ancestral territories.

The Toltecs were a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Indigenous group centered in the city of Tula. “Famed artisans, devout worshippers, [and] skillful tradesmen,” the Toltecs were celebrated for their cultural achievements throughout the area (xxx). The Aztecs considered themselves to be the inheritors of Toltec culture.