Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

by Camilla Townsend

Every boy studied warfare, unless he had been selected as a likely priest or had been born into a merchant family. Merchants formed their own tight-knit group and educated their children for the harrowing treks across unknown country; priests were educated in a separate school, where they would learn far more than other boys about religious matters, the calendar, and the pictographic writing system. Those two groups aside, every young male had to learn to be a warrior. That had always been true in almost every village in Mexico, but now the Mexicas’ predominant position absolutely depended on their success; there was no room for failure or for doubt if they did not want all the surrounding altepetls that hated theirs to rise up against them. The boys learned a craft from their parents at home—perhaps sculpting ceramic vessels, or making tiny golden animals with charcoal and wax molds, or gluing the velvety fibers of exotic feathers in intricate designs on shields—but when they were about thirteen, they all left home to train as warriors. In the early weeks after starting school, they swept and collected firewood; they sang in the evenings and enjoyed themselves. The violent exercises began gradually. The boys learned to withstand pain and to fight. As older teenagers, they might accompany warriors to battle, on the understanding that whole groups of them should try to bring in a captive by separating a man on the battlefield from his cohort and then working together as a w...