# Talk:Aztecs

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Aztecs/2002-2004
Talk:Aztecs/2005
Talk:Aztecs/2006-1 (Jan-May)
Talk:Aztecs/2006-2 (May-Dec)
Talk:Aztecs/2007-1 (Jan-May)
Talk:Aztecs/Slavery
Talk:Aztecs/Cannibalism
Talk:Aztecs/Sacrifice
Talk:Aztecs/Terminology-1 (Aztec vs Mexica vs Nahua etc)
Talk:Aztecs/Terminology-2 (more of the same)
Talk:Aztecs/2007-2017
Some of the older entries in Talk:Aztecs have been moved to archival subpages.  The organization of these archival subpages is both chronological AND topical.  This means that entries are extracted from this page and moved to an appropriate subpage according to topic AND to an appropriate subpage according to year.
Some entries have been copied to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology.
It is suggested that all current discussion be restricted to this page.  Please do not conduct discussion on an archival subpage as many people will watch only this page (Talk:Aztecs) for new entries. 
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If you are a new editor of the Aztecs article, please review this Talk page and any relevant subpages before making edits.  
In particular, you may find the Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology page useful as it covers a number of issues of usage such as capitalization, spelling, pronunciation, etc.

Inconsistent use of  Location (36 with; 6 without):
Bright, W. (1990); Burkhart, Louise M. (1997); Hirth, Kenneth G. (2016) [oh it's CUP]; Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo (1987); Matthew, Laura E; Oudijk, Michel R. (2007) [city name isn't in uni name so needs location]; Smith, Michael E. (2008).
Bright, W. (1990).  Missing Publisher; Missing ISBN;
Burkhart, Louise M. (1997).  Missing Publisher; Missing ISBN;
Hirth, Kenneth G. (2016). Missing ISBN;
Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo (1987).  Missing ISBN;
Matthew, Laura E; Oudijk, Michel R. (2007).  Missing ISBN;
Smith, Michael E. (2008). Missing ISBN; Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:27, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

To check as many errors as possible in the references and/or notes, I recommend using User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck in conjunction with two other scripts. You can install them as follows:

First, copy/paste importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js'); to Special:MyPage/common.js .
On the same page and below that script add importScript('User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck.js');. Save that page.
Finally go to to Special:MyPage/common.css and add .citation-comment {display: inline !important;} /* show all Citation Style 1 error messages */.
When you've added all those, go to an article to check for various messages in its notes and references. (You may need to clear your browser's cache first). The output of User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck is not foolproof and can be verbose. Use common sense when interpreting output (especially with respect to sorting errors). Reading the explanatory page will help more than a little. The least urgent message of all is probably Missing archive link; archiving weblinks is good practice but lack of archiving will probably not be mentioned in any content review. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:45, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

As usual the population of pre-European invasion North and South America is wildly exaggerated. I sometimes wonder if most people realize just how many people this is - or the "100 million in N.A." etc., etc.  There is no way such a population could even begin to have been fed by agriculture techniques of the time. The dearth of the Aztec people is a tragic, maddening event that saddens any thinking human being, but the scale of it should be realistically reflected. There are a lot of nationalist, revisionist 'historians' out there re-writing history to their own socio-political viewpoints. Let's use rational scientific RS's for this and other articles on this portion of native American history. The percentage of the population that died should be tragic enough - over-inflated numbers are just attempts to further tug at the heartstrings. The death of hundreds of thousands is no less awful than that of millions. 104.169.16.173 (talk) 08:33, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I will revise that using the recent Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs which has a chapter on demography. I do find your attempt to label unnamed historians as "nationalists" because your personal opinion doesn't fit theirs to be a poor form of argument.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:00, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Is there some reason why this article isn't titled "Aztec culture" or "Aztec civilization"? Just having the title "Aztec" doesn't seem to be comply with the precision criterion for Wikipedia article titles: "Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects." Rreagan007 (talk) 04:10, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

GAN in progress: I have no opinion on the matter (all the alternative titles work fine as search terms and will naturally lead to this article), but no move must be made until the current GAN process has completed. Thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:49, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Aztec civilization is not a phrasing that is commonly found in the literature, which tends to see the Aztecs as one ethnic and cultural tradition within the broader Mesoamerican civilization. That is basically the reason we don't have that title. Aztec culture lends itself to be narrowly interpreted to mean something like "the art and religion of the Aztecs", but the scope is broader, including the history, social organization etc. The typical title of books on this topic is simple "The Aztecs", which could probably be a reasonable title.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:04, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
"Aztec" also seems to be an adjective and not a noun, and article titles are supposed to be nouns. "The Aztecs" would be problematic as an article title, as using "The" to start a title is generally avoided ("Americas" rather than "The Americas"). It also implies that the article is about the people themselves rather than the culture or civilization. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:35, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
No. "He is an Aztec" and "the Aztecs" both make it a noun, so it can be either noun or adjective. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:39, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Actually, in "He is an Aztec", "Aztec" is a predicate adjective. I agree that "Aztecs" would be a noun, but without the "s" it's an adjective. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:41, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Of course Aztec is a noun both in the singular and in the plural. But I would not be opposed to naming the article Aztecs, or Aztec culture - or perhaps even Aztec civilization (but that would take some evidence of specialist sources using it).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:48, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
"Aztec civilization" would be my preference as it would conform better to WP:Article titles "Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English." and "Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects." Rreagan007 (talk) 15:54, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, all that doesn't matter if it is noyt the way sources refer to it. Also it is decidedly less precise to call it Aztec civilization, because we are talking about a culture that flourished fairly locally in a fairly short period and which was merely one culture among others in the larger civilizational complex of Mesoamerica. But I found some uses of the phrase in serious sources - though most uses are clearly from non-specialist sources. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
As WP:Article Titles states: "There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title." The best title is usually going to be the one that helps the reader the most in quickly identifying the article they are looking for and knowing that they have found the correct article. After doing a quick Google books search, "The Aztecs" does seem to be more prevalent than "Aztec civilization", but "Aztec Civilization" seems to be used quite often in publications. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:38, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
There have been similar discussions such as Viking vs Vikings. For what it's worth, Encyclopedia Brittanica also uses the singular form, Aztec. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 16:46, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

The plural form seems like more natural to use as an article title to me. Americans rather than "American". Rreagan007 (talk) 17:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
See below on Americans. Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:00, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Are you filtering out results of "Aztec" as an adjective as in "Aztec culture" or "Aztec people" or "Aztec civilization"? If not, then you're picking up a lot of false positives for "Aztec". Rreagan007 (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Worth checking. I've looked at those terms and adjusted accordingly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
All in all, the discussion above illustrates why the title is what it is, and where it should probably remain. Johnbod (talk) 18:13, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
I am joining this discussion late, but I have published in the field and would like to join this exchange. I am in favor of use "The Aztecs" as the article title. A classic work in the field is Charles Gibson's The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule (Stanford UP 1964).  A recent reference work, The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, (Oxford U Press 2017) likewise uses that phrase.  IMHO "Aztec" is an adjective, modifying a noun, "Aztec culture," "Aztec warfare," "Aztec commerce," etc. "The Aztecs" is succinct and clear.Amuseclio (talk) 00:36, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Amuseclio
There is a strong convention, described at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name) against beginning articles with "the", for various reasons, including searching and indexing. All sorts of subjects where any monograph would naturally have a title beginning with "the" don't have it in the WP title - Sistine Chapel for example.  Johnbod (talk) 10:27, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that "The Aztecs" is not really an option, but simply "Aztecs" may do well, and perhaps preferable to the current title that it sort of not sure whether it wants to be a noun or an adjective.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:48, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
By another convention, such titles are normally reserved for articles on "peoples", like Americans, Germans etc, often redirecting to "Foo people(s)". We don't have Aztec people (redirects here), unlike say Maya peoples, for reasons you will understand. And the article has relatively little on an ethnological approach. Johnbod (talk) 15:35, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
We have Nahua people for the contemporary ethnic group. Aztec is more of what archeologists would call a "cultural horizon" in late postclassic central Mexico. Some current scholars use Aztec for pre-contact Nahuatl speakers and Nahua people for colonial and postcolonial Nahuatl speakers. It is a very complicated terminology unfortunately, and there is no standard solution to the problem in the literature.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:21, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
I note the article lead has the stutter start "The Aztecs." I am in favor of renaming the article "Aztecs," since "The Aztecs" is outside of Wikipedia article naming conventions. "Aztecs" has the great virtue of having high name-recognition for the general reader in a way that "Nahuas" does not. James Lockhart could title his major monograph The Nahuas after the Conquest thirty years after Charles Gibson's pioneering and classic The Aztecs under Spanish Rule because a great number ethnohistorians helped make "Nahuas" have name recognition at least among scholars. "Aztecs" has continuing recognition and staying power for the general reader. Amuseclio (talk) 04:53, 20 April 2018 (UTC)Amuseclio

Please discuss this proposal at Talk:History_of_the_Aztecs#Merge_article_with_Aztec_or_Aztec_Empire? Johnbod (talk) 19:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

There should be an article on Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora. 2601:586:C701:4135:6C6C:AB19:F8D3:B825 (talk) 04:43, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

"The center of Tenochtitlan was the sacred precinct, a walled-off square area which housed the Great Temple, temples for other deities, the ballcourt, the calmecac (a school for nobles), a skull rack tzompantli, displaying the skulls of sacrificial victims, houses of the warrior orders, a penitential palace of the tlatoani and a merchants palace. Around the sacred precinct were the royal palaces built by the tlatoanis"
Anybody knows what is meant by "penitential palace"? Mimihitam (talk) 18:25, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@Mimihitam: it should be a bad reference to Sahagún or Durán's description of the Coateocalli/Coacalco (see Emily Umberger, Jeb J. Card and Benítez, then Gran Diccionario Náhuatl for the exact quote, and Miguel León-Portilla for the explanation, p.182-183). It's the temple 15 on the image below. El Comandante (talk) 03:20, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

In the paragraph about king Ahuitzotl there is a campaign date of 1521. He was already dead then, so it should be removed. Szkokt (talk) 08:34, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

"The Nahuatl words (aztecatl [asˈtekat͡ɬ], singular)[9] and (aztecah [asˈtekaʔ], plural)[9] mean "people from Aztlan,"[10] a mythical place of origin for several ethnic groups in central Mexico. "
Why are there parentheses around the words "aztecatl" and "aztecah" ? - 129.242.218.55 (talk)

This article was semi-protected due to vandalism in 2011. Is that still necessary? - 129.242.218.55 (talk) 14:02, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Hopefully not. I have lowered protection to pending changes. ϢereSpielChequers 08:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

There is a part of this section that is erroneously cited and therefore is inaccurate. 
"While the Aztecs did have gender roles associated with “men” and “women” it should also be noted that they did not live in a two-gendered society. In fact, there were multiple “third gender” identities that existed throughout their society and came with their own gender roles. The term “third gender” isn’t the most precise term that can be used. Rather, their native Nahuatl words such as patlache and cuiloni are more accurate since “third gender” is more of a Western concept. The names for these gender identities are deeply connected to the religious customs of the Aztecs, and as such, did play a large role in Aztec society."
First off, it is asserted as true that the Aztec had a "third gender" and that this alleged gender even had tasks specific to their identity yet without specifying what such tasks may have been or how they'd be descriptively distinct from either male or female gender roles. But there's an even worse problem here...
The above passage cites Peter Sigal (2005) as its sole source material for such a broad claim, which, I might add, is already problematic. However, here's the real issue, the person who cited the source did not even cite accurately. Here's a direct quote I extracted from the noted source:
“The conclusion must be that the woman is actually a cross-dressing male. Whether this male was viewed as a woman, a man, a berdache, or a third gender we cannot know (Sigal 2005, 588).”
There's two problems here. The first is that the description of the alleged "third gender appears more like an amalgam of male and female, even being described as mere "cross dresser", which would not signal a third gender. Secondly, the cited source does not even make the grand claim for which they are being cited. I find this erroneous claim to be yet another example of people attempting to baptize, or really Westernize/Northernize, the Aztec as being somehow post-structuralist/critical theorists. It's rather disgusting, really. Please stop it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.11.184 (talk) 17:40, 13 December 2020 (UTC) 
UPDATE: I just finished the cited article, and its relevance to the noted erroneous citations gets even worse. First off, I am under the impression that the person that cited the article did NOT read it, at least not in its entirety. The article in question begins making bold statements about mistaken past readings of Pre-conquest Aztec thought on themes such as homosexuality, intersexuality, and gender identity. However, Sigal, the author of the noted paper, concludes with nothing but speculation and questions, never once providing anything of substance on the matters he sets out to address. The paper underscores pretty much that the Pre-conquest Aztec held similar views to the European conquerors. However, Sigal merely speculates how this could not be the case based on what is merely a hypothesis (conjecture, really) of collective acquiescence. This hypothesis is weak in light of what much historical and anthropological analysis has gleaned about the Aztec's stubborn adherence to gender equality for much of Post-conquest. And, to be sure, Sigal admits that we cannot be sure about the status of so-called "third gender". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.11.184 (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I just read the paper and while I generally have not seen a reason to think Sigal is a problematic source as you indicate, I agree that his paper's attempt to tie the textual evidence toward the Aztecs having a "third gender" class is extremely tenuous at best, and the WP article paragraph in question completely misreads the entire thing. It's removed now, and there would have to be an evidence of a building mass of scholarly recognition of a Nahua third gender for something like that to be suitable to re-add – one paper isn't sufficient. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:40, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

What is WITH all the comma splices?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:BD20:1B9A:5AC:DE18:F19B:A926 (talk) 21:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC) 

Aztec is not the correct for one of the last civilizations of central Mexico. Is Mexica. In the article it should be explained that Aztec is a newer denomination but that it is incorrect because it refers to many groups and besides that the Mexica never called themselves Aztecs and they are just called Mexica or even Mexican in Spanish documents that time. 201.110.98.221 (talk) 17:44, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Please provide sources for this, and exactly what text you would like removed, and what text added. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:58, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Quote: "The Aztecs once fed 200k people in inarable swampy land by creating floating gardens they farmed extensively"  
Quote: "When Hernan Cortez discovered the Aztec Empire in 1519, he found 200,000 people living on an island in the middle of a lake. Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, was one of the biggest and best-fed cities in the world. The city was completely surrounded by water.  
To feed their enormous population, the Aztecs built chinampas, or floating gardens, to convert the marshy wetlands of Lake Texcoco into arable farmland. Each garden was 300 feet by 30 feet. To make a garden, workers weaved sticks together to form a giant raft, and then then piled mud from the bottom of the lake on top of the raft to create a layer of soil three feet thick."  
Sources (until now) only https://www.facebook.com/worldhistory100/posts/1744709559046209 

https://www.facebook.com/Integrated.Organic.Farming/posts/4409399729110648 
https://www.facebook.com/savethebeesau/posts/3022145474733337 
 
By the way: Is there a column ´Ancient farming, gardening´ ? 
--Visionhelp (talk) 12:25, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Should we add the topic of how the Aztecs bathed (personal hygiene) and cleaned their cities with their aqueducts? I went ahead and added some of that stuff to the Aztec Society wiki page, but it still isn't very detailed. I don't know if its allowed on this specific page, and if anyone else can do a more detailed job than I did. I find the subject important, but I don't know what everyone else thinks about this. 68.62.155.13 (talk) 21:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I didn't realize there was another separate article, but we had this discussion already at Talk:Aztec Empire#Polytheism is inaccurate. Long story short, this article is over 50 years out of date in its framing of Aztec/Nahua religion. I updated Aztec Empire already so you can kind of see what the reframing looks like, and Aztec religion, which I notified long ago, is next. New comments should probably go to the original thread. I'd recommend reading the entire thread first, and if you only have time to read one (long) source it should be Maffie's IEP article, which cites a broad range of the literature. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I have the strong impression when reading this article that the Aztecs died out because they didn't have sex. Damorbel (talk) 15:53, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Looking through the books saved on my laptop, you make an excellent point! The archaeology and writing and myths for both the Aztecs and Classical Maya seem to be disturbingly chaste. Check out the imagery of the pre-Conquest Aztec goddesses of sex: Xōchiquetzal and Tlazolteotl. Hawt. Of course just because it's not preserved doesn't mean it didn't exist (especially for considering anything of the Classical Maya), and there's some good recent scholarship exploring what we can gleam about sex from the early post-Conquest period. The sorta deification of La Malinche (wife of Cortes) is discussed in terms of sexuality by Matthew Restall (2003) Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, ch. 5 (a great read in general).
In addition, I can sorta recommend reading Sigal (2005) "The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin: Homosexualities in Early Colonial Nahua Society" as discussed previously. It's not usable for this article until there's more scholarship on that subject in particular, but it's an interesting read and probably has some useful citations to check out on sex in general. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Can I add Part 1 and 2 of JoJo's Bizarre adventure to the Pop Culture section? 
In the Japanese Anime Series, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in its first part Phantom Blood it features an Aztec stone mask that when used can turn humans into Vampires and grant them supernatural powers. The ending scene of Phantom Blood contains a depiction of an Aztec mural in which an Aztec chief is seen stabbing an Aztec woman while wearing the Stone Mask, as the woman's blood fills the mural. In Part 2 titled, Battle Tendency, the Aztecs once again have a role in the story as Speedwagon, a supporting character discovers an Aztec Tomb filled with Stone Masks. RipplerEmi (talk) 19:33, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed the following:

There are uncited statements, including entire paragraphs, in the article.
The article is over 14,000 words, more than what is recommended in WP:TOOBIG. I think several sections, such as the "Definitions", "History", and "Religion" can have some of the information moved to their spun out articles, while other sections like "Art and cultural production" and "Legacy" can have information spun out into new articles. I also think some information can be summarised more effectively.
Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 03:17, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Maybe it should, or you could start improving and re-organizing the article yourself? (I'm not against a GAR, but I feel that actually addressing problems would do more good than just reviewing them. Unfortunately I have little time to work on this myself, for now.) Gawaon (talk) 08:27, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
@Gawaon: I have neither the time nor the interest to improve this article. With almost 43,000 good articles, I have chosen not to take on large projects that I'm uninterested in, and I hope editors who care about the article can take the lead on improvements. I'm happy to add tags if pinged or re-review the article once it is ready. Z1720 (talk) 15:09, 23 November 2025 (UTC)