Talk:Aztecs/2006-1

message: Recently added "martial arts": is this really supposed to be "martial arts" (physical techniques of personal combat) or "military arts" (all techniques used in war: strategy, tactics, etc.)? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:56, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont think the military training of the aztec would qualify as a martial art... Specially as almost nothing of it is known...   :( Nanahuatzin 18:51, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Um, that would seem to suggest that Martial Law is when students and bogus twenty year old "grand masters" (twenty years of age, not experience) from so called McDojos take over the rule of a country? No, martial is an adjective which implies some form of military involvement. Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" could just as easily be called "Martial Art" but it isn't in the interest of clarity and avoiding confusion due to the colloquial usage of the term. Though, it would be just as technically correct to be called that. 24.254.163.104 06:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "martial arts" 

message: Where do the (recently changed) populations given for European cities come from? The article now says: Constantinople with about 200,000 inhabitants, Paris with about 250,000, and Venice with about 160,000. 
Previously we had some numbers cited from Top Ten Cities of the Year 1500, which cites Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census by Tertius Chandler. 1987, St. David's University Press, which I would expect to be reliable. Chandler gives Constantinople as 200,000, but gives Paris as only 185,000, and if he mentions Venice it would presumably be behind the tenth in his list, Nanjing, China with 147,000.
While Chandler had some idiosyncratic views on pre-600-BCE Ancient Middle East and Greece, I'd expect him to be rock solid on anything since that date. I'd consider Chandler to have been a pretty good citation; can anyone explain why it was removed and where the new numbers come from? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  European populations 

message: I was wondering why there is absolutely no mention of the "Tepanec Expansion" under the rule of Tezozomoc, seeing how it was one of the most major events in later Mesoamerican history. Historically speaking, it created the first true nation-state since Teotihuacan 600 years before, it propelled the Mexica and Acolhua from subservant status to states in there own rights. It also led to the independence of of the state of Texcoco by the army led by Netzahualcoyotl, who defeated the forces of Maxtla in a single battle.  Its an interesting period in our history, and very much so one of my favorite due to the amount of involvement by many tribes.  It is also the bases for the "Triple Alliance", which is why I thought it was important. 
I was wondering if I could put the basic information on the period down and expand on it (as well as the Tepanec people, Tezozomoc, and Netzahualcoyotl, a very interesting figure who comes close to being the Texcoco version of Huitzilopochtli).
:Please do!--Curtis Clark 05:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have created an article title Tepanec.  It's just a stub.  I will leave it for somebody else to fill it out. Richard 09:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that a Tepanec article is definitely needed.  However, I believe that we have the right amount of mention of Tezozomoc and Nezahualcoyotl etc etc in this article already.  Madman 03:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tepanec Expansion Age omitted 

message: just to bring something up:
"Although one could drink pulque, a fermented beverage with an alcoholic content equivalent to beer, getting drunk before the age of 60 was forbidden. While the first time was punished, reincidents could get the penalty of death."
is this for real? in a civilization without modern medicine, how many people would even make it to that age? i've read elsewhere that the life expectancy in classical civilizations was often less than 40, depending on the civ. i cant think what wikipedia article said that, but it didnt have citations either. i suppose the elite of society might live to 60 being pampered, and thus allowed to drink, but why not just make the rule that only the elite can drink? (unsigned comment by 204.95.67.67)
:It's the average life expectancy at birth that is most often cited. Considering that infant mortality was (and in many places still is) so high, some people have to live to 60 and beyond to make the average expectancy 40.--Curtis Clark 17:13, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think i will have to put more citations...  In this case.  This is from Soustelle, J. (1961). The Daily life of the Aztecs. London, WI: He  took this part from the mendocino codex, and is also mentioned in the florentine codex. Maybe i need to expand this. The penalties for getting drung were not equal to all. Comon people who get drunk were only admonished at first and could get a physical punishment and his head was saved, as a public display. It was pillis  (nobles) who could get a death peanlty if they get drunk before get to 60. From the aztec point of view, a greter status impied a greater responsability.  The mean life of aztecs was 38 years, so those who get to old age, were higly respected. Old men and woomen were pampered,  no matter their origin, They were the holders of the Huehuetlatoli.. and enyoy yo give long lecture on every festivy.  After conquest, drinking becamea very comon problem... Nanahuatzin 07:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pulque

message: Hi, I got here as an extension of a massive restructuring of the Hernan Cortes article.
As part of the restructuring, I moved the discussion of Cortes' campaign against the Aztecs to a new article entitled Spanish Conquest of Mexico.  There is also a separate article entitled the Siege of Tenochtitlan.  This all started because some of the contributors to the Hernan Cortes article was getting too long.
The Aztec article is even longer than the Cortes article was before I started moving stuff to other articles.
I am now proposing to pull out the text in the Downfall section of the Aztec article and merge it into the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, leaving behind a brief summary as a stub.  I would use the "main article" template to reference the Spanish Conquest of Mexico article.
Richardshusr 21:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propose consolidating Downfall section with [[Spanish Conquest of Mexico]] article 

message: Sure seems to me that a great deal of this article VIOLATES Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View Policy. There are facts here and there are opinions here which should be moved elsewhere.
----
The above comment was made by 68.77.6.169.  What 68.77.6.169 says may be true but I will point out that it is very difficult to maintain a NPOV on some topics, especially when it is easy to make a judgment based upon deep-rooted prejudices and assumptions.
I have scanned the article quickly and I don't see any blatant NPOV issues although I'm sure I could pick some out if I really tried.  Is the problem that the article favors Aztecs over other Mesoamerican cultures or vice versa?  Or is it that it favors Aztecs over the Spaniards or vice versa?
It would help if 68.77.6.169 and others would specifically identify the opinions that they think which should be moved elsewhere.  I am open to this idea but I need help identifying the specific points which are considered to be opinions.  Once we've done that, we can think about where those opinions should go.
Personally, I don't think the NPOV issues are important enough to warrant a separate article but I'm willing to be convinced.  Please get down to brass tacks and specify what the issues are so we can discuss them.
Richard 18:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article violates NPOV?

message: I just expanded the paragraph about Ahuitzotl and the rate of human sacrifice.  I assume this text was originally written by Nanahuatin.  Does my expansion capture what you were trying to say?
Also, I moved the sentence "In Mesoamerican cultures, faith was an important part of their life and death." to the beginning of the Religion section.  In that position, it serves as an introductory summary for the whole section.  Put where it was, it seemed to be a bit of an orphan.
Richard 17:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks, it´s much better Nanahuatzin 22:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions about religion and human sacrifice 

message: Nanahuatzin,
There is no Wiki article on the Ramirez Codex which is mentioned in this article.  Is it worth writing a quick one?  Can you do it?
Is this the [[José Fernando Ramírez]|Ramirez] who wrote the Codex?  It's not mentioned explicitly in the article.
Richard 05:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it deserves an article, i have been postponing it, there still so much to do.. but i will give priority, sincees it,s one of then main sources. It was discover by  Fernando Ramírez, while it is credited to Father Tovar, he copied from ana nahuatl source ( the mauscript has two columns, one is empty, and probably he expected to put the original nahuatl there).  Nanahuatzin 22:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and wrote a short article on the Ramirez Codex, part of my current obsession with Mesoamerican codices.  Hope you like it - and check out the Aztec codices article itself.  I still need to write up something on the Borgia Codex.  Madman 18:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about the Ramirez Codex 

message: Here's some text from Spanish conquest of Mexico
"The Totonacs had been defeated by the Texcocans and by Huehue Moteuczoma, and they had been paying tribute since Ahuitzotl."
Who is "Huehue Moteuczoma"?  I assume the writer is trying to say "Huey Tlatoani Moteuczoma I".  Is that how you would read it?
Thanks.
Richard 08:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The text it´s a bit pedantic... but correct. Huehue means Old, And it´s how the aztec refer to Moctezuma I, While Moctezuma II, was called Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, or "Moctezuma the young". The use of numerals is and european tradition unknown to aztecs  :)  ....  Nanahuatzin 22:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can you take a look at this? 

message: I think the Aztec article is rapidly reaching the criteria required to be considered a "good" article.  One of the criteria for being considered a "good" article is stability.  The content shouldn't be constantly being updated and it shouldn't be subject to edit wars.  We're OK on the second point but I want to get your agreement about the first one.  Are you more or less happy with the content so that we can stop adding content long enough to qualify as a "good" article?  If so, I will nominate it to be that.  We probably still need some copy editing but I think the English is adequate throughout most of the article.
The key point here is that we would need to stop adding content and focus on copy editing for a while.  If that's OK with you, I would suggest that we go for "good article" status.  Even if we don't get GA status, we will get someone to give us pointers on what we need to do to get it.
Read WP:WIAGA for details.  Then express your opinion here.
Richard 01:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found there are still so many areas and holes to be expanded or at least considered and referred to other articles, as it has been done on the section of Human sacrifice, that was cut to another article. I want to coment on Aztec writing, aztec medicine, aztec calendary, and maybe more important, the aztec concept of man (wich i have begining to study). The section on aztec religion barely touches the subject, of course it should be an article by it´s own, but it would take more time.  Maybe in a year it will be ready for "Good article"   if you can cope with my english....  :)  Nanahuatzin 01:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that there is ample scope for more expansion in quite a few areas, however the criteria for GA status appear to be not so stringent-  each area does not need to be explored to the nth degree, as long as they are addressed in some reasonable fashion. But a GA nomination at this point may be premature (although no harm is done putting it through the process if it does not succeed). Perhaps the article ought to go to Peer Review first- it can be a little hit-and-miss, but often a few useful suggestions will come out of the process.--cjllw | TALK 04:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this a "good" article?  Do we want it to be? 

message: I just found that there is info  repeated in the topics of "Spanish conquest of Mexico" and "Siege of Tenochtitlan" and probably in other sections. Also some of this info if from older version of this page.  Can you help me to put some order?. Specially the section of "Spanish conquest of Mexico" which seems to have been cut and pasted from other articles, like the Article on "Mexico".  thanks    Nanahuatzin 09:15, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi.  That explains a lot. I have hardly touch the Hernan Cortez Article, and the Aztec article has been sectiones , because it was too big.  Firt i will try to review what articles are related to aztecs, and try so asses whast should go in heaach one. Of course there should be some repetition, but now i foudn to mmany. I am on Hollydays 
"semana Santa" but next week i will start on this  thanks for your help Nanahuatzin 02:30, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related pages need cleanup and restructuring

message: By the way.. it seems my "typing" is worse than ussual in the last months...
I think i need a vacation... thanks for your patience.. Nanahuatzin 10:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apologies

message: As if the problems mentioned by Nanahuatzin above weren't enough, I have now added to the issues to be regularized by moving some of the text from this article to the Aztec religion article.
Here's my rationale:
Before I resurrected it, the Aztec religion link used to redirect to the Aztec mythology article.  However, this suggests that the most important thing to discuss about Aztec religion is a discussion of their pantheon of gods which is what the Aztec mythology article provides.
When I looked at the history of Aztec religion, I found that it used to consist of a long piece of unwikified text that was in dire need of cleanup and reorganization.  So I did it.  I merged the original Aztec religion text with the text from the "Religion" section of the Aztec article and put it in Aztec religion after breaking the redirect.
Now, I know there is also an article entitled Human sacrifice in Aztec culture.  The next step in this cleanup process is to move the "Human sacrifice" section out of the Aztec religion article and merge it with the text in the Human sacrifice in Aztec culture article.
Though he toil from sun to sun,
A Wikipedia editor's work is never done.
Richard 08:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved much of the "Religion" section to [[Aztec religion]] article 

message: In the last decades, and probably due to the New age movement, a lot of groups are trying to revive the azte religion. In the proces they are mixing concepts from european and induh esoteric traditions, thus reinventing the prehispanic religions (you will see them every solstice in the pyramides, dressed in white, while "recharging" their "energy"). While i am trying to revert the aditions of this people, not always i succed. The simptons are, complety deny of the practice of Humman sacrifice and Antropopagy. While this practices do not seems to have the huge numbers of popular accounts, they were real, and can not by denied. Also ther took to extrems some claims by historians. Nanahuatzin 02:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  warnings on aztec religion

message: In particular, there is this sentence...
"Because of the fall of their social structure, the population had to resort to the Spanish to maintain some order."
Did you (Nanahuatzin) write this?  If so, can you explain what you meant?  Are you saying that the internal social structure of the Aztecs and related cultures fell apart so that only the Spaniards were left to impose order on the indigenous societies of Mesoamerica?  The above text implies that but it is too terse to really get the point across.  Can you expand on this point?
Thanx.
Richard 05:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes  that is what i try to imply. It is deliberately terse.. because 
i still looking for info about the process. Of course, it was much more complex than that
The great urban centers fell apart, the former autorities were drestroyed and the
procces used by the spaniard to concentrate the survivors in a few population centers, destroyed the
power of the upper classes. That is how mesaomerican cultures colapsed.. But.. it was not the same
for all, and i sill don`t know how voluntary was this process. Certainly the mesoamerican culture were attacacek by the misioners. The educatinal system was torn apart, and instead of providing education for all, at first only those considered noble receievd some education, and then all of them were forbitten of having any education..  Their attack also was resposible of the fall of the social structure. The chichimeca fought for 60 years. And i amd still not certain of the process in the south (mixteca/zapoteca/trarascos). I will prefer to left it like this until i confirm if this was the same for all cultures. Nanahuatzin 02:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please review the section "The Fate of the Aztec empire under Spanish rule" 

message: I find the Aztec entry very limited in scope, and it would be good to broaden the coverage. Here is what I mean by limited.
(1) consideration is limited mostly to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, with little information on the other 2 million Aztec peoples in central Mexico. For example, city-states were far more important to most Aztec people than was the Triple Alliance empire, but the entry ignores city-states. In this and other topics, the coverage follows what the Mexica said about themselves (often biased, self-serving, and even incorrect), and not what scholars have managed to reconstruct of Aztec society and culture.  
(2) There is almost no archaeology in the entry, but this is where the major advances are being made in  understanding Aztec life, the conditions of elites and commoners, cities and urbanization, agriculture, and a wide range of economic and social aspects.  
(3) Most of the information is from a small number of texts (the chroniclers), with little consideration of administrative documents or codices.  
The net result is an entry that only covers a small part of what we know about the Aztecs, and only a small part of what is interesting and important about this culture. I'd like to contribute more, but just don't have much time right now. I did make some additions to the bibliography, and I'll try to add some material as I have time.
Michael E. Smith
: Yes,  as stated in the entry, this articles centers about the Mexica, the other peoples, could no be extrictly called Aztec. This is a limited term,  barely used in prehispanic times. What i think we need, and is an article about the nahua in general, Tlaxclateca, Acolcua, Tepaneca, etc..., where the Mexica were just one of them.
: most of the info i have put, is confirmed on archeological findings, but as you say, there is so much to say, that the article has to be broken in sections. I invite you to visit those parts and put from what your perspective is important. I have centered most about the mexica historical sources, since a lot of this info is unknow to most english speaking readers. 
: there are only four aztec codex, while the info is not referer directly, it has been taken as the basis:
: Welcome. Please help us. Any new perspective would be important.  Nanahuatzin 23:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Limited perspective of this entry 

message: I have created an RFC linking to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mexico/Terminology to get some opinions on the use of "Spanish" vs. "Spaniard" in referring to those from Spain who conquered and ruled Latin America during the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Richard 06:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Spanish" vs. "Spaniard" 

message: In attempt to better organize the Aztec pages and make them easier to navigate, I've created a template to include in all the related pages. You can see it on this page, I will add it to the other ones as well. Neither the layout, nor the contents are finished, I need some help for this. Editing the template is as easy as editing another page, but be careful not to mess up the layout, always use the preview button. The template is here Template:Aztec. To include it in a page, add  at the top of the page (without empty line following). The society section is pretty much okay, in the people section I've added the "Great emperors" list from one of the articles, maybe we can add all the emperors, maybe others, I'll leave that to you. The template should not get too long. The history section is not good at all, mostly because the articles currently are not organized well. Ideally there should be a page "History of the Aztecs" or "Aztec Empire" (currently redirect), with subpages like "Rise of the Aztec Empire", "Aztec Triple Alliance", "Fall of the Aztec Empire", maybe more, so this section in the template can give an overview of the complete Aztec History. Piet 12:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excelent, this helps to give a great coherence, but instead of the list of emperaror coul be put the link to "Hueyi Tlatoani"?. Many thanks. Nanahuatzin 04:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template 

message: The original template is at Template:Pre-Columbian.  The "new and improved" version is at  Template:Pre-Columbian/Test.  
Once we have a usable version of Template:Pre-Columbian/Test, we plan to move it into Template:Pre-Columbian and then insert it at the bottom of the Aztec, Maya civilization and Inca empire articles.
Discussion is at Template talk:Pre-Columbian.  Please share any feedback and suggestions that you may have. 
--Richard 19:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Check out the new Pre-Columbian templates 

message: Nanahuatzin has joined Project Aztec.  Nobody else has.  That's OK, listing your name as a "participant" is just a formality.  Hopefully you've checked out the page and will add any information that you feel is relevant.
Personally, I think creating a project for Aztec-related articles is a bit of overkill.  I think there are about 25 Aztec-related pages and about 5 active editors.  This is at the very low end of the range for which a project page is useful.
Nonetheless, I thought I'd give it a try partly to give a home to the decisions we've take about terminology Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology.
I've just added a task "Review the History of Mexico article".   I'm not sure if the discussion of the Aztecs is quite accurate.  See the project page for details.
--Richard 18:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any reason not to just handle this under Wikipedia:WikiProject Mexico? At the very least, I would think it should be listed there as a subproject. - Jmabel | Talk 03:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project Aztec 

message: Nothing about architecture in this article. Could anyone write a few words? Maybe here on the talk if you don't know where to put them in the article. Piet 21:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've renamed the Tenochtitlan section to "City building and architecture" and added a few words. The more knowledgeable among us can probably expand it a bit. Piet 15:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Architecture 

message: I've moved a few references to footnotes. What I wanted to do was bring a common citation style to the article, but I ran into a few problems. Here are the options:
*Harvard referencing: like (Boone, 1989). This is the most scientific, but I don't like it because it breaks the flow of the article.
*Footnotes: like the ones I have added. There is an equivalent template that doesn't put "Note x" next to the reference; this would be better. Disadvantage is that we have to number them ourselves.
*ref template: this is the one I prefer. In the text you add "text of the reference" and at the bottom of the article you add "". Example: Red rain in Kerala. Everything is done automatically. The problem is that we can no longer format the references section as we want, so splitting in "Primary sources" and "secondary sources" would not be possible.
The guideline is at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Piet 11:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also prefer the "ref template" method.  In the Olmec article, we have both Reference and Footnotes sections -- if we do that, the Reference section can be arranged any way we want.  Madman 13:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

text: You can separate out notes and references. See Abraham Goldfaden for a good example. - Jmabel | Talk 03:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnotes 

message: Has there been a discussion about this article's name? Somehow I'm not very comfortable with it. I would prefer Aztec civilization like for the Mayas. I know we should not go lightly over this, but there's no use postponing the discussion. Piet 12:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it's bothered me forever.  I'll try to look to see if there's anything in the archives on this question but I definitely vote for Aztec civilization.  We can move this article and then put a redirect from "Aztec" to "Aztec civilization".
--Richard 14:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article name 

message: I nominated this article for the Mexico collaboration back in April but it only got one other vote besides my own.  Now may be a good time to vote for this article.  Getting some extra eyes on it can help with any copyediting problems.  --Richard 14:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mexico collaboration 

message: In the Tenochtitlan article, I found the following sentence...
"The palace of Moctezuma also had two houses or zoos, one for birds of prey and another for other birds, reptiles and mammals."
What is "the palace of Moctezuma"?  Is it the palace of Moctezuma I or Moctezuma II?  I would presume that it is the palace of Moctezuma II but it could have been built by Moctezuma I so I figured I should ask for clarification.
--Richard 06:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me check, but if i remember correcty, the palace was built by Axayacatl and was the residence of Moctezuma II. I was there where Cortez and the Tlaxcalteca (about 3,000 people) stayed. Adding to the confusion... Moctezuma also has two royal houses. Which sometimes are alss refered as Moctezuma Palace. Let me double check this...  Nanahuatzin 20:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tenochtitlan - Palace of Moctezuma