All about the ancient tribes
The Mexica were a Chichimeca tribe that claimed to have come from a mythical northern homeland known as Aztlán, so when they arrived in central Mexico they were called ”people of Aztlán”, or Aztecs. That’s right, the Aztecs themselves were, ancestrally, Chichimeca people.
Chichimeca (Spanish: [tʃitʃiˈmeka] ( listen)) is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajio region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same sense as the Roman term “barbarian” to describe Germanic tribes.
The Zacatecos (or Zacatecas) is the name of an indigenous group, one of the peoples called Chichimecas by the Aztecs. They lived in most of what is now the state of Zacatecas and the northeastern part of Durango. They have many direct descendants, but most of their culture and traditions have disappeared with time.
Chichimeca Indian Language (Chichimec, Chichimeco, Jonaz) Chichimeca is an Oto-Manguean language. Chichimeca is spoken by a few hundred indigenous people in rural Mexico.
They were both native peoples and both offered stout resistance to conquest. They also were not single entities. The Aztecs were an alliance, and there were a number of Apache bands. And the past tense applies only in some ways, because there are plenty of living people with that ancestry.
Muskogean-speaking peoples constituted the largest linguistic group in the aboriginal Southeast and minimally included the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Apalachee, Creek, Seminole, Alabama, Koasati, Hitchiti, and Mikasuki branches.
Wiktionary. Guanajuato (ProperNoun) A state in the central highlands of Mexico. Etymology: meaning hill of frogs.
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th century. They were a civilization with a rich mythology and cultural heritage. Their capital was Tenochtitlan on the shore of Lake Texcoco – the site of modern-day Mexico City.
Tula, also called Tollan, ancient capital of the Toltecs in Mexico, it was primarily important from approximately ad 850 to 1150. Although its exact location is not certain, an archaeological site near the contemporary town of Tula in Hidalgo state has been the persistent choice of historians.
In short, the Maya came first, and settled in modern-day Mexico. Next came the Olmecs, who also settled Mexico. They didn’t build any major cities, but they were widespread and prosperous. They were followed by the Inca in modern-day Peru, and finally the Aztecs, also in modern-day Mexico.
Many matured into advanced pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the: Olmec, Izapa, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huastec, Purépecha, Totonac, Toltec, and Aztec, which flourished for nearly 4,000 years before the first contact with Europeans.
The Chichimeca War (1550–90) was a military conflict between the Spanish Empire and the Chichimeca Confederation established in the territories today known as the Central Mexican Plateau, called by the Conquistadores La Gran Chichimeca. The epicenter of the hostilities was the region now called the Bajío.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
Group | Population | Speakers¹ |
---|---|---|
(Yucatec) Maya ( Maya ‘wiinik) | 1,475,575 | 892,723 |
Zapotec (Binizaa) | 777,253 | 505,992 |
Mixtec (Tu’un savi) | 726,601 | 510,801 |
Otomi (Hñähñü) | 646,875 | 327,319 |
The Aztecs, or more properly, the Mexica, as they called themselves, were not originally from the Valley of Mexico. Rather, they migrated from the north. They called their homeland Aztlan, “the Place of Herons.” Aztlan has not been identified archaeologically and was likely at least partly mythical.
By the 16th century, most of Mesoamerica was dominated by either the Aztec Empire or Purépecha Empire, but Guanajuato was under the control of neither.