Hove you ever thought how Aztecs life looked like? Let’s discover five adorable Aztecs facts for kids.
The Aztecs had a large pantheon of gods that they worshipped, they praised over 200 gods for many different reasons. These gods had specific jobs which the Aztecs prayed to them about such as Tlaloc, the god of rain.
There were many forms of art used by the Aztecs and they dedicated many works of art to the gods and portrayed and prayed to their gods using art. They would represent the gods in artworks through animals that were related to them. The sun god, Huitzilopochtli, was shown in art as a hummingbird.
The Aztecs knew how important education was and made sure that all children went to school. The Aztecs believed that the date you were born would decide what you were good at and so they sent you to a school that would help develop those skills.
Some schools took place in churches and were run by a High Priest, there the sons of noble men would learn to become priests themselves.
They created these islands by creating a fenced area out of woven reeds under the surface of a lake and filling it with soil until it created a little bit of land. These islands were called Chinampa. The Chinampa were great for growing crops and they allowed the crops to gain water. The process of watering plants to help them grow is called irrigation. Irrigation usually relied on systems of pipes or channels but this system was an easy way for the Aztecs to water their plants.
The Aztecs were so good at creating new land they even built a city called Tenochtitlan on a man-made island. They built it in the middle of a lake as they believed a prophecy that foretold a great city being there. So they built it there to fulfil the prophecy. The image of the bird holding the snake from the prophecy is still on Mexico’s flag.
The cocoa bean had been discovered by people before the Aztecs but the Aztecs created food from it which we now know as chocolate. The Aztecs loved chocolate and thought it was a gift from their god Quetzalcoatl. They created the worlds first hot chocolate by mixing ground up and dried cocoa with water.
They also mixed in many other ingredients for flavour such as chilli peppers, vanilla, and honey. Cocoa beans were so valuable to the Aztecs that they even used them as a kind of money.
Aztec people were told who they should marry by matchmakers. These matchmakers would even carry brides to the wedding on their back. Weddings involved a great feast and a ceremony at night time with fire torches lit. Once the couple had said their vows their clothes were tied together in a knot to show how they were now joined. This practice is where the phrase ‘tie the knot’ comes from and people still use it to describe weddings today.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about Aztecs as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic these people are, you can move on to learn about other ones like: The Inuit, The Anglo Saxons, Vikings, Celts and Egyptians.
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