The World полностью

The Genoans were not the only ones lured by the Atlantic: Mansa Abubakr II, grandson of Sundiata, ‘didn’t believe it was impossible to discover the furthest limits of the Atlantic Ocean and wished vehemently to do so’, explained his successor, Musa, ‘so he equipped 300 ships filled with men, gold, water, provisions to last years’ and dispatched them. Only one ship returned, so the mansa ‘got ready 2,000 ships – 1,000 for himself and his men, 1,000 for water and provisions – and left me to deputize for him’ as he embarked on the Atlantic. The fleet is be exaggerated, but why should not African kings crave exploration any less than Genoese: did the mansa sail for America?

The American south-west was in turmoil. Just around this time, something terrible happened to Cahokia and the other Mississippi kingdoms. Drought, disease or war broke these settlements, which were then abandoned. Mass graves of dismembered, sometimes cannibalized, bodies suggest a violent cleansing, and a stampede migration. Out of this mayhem, in ways we may never understand, came a realignment of the peoples of north America and the migration southwards of the people who would found the Mexica empire. The Cahokians were pressured by migrations of other tribes, which the survivors probably joined; some may have continued to grow maize but most lived as both hunter-foragers and planters of maize and beans. After the downfall of the Mississippian kings, these tribes were probably governed by assemblies in which respected elders debated decisions with the entire tribe including women, choosing leaders for wars or special hunts. But their world was not peaceful. They constantly fought each other; no tribe was dominant; power politics among the peoples of the vastness of North America were for the next two centuries in constant flux.

The advancing tribes who may have pressured Cahokia or exploited the chaos were peoples speaking Uto-Nahuatl or Uto-Aztecan languages moving eastwards from California. Some stayed in the north – later they became the Comanche and Shoshane peoples – but many others, gradually over centuries, were drawn to the rich cities and fecund land of the Valley of Mexico and migrated south. They all came from a semi-mythical land they called Aztlan – origin of the word Aztec. In around 1300, one of the poorest and latest to arrive were the Mexica (pronounced me-sheek-a), who were treated as outcasts and driven on to the least desirable land.

The Mexica arrived in a land of powerful cities, Texcoco and Azcapotzalco, where peoples lived on maize and beans, cooking tamales and tortillas, drinking alcoholic pulque made from the agave cactus (much weaker than tequila and fermented rather than distilled). Women spun cotton textiles; men farmed and fought – they deployed neither metal nor the wheel but their children’s toys had wheels; they used rubber mixed with the sap of morning glory (a process not discovered in the west until the nineteenth century) to make balls for their games. In the absence of metal, they crafted obsidian volcanic glass for their weapons.^*

The Mexica were inspired not only by the existing cities but also by the astonishing ruins of the mysterious city that they called Teotihuacan – Home of the Gods – and Tula – Place of Reeds. In 1325, the supreme god of the Mexica chose a marshy island site by killing his nephew Copil, throwing the heart into Lake Texcoco and telling the Mexica to build their city where they found an eagle eating a snake. They built Tenochtitlan there because no one else wanted this swampy place, but, like Venice, once the drainage was solved, it would become a defensible, almost impregnable city linked to the mainland by a causeway.

At first the Mexica served as soldiers for the nearby city state of Azcapotzalco, home of the Tepanecs, fellow Nahuatl-speakers from north America, ruled by a family descended from the Toltec kings, but they established relationships with many of the local cities. Around this time they decided to choose a monarch – tlatoani, which means Speaker – marrying their leader Acamapichtli to a Tepanec princess. Chosen from the family by a council of grandees, the new Speaker stood naked before their patron god, then led a military expedition to capture prisoners for sacrifice before the installation ceremony of pageantry, dancing and human sacrifice. His son Huitzilihuitl (Hummingbird Feather) expanded city and territory while building alliances through marriages to princesses from kingdoms outside the Valley. He backed the victorious Tepanecs, who allowed the Mexica to build their own relationship with nearby Texcoco. Formally just the first among equals in an oligarchy of aristocrats, the Speaker technically owned all land, which he assigned to his nobles, an elite served by slaves. When a ruler died, his slaves were killed with him. The Mexica were established at their island city – but it would take a conqueror to win them an empire.