What was the role of religion among the Aztecs?
To make a very long story short… The Aztecs built their civilization based on a legend. They were to settle where they saw an eagle with a serpent in its talon while perched on a cactus. They saw this at Tenochtitlan on an island in the middle of a lake. This is in fact the current embelm in the middle of the Mexican flag. There they built temples and a city there in honor of their gods. The fall of their empire was also based on a legend and the calendar that they had. The Aztec’s concept of time said that time ran in cycles and that one age would end and another would begin every so many years. Their legend said that at the end of the current cycle their god Quetzalcoatl would return in the form of a man with pale skin. It was pure conicidence that the arrival of Cortez coincided with the end of their period on their calendar. Due to the timing their leader saw Cortez as the return of Quetzalcoatl and therefore did not immediately fight against the Spanish that came to Mexico. To f
