The Aztecs, a civilization that continues to capture the imagination of North Americans, reigned supreme in Mesoamerica during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. By 1519, their empire stood as the most formidable kingdom in the region’s history, a testament to their military prowess, political acumen, and intricate social structure.
This expansive realm encompassed over 80,000 square miles, stretching across much of modern-day central and southern Mexico. Its borders extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf Coast, and southwards into what is now the Republic of Guatemala. This vast territory was home to an estimated fifteen million people, residing in 489 communities spread across thirty-eight provinces, all of whom paid tribute to the powerful Emperor Moctezuma II. The vibrant tapestry of the empire was woven with numerous ethnicities and languages, reflecting its diverse population and complex political landscape.
However, the zenith of Aztec power was soon to be challenged. In 1519, Hernán Cortés, leading a contingent of Spanish conquistadors, landed on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz. The arrival of the Spanish coincided with a period of unsettling omens and anxieties within Tenochtitlán, the magnificent Aztec capital, foreshadowing impending doom in the minds of Moctezuma II and his advisors. Through a strategic alliance with various indigenous groups, Cortés skillfully exploited existing rivalries and resentments towards Aztec rule. In a mere two years, this coalition of European and indigenous forces managed to dismantle one of the most remarkable empires in the Americas, forever altering the course of history.
While the rapid rise and fall of the Aztec Empire sets them apart from other indigenous peoples of the Americas, there is one significant aspect that connects them to a broader cultural and linguistic family. The Aztecs, along with other Nahuatl-speaking groups in Mexico, are part of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic group. This extensive language family spans a vast geographical area, stretching from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in the western United States, all the way south to El Salvador in Central America. The Aztecs represent a small, but historically significant, branch of this widespread linguistic tree.
Therefore, while the Aztecs of the 16th century resided in the south-central region of modern Mexico, many people living in the United States today could be considered distant relatives. If you are a member of the Shoshone, Ute, Paiute, or Gabrielino tribes, you may share common ancestry with the renowned Aztecs.
The basis for this connection lies in the field of historical linguistics. Through meticulous analysis of the Uto-Aztecan languages, particularly Nahuatl, scholars have determined that Nahuatl was not originally native to central Mexico. Instead, it is believed to have been brought south from regions in northwestern Mexico and, before that, from areas within the present-day United States. This migration narrative echoes the Aztec legend of Aztlán, the mythical homeland from which they embarked on their journey to the Valley of Mexico.
According to this legend, the Aztecs and other Nahuatl-speaking groups originated from a region in the northwest, commonly referred to as Aztlán-Chicomoztoc. The very name "Aztec" is believed to be derived from Aztlán, meaning "The Place of Herons." The legend describes Aztlán as a marshy island situated in the middle of a lake, a vivid image that has fueled centuries of speculation about its true location.
For nearly five centuries, the location of Aztlán has been a subject of intense debate and conjecture. Some scholars view Aztlán as a symbolic concept rather than a tangible place. However, many historians and anthropologists believe that Aztlán was a real geographical location. Historian Paul Kirchhoff proposed that Aztlán was situated along a tributary of the Lerna River, west of the Valley of Mexico. Others have suggested that the island of Janitzio in Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, with its physical characteristics resembling the description of Aztlán, could be the legendary homeland. Still others propose that Aztlán may have been located in California, New Mexico, or the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa.
The hypothesis that Sinaloa, Sonora, California, and New Mexico might be the location of Aztlán gains considerable support when considering historical linguistics. Anthropologist Professor Michael Smith of the University of New York, in his book The Aztecs, states, "The north-to-south movement of the Aztlán groups is supported by research in historical linguistics. The Nahuatl language, classified in the Nahuan group of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages, is unrelated to most Mesoamerican native languages." He further emphasizes that "Nahuatl was a relatively recent intrusion" into central Mexico.
Furthermore, the geographical distribution of indigenous peoples who spoke Uto-Aztecan languages places their homelands to the northwest of the Valley of Mexico. The northern Uto-Aztecans occupied a large portion of the American Southwest, including the Hopi and Zuni tribes of New Mexico, and the Gabrielino Indians of the Los Angeles Basin. The central Uto-Aztecans, inhabiting parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Sonora in northwestern Mexico, included the Papago, Opata, Yaqui, Mayo, Concho, Huichol, and Tepehuan tribes. Given the close relationship between language and genetics, it is reasonable to suggest that linguistic connections often imply a shared genetic heritage. Therefore, it is highly plausible that Aztlán, or another ancestral homeland of the Aztecs, was situated in the Southwestern United States.
However, it’s important to acknowledge that the migrations from Aztlán were not a single, unified movement of a single group. According to Professor Smith, "when all of the native histories are compared, no fewer than seventeen ethnic groups are listed among the original tribes migrating from Aztlán and Chicomoztoc." These migrations likely unfolded over several generations. "Led by priests," Professor Smith continues, "the migrants stopped periodically to build houses and temples, to gather and cultivate food, and to carry out rituals."
Among the migrating groups were many Nahuatl-speaking peoples who eventually became associated with the Aztec Empire: the Acolhua, Tepaneca, Culhua, Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Matlatzinca, and the Tlaxcalans. These groups settled in the Valley of Mexico or adjacent valleys, which now lie within the states of Morelos, Tlaxcala, and Puebla.
SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) identifies sixty-two existing Uto-Aztecan languages spoken throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Central America.
The Northern Uto-Aztecans, residing in various American states, speak thirteen of these sixty-two languages, while the Southern Uto-Aztecans, primarily located south of the U.S.-Mexican border, speak the remaining forty-nine.
The Northern Uto-Aztecans are often referred to as the "Great Basin peoples," with the majority belonging to the Numic subdivision of the Uto-Aztecan family. The Numic division is further divided into branches, with the Western Numic branch primarily consisting of the Northern Paiute, who inhabit Oregon, California, and Nevada.
The Southern Numic division includes the Southern Paiute and Ute Indians. The Southern Paiute originally lived in southern Utah, southern Nevada, and northern Arizona, while the Ute tribe once occupied much of Utah (from which the state derives its name) and western Colorado, possibly extending into Nebraska and New Mexico.
The Central Numic family comprises the Panamint, Shoshone, and Comanche tribes. The Shoshone traditionally inhabited east-central California, east of the Sierra Nevada range, including Owens Valley and the lands south of it, encompassing Death Valley. The Shoshone language is closely related to Paiute, and some Shoshone tribes now reside as far north as Idaho and Montana, representing the northernmost extent of the Uto-Aztecan language family.
The Numic Family also includes numerous California tribes, such as the Serrano, Cupan, Luiseno, Cahuilla, Cupeno, Kiowa, and Gabrielino. Notably, the Gabrielino Indians, named by the Spaniards for their proximity to the San Gabriel Mission, were the primary indigenous group inhabiting the Los Angeles Basin. As speakers of a Uto-Aztecan language, they can be considered relatives of the Aztecs.
The Southern Uto-Aztecans are widely distributed across a large area. An important branch is the Sonoran Family of Languages, primarily spoken by indigenous peoples of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, and Arizona. This group includes the Corachol Family, represented today by the Cora and Huichol Indians of Nayarit and Jalisco.
Another Sonoran subdivision is the Tepiman Family (spoken by the Papago, Pima Bajo, and Tepehuan of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Durango). The most well-known Sonoran division is the Taracahitic Family (spoken by the Mayo, Yaqui, and Tarahumara of northwestern Mexico). A language family, by definition, is a group of languages that are genetically and culturally related.
When the Spaniards arrived in Sinaloa in 1523, a large number of Taracahitic peoples inhabited the coastal area of northwestern Mexico, along the lower reaches of the Sinaloa, Fuerte, Mayo, and Yaqui Rivers. The Yaqui Indians of Sonora are the most well-known tribe of this family. Numbering 16,000 people living in scattered locations throughout Sonora, the Yaquis fiercely resisted Spanish colonization and the Mexican Republic well into the 20th century. The Mayo Indians, closely related to the Yaquis, resisted central authority well into the 19th century and today number some 40,000, inhabiting the border regions of northern Sinaloa and southern Sonora.
The Aztecan, or Nahuatl-speaking, peoples of central and southern Mexico speak nearly thirty languages and constitute the single largest linguistic group in Mexico. In the 2000 census, 1,448,936 individuals five years of age and older were classified as Nahuatl speakers, representing 24% of the total indigenous-speaking population. Numerous dialects of Nahuatl are spoken throughout Mexico, all believed to be derived from a common ancestral language, perhaps thousands of years in the past.
Over time, all cultures and languages evolve. A homogeneous cultural group, responding to environmental and social pressures, will inevitably experience a cultural divergence. As some members of an ethnic group move away from the core group, their cultural and linguistic identity will transform, eventually giving rise to a new cultural group. Dialects spoken by similar peoples, once isolated from each other for a sufficient period, undergo a cultural diffusion until the resulting groups reach a point where they speak mutually unintelligible languages.
For instance, at some point in the distant past – likely several thousand years ago – the ancestors of the Aztecs and the Yaquis were a single people, speaking a single language and practicing a single culture. However, by 1519, when Hernán Cortés sailed along the eastern seaboard, the Yaquis and Aztecs were distinct ethnic groups. They spoke separate languages, practiced religions unknown to each other, and lived 1,300 kilometers apart. When two ethnic groups belong to the same linguistic grouping, we infer that they are in some way related.
Therefore, the key question is: "How and when did the Aztecs diverge from the Great Basin Indians and from the Yaquis and Mayos of Sonora?" Although studies have attempted to determine the chronology of Uto-Aztecan cultural divergence, experts hold differing opinions.
In the 1930s, linguist Dr. Robert Mowry Zinng wrote that the Shoshone Indians of the present-day Southwestern U.S.A. likely represent the closest approximation to the first Uto-Aztecans – the proto-Uto-Aztecan culture – because they did not migrate as far as other Uto-Aztecan cultures, such as the Yaquis, Mayos, and Aztecs, who are now far removed from their probable ancestral homeland in the Great Basin of the United States.
Other scholars have concurred with this analysis, stating that the roots of all Uto-Aztecan cultures ultimately lie in the north. However, some theories propose that Southern California was the original home of the first Uto-Aztecans and that the Paiute and Shoshone diverged from the main group by migrating eastward into the Great Basin.
Some anthropologists suggest that Great Basin prehistory extends back more than 11,000 years before the present day. As the climate changed, many of the Great Basin’s lakes disappeared, leading to a decline in animal populations and reduced food resources. As a result, the inhabitants of the Great Basin – the so-called proto-Uto-Aztecans – evolved into a hunting and gathering, semi-nomadic people adapted to the diminishing resources of the region.
Half a century ago, Sydney M. Lamb and Morris Swadesh hypothesized that around 3000 B.C., the Proto-Uto-Aztecan culture was becoming "dialectically differentiated, perhaps somewhere around the Arizona-Sonora border." Using the linguistic term "minimum centuries ago" as a tool for measuring divergence, Lamb stated that the Numic and Aztec languages probably diverged around 2700 B.C.
Once the Northern and Southern Uto-Aztecan Groups diverged, the ancestors of the present-day Aztecs, Yaquis, and Mayos apparently made their way into the territory of modern Mexico. Dr. Lamb hypothesized that the Cahita (Mayo and Yaqui) ancestral language diverged from the Aztec ancestral language around 700 B.C. However, Wick R. Miller concluded that glottochronological estimates placed the divergence of the Aztecan linguistic group from the Sonoran at before 4500 B.C. It’s important to note that many linguists disagree on the validity and accuracy of glottochronology and lexicostatistics in determining linguistic diffusion.
In the final analysis, nearly all experts agree that the Uto-Aztecan family is a widespread language grouping, boasting a tremendous diversity of language families spread over a vast area. Studying and understanding who speaks these languages and where they live provides clues for determining who may be related to the Aztecs.