Around the year 1610 in the colony of New Spain, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, began his history with these words:

Since adolescence, I have always greatly desired to know about the historical events in this new world, which were no less important than those of the Romans, Greeks, Medes, and other great pagan republics of universal renown. However, with the passage of time and the fall of the kingdoms and states of my ancestors, their histories were buried. For this reason, with much effort, searching, and utmost diligence, I have achieved my desire to bring together the painted histories and annals and the songs with which they preserve them.

(Alva Ixtlilxochitl, 29)

There is no denying that the pre-Columbian Western hemisphere is one of the blank spots in many histories, including this podcast, but ordinarily those blank spots arise because the people there had no written language. History is, by definition, the study of the written record, so all we can do in those places is step aside for the archaeologists.

The Burning of the Books

However, in the case of Mesoamerica, that’s not why. These people did have a written language. Multiple written languages, in fact, including at least five scripts of varying complexity, spanning almost two millennia in time, and crossing many ethnic divisions (Fischer, 236). Like the Chinese they combined pictorial glyphs with phonetic markers. They carved inscriptions on both stone and wood. They also painted their stories on pottery and bark-paper books and on deer hide (Fischer, 256). All very good stuff for historians. 

The trouble is almost none of it survived. Ixtlilxochitl used the word “buried,” but that’s an awfully neutral term. Besides the completely ordinary loss that comes with the passage of time, there was also the all-too-common collateral damage that comes with war and conquest. Over and above that, there was deliberate destruction of Mesoamerican history.

The most famous account of this last category comes from the Franciscan friar Diego de Landa Calderon. In 1566 book on the Yucatan, in which he calmly explains that:

These people also used certain characters or letters with which they wrote their ancient things and their sciences in their books, and with them and figures and some signs in the figures, they understood their things and made them understood and taught. We found there a large number of books of these letters, and because they had nothing in which there was not superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree and it made them sad.

(de Landa, 160)

As you can imagine, historians also regret that burning to an amazing degree.

De Landa is the best-known proudly self-proclaimed book burner, but he was not alone in doing it. Other Spanish did the same, and there is even a hint in one of the narratives that a native king did as well, for precisely the same reasons. The story the books contained didn’t fit the narrative he wanted to tell, so into the flames it went (SilverMoon, 119).

Add this all together and the result is very few Mesoamerican books escaped the purge. What pre-conquest writing remains is mostly in the form of stone inscriptions. Like monuments everywhere, they are long on names, dates, and propaganda; short on human interest stories, especially about women. Meanwhile, the so-called “lies of the devil” probably included genealogies, astronomical tables, tales of the Gods, wraps, calendars, and many other things of incalculable value. It is true that it probably also contained descriptions of human sacrifice and also the less-intense-but-still-gruesome self-cutting of certain sensitive body parts for blood offerings.

The Spanish objected to both these integral parts of Mesoamerican culture. I don’t think too many modern people are fans either, but hopefully we don’t think the solution is to burn the evidence.

All in all, so little has survived that one scholar has lamented the “even the burning of the library of Alexandria, did not obliterate a civilization’s heritage as completely as this” (quoted in Fischer, 255). Other than the stone inscriptions, almost everything we’ve got is a post-Conquest reconstruction, working from the oral memory of people living generations after the events they describe.

Gathering the Remnants

Ixtlilxochitl, whom I quoted at the beginning of the episode was the son of a Spanish settler in Mexico City. But he identified himself with his mother’s side, and she was a wealthy noble woman from Tetzcoco, one of the three city-states that made up the Aztec empire as a triple alliance.

Ixtlilxochitl portrayed himself as the descendant of royalty and an advocate for his people before the Spanish authorities. He worked as an interpreter in the Spanish courts (Alva Ixtlilxochitl, 3-5). The history he wrote was a side project collected from people he knew and what documents he could find. The text itself is dominated by his overarching thesis, which was to explain to the Spanish why his people’s heritage was as glorious as their own.

Meanwhile there were Franciscan friars eager to do some course corrections on what their predecessors had done in the first flush of conquest. They set up schools where they encouraged their students to write their histories, possibly in Spanish, but also in Nahuatl, the local language (Crapo, 1). From such efforts we get sources like the Anonimo Mexicano, which is 12 chapters of Nahuatl, giving the whole history of the Tlaxcalteca, an ethnic group that was definitely not part of the Aztec Triple Alliance. The Tlaxcalteca were the ones that allied with Cortes against what they thought was the larger threat (Crapo, 1-2). Again we’re talking about an oral history spanning hundreds of years written down at one discrete point in time by a people who’d had a whole lot of turmoil in between.

Ordinarily these are what historians call not very good sources. But in this case, the alternate is to let the culture be even more buried and burned than it already is.

So today, we’re going to go with them, and I’ll tell you the little they say about a queen named Xiuhtlaltzin, and you can decide just how much trust the story deserves.

What Later Generations Thought of the Toltecs

According to multiple of these not-very-good sources, the Toltecs were a mighty people. They were “large of body” and wealthy in maize, cotton, turquoise, gold, and silver (Anonimo, 7). They founded a city called Tollan, from which they ruled over a golden age. They were—and I’m quoting—”the epitome of aesthetic sensibility, military prowess, and political élan” (Anawalt, 295).

These were the glory days (according to our sources). The time when men were real men (and presumably women were real women). In later times the Aztec royalty would claim their legitimacy by tying their genealogy into Toltec royalty (Anawalt, 298), in much the same way that medieval European monarchs traced and/or imagined their way into connecting their family tree into King David and Solomon in the Bible. From there it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump all the way back to Adam, so if you yourself can tie into any of those European royal houses, you too can have your genealogy done all the way back to Adam. Aztec genealogies are similar.

Some of the accounts include an early Toltec king called Quetzalcoatl, which you might possibly have thought was a feathered serpent God. The accounts are not always clear on whether they are talking about a real flesh and blood ruler or a divine being. Possibly one was named after the other? But in which direction? It’s not clear (Bancroft, 257).

However we later get into more or less datable rulers because Mesoamericans did believe in calendars. We are told for example that king Chalchiuhtlanextzin began his reign in the year 7 Reed, which I cannot give an exact equivalent for, but we are talking early 500s CE (Anonimo, 7; Alva Ixtlilxochitl, 37).

He was followed by a series of other rulers (all ruling for a suspiciously consistent 52 years), until we get to the one called Tacomihua in the History of the Chichimeca nation (Alva Ixtlilxochitl, 37) and Mitl in the Anonimo Mexicano (8). Those two names don’t sound anything alike to me, so I would not have recognized them as referring to the same person. Except that both accounts agree that upon this ruler’s death, he was succeeded by a woman, probably his wife, though many accounts just say “a woman”, and she ruled alone for four years (Anonimo, 8; Alva Ixtlilxochitl, 37).

This was Xiuhtlaltzin and depending on which chronology you prefer, her 4-year reign was either in the mid 800s or the late 900s (see wikipedia for comparison tables (Toltec Empire).

Hubert Howe Bancroft, a 19ᵗʰ century historian says that Xiuhtlaltzin showed zeal and wisdom in managing the kingdom, which is good as far as it goes, but not particularly specific. He also says that her death was deeply regretted by her subjects, about which I have the same complaint (Bancroft, 265).

None of the closer sources I read had even as much information as that, but I know I didn’t read them all. Many of them are not available to a humble podcaster whose Spanish is mediocre and whose Nahuatl is nonexistent.

The accounts do, however, say what happened next. Unfortunately, they don’t agree with each other. Some say her son inherited from her (Pratt, 3.16; Torquemada (quoted by Bancroft), 1.14.37). Others say that there was no ruler afterwards, for all the lords ruled together (Anonimo, 7).

But all agree that the Toltecs didn’t last much longer after that. The kingdom fell and the people dispersed to be absorbed and reinvented as Chichimeca, Mexica, Aztecs, and Mixtec, and other groups across Mesoamerica.

So much for the historical record. Let’s see about archaeology.

Tula (or Tollan), the Toltec Capital

It has been quite a while since scholars tentatively decided that the Toltec capital which the Aztecs called Tollan, is the site we call Tula, in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.

Tula was a city of 50-60,000 people living in single story, multi-roomed houses clustered around courtyards of compacted earth. Each courtyard had an altar in the center and many of the altars contain a human skeleton (Diehl, 120). The implication there is human sacrifice, but I suppose cemetery is also possible. Tula had obsidian deposits, so there was a thriving industry of tool making. Ceramics were big too. Their pottery traveled far and wide (Diehl, 122).

The part where Xiuhtlaltzin likely lived her life is an acropolis of sorts (a leveled off ridge), with the fancy people’s buildings on the top.

The most obvious of these buildings has been given the totally boring name of Pyramid B. It is a 5-tiered step pyramid with a flattened top. There would once have been a roof, which is no longer there. What is still there are the columns that held the roof up, each carved in the shape of a giant Toltec warrior.

Personally, I am hoping that this pyramid was the temple of the frog goddess, which more than one account mentions was built by Xiuhtlaltzin’s husband (Pratt, 3.14; Torquemada (quoted by Bancroft), 1.14.37). I hope this partly because it means Xiuhtlaltzin might well have come and worshipped beneath these same stone warriors, and partly because the idea of a frog goddess is just so cool. Who has a frog goddess? There isn’t one in any of the pantheons I could think of.

I searched in vain for more about the Toltec frog goddess, and I learned lots of interesting things, like how Mesoamericans sold and traded tadpoles for eating (good protein, reputedly better than turkey) (McGarry). Presumably the Toltecs knew the difference between frogs and toads, but just in case they didn’t, then later Mesoamericans boiled, ground, and licked toads to get a chemical compound called bufotenine, which is hallucinogenic in small quantities and lethal in large ones (McGarry). But I learned not as much I had hoped about any Toltec frog goddess. The best connection I could find is from the Aztec pantheon. Tlaloc, the rain god, is married to Chalchiuhtlicue, the Emerald Lady, who bore him many children (known to you as the clouds). Frogs were under the protection of Tlaloc (at festivals priests may have imitated their sounds and movements), and Chalchiuhtlicue’s symbol in the literature is a frog (Jackson, 61). That’s all I got. 

Mesoamerican Ball Games

Back to the acropolis at Tula, there is a large ball court of the type found also in other Mesoamerican sites. These games were played with rubber balls, which was an absolute marvel to Europeans, who had never seen rubber before. The exact rules varied across the region and the time span, of course. Sometimes players kept the ball moving with the trunks of their bodies, no hands, no feet allowed. Other times they used wooden paddles (Earley).

In many respects, these games look much like modern sports games: noisy affairs with high status players, large crowds, thrilling emotions, and gambling (Earley, Ramos, 134). Perhaps Xiuhtlaltzin attended here to cheer on her favorite team. There is even a possibility that she played the game. The vast majority of sources, both old and new, simply leave unstated the assumption that athletes are men. Ho hum.

Actually there are surviving ceramic figurines of women in ballplayer gear. (Not necessarily from Tula, I’m talking about the broader region now.) And there are plenty of other figures that could be women as long as you don’t start with the assumption that they’re athletes so they must be men (Ramos, 53-71). Some of the surviving codices show goddesses playing the game (Ramos, 101).

The part that is less like a modern sports event is the human sacrifice bit. Many surviving art works depict such a sacrifice at the end of a game. The proposed reasons for this include showing off that the ruler can do whatever he (or in today’s case, she) wants (Ramos, 131).

Or possibly the sacrifice was fundamental to the continuance of the world as death of the players caused the plants to grow and the sun to rise (Ramos, 133).

Or possibly to visibly and publicly show power over captured enemies (Ramos, 134). Or even to replace armed conflict (Ramos, 148) as a more civilized way to settle disputes. Civilized being debatable here.

Or maybe all of the above, depending on time, place, and the person in charge.

The means of sacrifice also varied: heart extraction, decapitation, dismemberment (Ramos, 140). Even limbs tied up into fetal position and then rolled down a staircase like a human ball (Ramos, 123).

Whether Xiuhtlaltzin approved, participated, or perpetrated any of this is not in the record.

Was She Even Real?

Despite the ball court, the temple, and the statues, the fact remains that Tula is a little underwhelming. It’s impressive in a small way, but not compared with Teotihuacan which preceded it or Chichén Itzá, which was contemporaneous. If you go on a tour of the great Mesoamerican archaeological sites, Tula probably won’t even make the list. The evidence of archaeology suggests that Tula was not nearly as powerful as the admittedly dubious historical record makes it sound (Chase, 178).

There are multiple theories to explain this. There is the obvious possibility that the historical sources are all nonsense, the Toltecs really weren’t that powerful, and the chronology that includes Xiuhtlaltzin is simply fabricated. This is supported by internal evidence of having kings that share a name with a god and the suspiciously consistent 52-year reigns.

Another possibility is that the histories do have some nugget of truth, but we’ve misidentified the archaeological site. According to this theory, the Tollan that the Aztecs revered may have been many glorious civilizations of the past, including both Tula and Teotihuacan and possibly others. This is supported by the fact that we’ve got multiple accounts from writers of varying ethnicities, giving roughly the same sequence of rulers for the Toltecs, even including a woman who very specifically did not reign for the suspicious 52-year span. In a world that assumed athletes and rulers were men by default, why would someone fabricating stories think to include a woman at all? Possibly her presence in the list is a hint that someone like her really did exist and people remembered it.  Feel free to comment below to tell me what you think about her existence or nonexistence.

Selected Sources

Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Don Fernando de, History of the Chichimeca Nation: Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Seventeenth-Century Chronicle of Ancient Mexico. Translated by Amber Brian. United States: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.

Anawalt, Patricia Rieff. “The Emperors’ Cloak: Aztec Pomp, Toltec Circumstances.” American Antiquity 55, no. 2 (1990): 291–307. https://doi.org/10.2307/281648.

Bancroft, Hubert Howe. “The Native Races [of the Pacific States], Volume 1, Wild Tribes the Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 1.” Https://Www.google.com/Books/Edition/The_Native_Races_of_the_Pacific_States/UM0NAAAAIAAJ?Hl=En&Gbpv=1&Pg=PA265&Printsec=Frontcover, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/41070/pg41070-images.html. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024.

Bierhorst, John. The Codex Chimalpopoca : History and Mythology of the Aztecs. Tucson, University Of Arizona Press, 1998.

Chase, Arlen F., Diane Z. Chase, and Michael E. Smith. “STATES AND EMPIRES IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICA.” Ancient Mesoamerica 20, no. 2 (2009): 175–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26309231.

Crapo, Richley, and Bonnie Glass-Coffin. Anonimo Mexicano. Univeristy of Utah Press, 2005.

de Landa, Diego. Relación de Las Cosas de Yucatán. Dastin, S.L., 2002, archive.org/details/relaciondelascos0000dieg/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. Accessed 1 Mar. 2024.

Earley, Caitlin. “The Mesoamerican Ballgame.” Metmuseum.org, 2019, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mball/hd_mball.htm.

Fery, Georges. “Popular Archeology – Burning the Maya Books: The 1562 Tragedy at Mani.” Popular Archeology, 23 Oct. 2020, popular-archaeology.com/article/burning-the-maya-books-the-1562-tragedy-at-mani/.

Fischer, Steven R. A History of Writing. London, Reaktion Books, 2001.

https://www.facebook.com/thoughtcodotcom. “Who Were the Gods of the Ancient Toltec?” ThoughtCo, 2014, http://www.thoughtco.com/toltec-gods-and-religion-2136271.

Jackson, Jake, ed. Aztec Myths : Maya, Inca, Olmec & More. London, England, Flame Tree Publishing, 2019.

McGerry, Renee. “Frogs and Toads.” Www.mexicolore.co.uk, 12 Mar. 2012, http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/flora-and-fauna/frogs-and-toads.

Pratt, John. “Ixtlilxochitl’s Toltec Chronology.” Www.johnpratt.com, 1 Aug. 2019, http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/2019/ixtlil.html. Accessed 29 Feb. 2024.

Ramos, Maria Isabel. “Women Playing a Man’s Game : Reconstructing Ceremonial and Ritual History of the Mesoamerican Ballgame.” Escholarship.org, 2012, escholarship.org/uc/item/9pm3q6db.