Toltecs

Toltecs. The dynamic force in these changes was the barbarian of the northern frontier. These “Chichimecs”, to use a name later applied by the Aztecs to the “wild tribes” who had been their not too distant ancestors, were former peoples of the Desert cultural tradition food-collectors, hunters, and incipient cultivators – who were becoming, or had very recently become, acculturated to the Mesoamerican tradition.

It may be that drought and crop failure on the semi-arid northern frontier drove these tribesmen down onto the civilized populations of central Mexico. Or it may have been simply a matter of the “outlanders” finally developing to the point where they could successfully challenge the “soft” city dwellers.

Whichever, they came southward. Some of them settled in the Valley of Mexico and the Central Mexican highlands; others probably pushed still farther south. Many or most of them were Nahua-speakers, and the migrations of the Nahua into southern Mesoamerica probably began at this time. But out of this welter of Chichimec invaders and migrations one group rose to power in the early Postclassic Period, the group that became known as the Toltecs.

According to the semi-legendary histories handed down by the Aztec aristrocacy after the Spanish Conquest, the Toltecs came into Central Mexico from the northwestern frontier and settled at Tula, Hidalgo in the latter part of the tenth century. They were Nahua and Chichimecs, but they also assimilated other tribes who had had a longer history in the civilized Mesoamerican world.

Soon after the founding of Tula, according to the legend, factionalism arose between the followers of the king, Topiltzin, or Topiltzin Quetzaleoatl, and the adherents of a party who worshipped the God Tezcatlipoca. This story undoubtedly has some elements of truth. Topiltzin was a real ruler who either left or was driven out of Tula by his enemies around A.D 987. But tale is also allegorical in describing a conflict in values and beliefs between the feathered Serpent god, or Quetzalcoatl, with whom Topiltzin has become so firmly identified, and the evil Tezcatlipoca.

The former represented the old civilized ways of peace while the latter was the symbol of war and death. That Tezcatliopa should have triumphed was probably a poetic recognition of the trend of the times. In any event, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl traveled south and east with his band, some say to immolate himself after he reached the Gulf Coast, or, as others believe, to set sail on the sea with the promise that he would later return. Or, perhaps, as certain Mayas history record, he was the Mexican king who with his followers subjugated Yucatan founded a dynasty there.

At Tula, during the two centuries that followed the ejection of Topiltzin, the Toltecs who remained under the tutelage of Ttezcatlipoca became a leading military and political force in Central Mexico and Mesoamerica.