Aztlan is the legendary homeland of the Mexica, the place from which they believed they had been driven by their enemies and forced to undertake the long migration that eventually brought them to the Valley of Mexico. The word Aztlan means “place of the herons” in Nahuatl, and it is described in the Mexica sources as a fertile and prosperous place, with houses of reeds and waterfowl, with abundant fish and game, and with a complex social and political organization. The location of Aztlan has been the subject of much speculation, with various scholars placing it in modern Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacán, or even as far north as the southwestern United States.
The Description in the Sources
The Mexica accounts of Aztlan are found in several sources, most importantly the Codex Boturini (also known as the Tira de la Peregrinación) and the Crónica Mexicáyotl of Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc. The accounts describe Aztlan as an island in a lake, surrounded by water, and the Mexica are described as living in houses of reeds, with abundant fish and waterfowl. The accounts are often critical of the place, and they emphasize the conflicts and disputes that drove the Mexica to leave.
According to some versions of the tradition, the Mexica had been a privileged group in Aztlan, but they had been expelled by a coalition of their enemies. According to others, the Mexica had been enslaved by a more powerful group and had been forced to leave. The common thread is that the Mexica had been driven from a homeland that was no longer safe, and that they had been forced to seek a new home in the south.
The Possible Locations
The location of Aztlan has been the subject of much scholarly debate, and no definitive answer has been reached. Some scholars have placed Aztlan in the Lake Chapala region of Jalisco, based on the description of an island in a lake and on the linguistic and cultural evidence of the Nahua peoples of the region. Others have placed it in Nayarit, based on the archaeological evidence of the Nahua settlements in the region. Still others have placed it further north, in the southwestern United States, based on linguistic and cultural evidence.
None of these identifications can be confirmed, and it is possible that Aztlan was a purely mythical place, a memory of an earlier homeland transformed by oral tradition into a paradise from which the Mexica had been expelled. The Mexica tradition emphasizes the mythical aspects of Aztlan, and the place is described in the sources as a place of origin rather than a place of historical residence.
The Significance for Aztec Identity
Aztlan has remained an important symbol of Mexican national identity to the present day. The image of Aztlan has been used by various Mexican political and cultural movements, including the Chicano movement in the United States, which has invoked Aztlan as a symbol of the ancestral homeland of the Mexican people. The concept of Aztlan has also been used in Mexican popular culture, including in music, in literature, and in the visual arts.
The persistence of the Aztlan myth is evidence of the power of the Mexica historical tradition, and it reflects the deep roots of the Mexica identity in the history of central Mexico. The myth of Aztlan is a part of the broader myth of the Mexica migration, which is one of the great foundational myths of Mesoamerican history.
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