Nezahual coyotl Was not An Aztec!

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

One of the reasons I love doing what I do is that it gives me the chance to make things better.

Case in point: a post about the celebration of the birthday of an Aztec chief. I though it was the kind of story that Taquistas would want to read, and it was. Lots of people read it.

I was also drawn to the story because of a book I’ve been reading (in fits and starts) titled “Mexicas, El Pueblo Elegido” by Jamie Montell. It’s an historical fiction about the founding of the city of Tenochtitlán. I bring that up because I should have known better… The book mentions Nezahualcoyotl, the subject of the news story. But the news story headline tagged the chief as an Aztec, which he wasn’t.

Six hundred years later we have the expedient habit of labeling all south-of-the-border pre-columbian things as “Aztec,” and that’s what happened with the story I posted here. I should have known better. Luckily one NewsTaco reader did know better.

Taquista Juan Carlos Cutiño wrote this email:

Nezathualcoytotl was not an Aztec, he was am Acolhuan or in today’s nomenclature a Texcocan, although allied to the Mexica, forming with Itzcoatl, the Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan the Triple Alliance. And they are not Aztecs, they are Mexica or more proper Mexica/Azteca, established  on an island on the West side of the Lake Meztliapan in 1325. (Today’s Lake Texcoco, practically has disappeared), and Nezathualcoyotl was on Acolhuacan on the East side of the Lake.  And by the way Nezathualcoyotl was probably the greatest of the native intellectuals of pre-hispanic Mexico, Hidraulic Engineer, Jurist, Poet, Civil Engineer/Road Builder, Legislator and Tlatoanir. Regards, Juan-Carlos.