9 Misconceptions about the “Aztecs”
The more I write historical fiction and queer historical romance set in Anahuac (present-day Central Mexico) during the 1400s, the more I think about the misconceptions about the Nahuas (in the “Aztec Empire” and surrounding nations) that have been embraced by the general public.
I encounter these distorsions often. Every time I give a talk about pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, I can count on someone asking about obsidian knives, pyramids soaked in blood, or whether the Aztecs “really sacrificed tens of thousands of people.”
The ignorance doesn’t actually surprise me. The Mexica — the dominant Nahua group in the so-called Aztec Empire — have been trapped for centuries in a web of colonial misrepresentation and pop-culture simplification. What’s more surprising is how many assumptions remain embedded even in well-meaning scholarship, media, and education.
So here’s a quick rundown of nine major misunderstandings or oversights I see again and again when people imagine the pre-Spanish-Invasion “Aztec” world.
1. Believing everything the Spanish invaders say.
Much of what the general public “knows” about the Aztecs comes directly from the pens of Spanish conquistadors and clergy — figures like Hernán Cortés, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and friars like Sahagún and Durán. These chroniclers had agendas: to justify colonization, to dramatize the conquest as heroic, or to frame Indigenous peoples as either in need of saving or already damned. Their accounts exaggerate brutality, sanitize European violence, and erase Indigenous perspectives. Relying solely on them distorts the truth and continues the colonial narrative.
2. Not realizing that most of the information we have is about the noble class.
Even our Indigenous sources — especially those written in Nahuatl during the colonial period — come overwhelmingly from the elite. Noble scribes, priests, and former rulers sought to preserve certain compelling aspects of their histories and claim new forms of power under Spanish rule. As a result, we know a great deal about emperors, warriors, and priests, but far less about everyday people: the farmers who raised maize and beans, the fishers of the lakes of Anahuac, the artisans and merchants who made the cities run. “Aztec life” wasn’t just what happened in the palace or the temple.
3. Ignoring the fact that colonial-era Nahuas tried to make their own history and customs more palatable to Spanish Catholics.
After the fall of Tenochtitlan, many Indigenous elites engaged in cultural negotiation, reshaping their histories to appeal to a Catholic Spanish worldview. They drew parallels between their gods and Christian figures, aligned their genealogies with Biblical timelines, projected Western religious morality onto their ancestors and emphasized civic order over cosmological violence. These weren’t acts of deception — they were brilliant survival strategies. But they also mean that even Nahua-authored colonial texts must be read critically, with attention to context and motive.
4. Forgetting that the Aztecs were human beings.
Popular culture often portrays pre-Invasion Nahuas, especially the Mexica, as either savage monsters or mystical archetypes — never as real people. This dehumanization is subtle but persistent. It shows up in textbooks, documentaries, and even museum displays. But the truth is simple: the Aztecs were human. Their emotional lives are recognizable and not much different from our own. They loved and grieved, sang lullabies, told jokes, feared loss, and hoped for better futures. To study their world is to study human culture — complex, contradictory, and profoundly relatable.
5. Assuming the Aztec Empire was a monolith.
The “Aztecs” weren’t a single people, nor was the empire a unified nation-state. It was a triple alliance — Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan — that exerted power over hundreds of other city-states (“altepetl” in Nahuatl) through a tributary system. Each region had its own language, customs, gender roles, and political structures. Some resisted Mexica dominance; others collaborated. Thinking of the empire as a homogenous whole erases this rich diversity.
6. Projecting modern Western ideas of empire onto Aztec governance.
Westerners tend to imagine imperial control as top-down and centralized, like Rome or Britain. But the Mexica system operated more like a hegemonic network. Subject cities retained their own leaders, rituals, and internal affairs as long as they paid tribute and honored Mexica authority. Tenochtitlan exerted influence through fear, diplomacy, and economic control — not constant military occupation. That decentralized system helps explain how quickly the empire unraveled when the Spanish invaded and began to exploit its fault lines.
7. Viewing Nahua religion as only violent or death-obsessed.
Yes, ritual execution was a reality of the Aztec state religion—and it played a role in reinforcing imperial ideology and keeping both enemies and reluctant vassals in check. But most people in the Empire lived far from the urban centers where hundreds of people were executed each year, and the belief systems across Anahuac comprised far more than blood and terror. They were centered on ancestors and household gods, and they included a profound sense of ecological and cosmic order, a reverence for cycles of growth and decay, and a vibrant tradition of music, dance, poetry, and seasonal festivals. Their philosophy embraced paradox, balance, and beauty — something often ignored when the focus is solely on the sacrificial knife of the Mexica priest.
8. Overlooking the roles of women, queer folks, and non-warrior professions.
The Aztec world wasn’t just warriors and kings. Women held powerful economic, domestic, and ritual roles — as midwives, healers, artisans, priestesses, merchants, and matriarchs. The Nahua world also recognized gender fluidity and same-sex relationships in ways that defy colonial binaries. And the heart of society wasn’t the battlefield but the marketplace, the home, the garden. Reclaiming these perspectives is essential to seeing the full complexity of Aztec life.
9. Believing the Aztecs were “primitive” because they didn’t use the wheel or iron.
This old myth lingers, rooted in colonial superiority complexes. But technologies are context-specific. The Mexica engineered sophisticated chinampa agriculture (floating gardens), had clean cities with sewage systems, developed astronomical observatories, advanced medicine, and a rich poetic-philosophical tradition. The wheel wasn’t practical in their terrain without draft animals. Iron wasn’t needed when obsidian could slice sharper than steel. Measuring their society by European benchmarks is not only flawed—it misses the brilliance of their own innovations.
To truly understand the Aztec Empire, we have to strip away centuries of distortion. We have to question the sources, broaden the focus, and embrace the human complexity of the people behind the myths. That means moving beyond the blood-drenched clichés and seeing the Mexica—and all the peoples of the empire—as they were: real, complicated, brilliant, flawed, and fully human.
