Acolhua

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Not to be confused with Culhua.

The Acolhua are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in or around the year 1200 CE.[1] The Acolhua were a sister culture of the Aztecs (or Mexica) as well as the Tepanec, Chalca, Xochimilca and others.

It is likely that the ruling family of the Acolhua were descended from Otomi speakers and did not speak Nahuatl until decreed by their ruler (tlatoani) Techotlalatzin.[2]

Under Techotlalatzin's grandson, Nezahualcoyotl, the Acolhua allied with the Mexica (Aztecs) in the Aztec Triple Alliance. The Acolhua capital, Texcoco, became a cultural center of the resultant Aztec Empire.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Smith (1984, p.171), who arrives at this date by averaging six dates mentioned in early codices.
  2. ^ Davies (1980, p.129); Smith (1984, p.170).

[edit] References

Davies, Nigel (1980). The Toltec Heritage: From the Fall of Tula to the Rise of Tenochtitlan (Civilization of the American Indian Series, Vol. 153). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1505-X. OCLC 5103377. 
Smith, Michael E. (1984). "The Aztlan Migrations of Nahuatl Chronicles: Myth or History?" (PDF online reproduction). Ethnohistory 31 (3): pp.153–186. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, American Society for Ethnohistory. doi:10.2307/482619. ISSN 0014-1801. OCLC 145142543.