14 - Journey from Aztlan: Did Apaches Migrate with the Aztecs?

Presenters

Aleanna Kingsley, NMSU-Grants; and Patricia Kingsley, NMSU-Grants

Abstract

The Aztecan migration from their mystical homeland of Aztlàn has frequently been analyzed on the basis of codex images and historical, Spanish documents. However, there has been no definitive identification of their original location, geographical path, or estimated time of their migration to their final destination in the Anahuac Valley of Mexico where they established the city-state of Tenochtitlàn, and formed the Triple Alliance, called “the Aztec Empire.”

This presentation will integrate sociolinguistic and intercultural evidence, Nahuatl place names on historical maps, nearby location of artifacts, and puebloan documents, with the codex images and examples of Spanish mistransliterations that suggest the Aztecs migrated with Athabaskans from southwest North America to Casas Grandes in the mid-thirteenth century.