Aztec Childhood

Royal procession from Goddess of Grass

The Aztecs had a highly complex social structure, where both formal and informal laws governed the life of the citizen from birth to death. A citizen of the empire was expected to live an obedient, ordered life in service of the state. A structured path was devised for them from the day they were born, to the day they died. This path is a fusion of rigorously ingrained customary law and brutally enforced statutory law.

In the years prior to the Spanish Conquest, Mexica (pronounced something similar to meh-shee-ka) children went to a local school known as the telpochcalli. Here they were taught basic occupational skills, basics of warfare, and civics as well as history and religion.  Boys and girls attended different schools.

Some Macehualtin (merchant class) children who were gifted and talented got sent to a calmecac.  The calmecac was also where children of noble birth, the Pilli, went to school and it was run by priests who taught government and the all-important religious concepts.  At the calmecac students also learned Aztec history, astronomy, letters, and poetry.

Boys went to the calmecac when they reached age 15.  If they did not attend this school, then they went to the cuicacalli, which was a junior military academy.  All of the boys were trained in war and there was heated rivalry between different academies that often led to fights.  While there were several professions open to non-working-class men, including priest, bureaucrat, and doctor, the life of a warrior won the most glory.

Aztec girls received more home schooling than boys.  They began learning to weave at age four and to cook at age 12.  Female education was more or less preparation for marriage, but noble girls spent a year when they were 12 or 13 attending the priestesses in the temple; some would go on to become professional priestesses.

-- from Aztec History

Aztec boys at school listening to their teacher.

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