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Jaguar warriors or jaguar knights, ocēlōtl Nahuatl pronunciation: [oˈseːloːt͡ɬ] ⓘ (singular) [1] or ocēlōmeh [oseːˈloːmeʔ] [1] were members of the Aztec military elite. [2] They were a type of Aztec warrior called a cuāuhocēlōtl [kʷaːwoˈseːloːt͡ɬ] (derived from cuāuhtli [ˈkʷaːʍt͡ɬi] ("eagle") and ocēlōtl ...
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
Aztec armed forces were typically composed of large numbers of commoners with basic military training, who were stiffened by smaller numbers of professional warriors belonging to the nobility. The professional warriors were organized into warrior societies and often ranked according to their achievements.
The formal education of the Aztecs was to train and teach young boys how to function in their society, particularly as warriors. The Aztecs had a relatively small standing army. Only the elite soldiers, part of the warrior societies (such as the Jaguar Knights), and the soldiers stationed at the few Aztec fortifications were full-time.
Thanks to their elite training and education, they were leaders and commanders both on and off the battlefield. On reaching this rank they were peers of nobles and other elite members of Aztec society, therefore the warrior's path was a way to raise one's social status in Aztec culture guaranteeing many of the same privileges as nobles.
This established an enduring tradition wherein future monarchs were consistently chosen from the ranks of the pipiltin, solidifying their role as the aristocratic elite within Aztec society. [1] Portrait of Acamapichtli, the first Aztec King. Ruling positions were not hereditary, but preference was given to those in the "royal families."
The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala , and eventually other Aztec tributary states.
The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance (Classical Nahuatl: Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, [ˈjéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥]) was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan.