TOLTEC

The Toltec, pronounced TOLL-tec, migrated from the north into the Valley of Mexico about A. D. 900. Over the following centuries to about A. D. 1200, they created one of the four great Mesoamerican civilizations. (Mesoamerica is the name given by scholars to the culture area in what is now Mexico and parts of Central America, where Indians created highly organized agricultural societies with cities or city-states.)

When they first arrived in the Valley of Mexico, a broad valley on the Mexican Plateau, the Toltec were one of the many nomadic hunting tribes called Chichimec, meaning “sons of the dog.” The local inhabitants feared them. After a prolonged power struggle, the Toltec became the dominant tribe under their leader Mixcoatl.

At that time in densely populated Mesoamerica, there were many different peoples and tribes. Some of them lived in population centers with stone architecture. Some developed hieroglyphic writing. The OLMEC had developed the first great civilization in the Preclassic period before A. D. 300. The MAYA had followed in the so-called Classic period from about A. D. 300 to 900. Another great city during the Classic period was Teotihuacan. There were other centers of religion, learning, and commerce, many of these in the Valley of Mexico. Mixcoatl, the Toltec leader, encouraged his followers to learn from these other cultures. The Toltec built their own city, calling it Tula.

The Toltec and other peoples after them, such as the AZTEC, rose to power in a period labeled the Postclassic era, from about A. D. 900 to the arrival of Europeans in about 1500. This label is applied because many of the cultural traits of the Postclassic civilizations were adopted from the earlier Classic peoples, who made great strides forward in knowledge.

The Toltec adapted that earlier knowledge into new forms. Mixcoatl’s son Topiltzin, who came to power in 968, encouraged learning and art among his people.

Much of what is known about the Toltec comes from the later Aztec. In Aztec legends, the Toltec stood for what is civilized. Also in Aztec mythology, both Mixcoatl and Topiltzin were considered gods—the father, a hunting god, and the son, Quetzalcoatl, the great Plumed Serpent, a deity among many different Mesoamerican peoples. The Aztec might have revered the Toltec leaders as gods because Topiltzin took the name Quetzalcoatl.

Under Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl, the Toltec erected tall pyramids, beautiful palaces with columns and murals, ball courts, and other elegant stone structures; they developed new kinds of corn, squash, and cotton; they crafted exquisite objects in gold and silver; they shaped new designs in pottery; they made beautiful clothing from textiles, decorated with feathers; and they used hieroglyphic writing. They also conquered other Indian peoples around them and influenced their architecture and art forms. At its peak, the Toltec Empire stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

Yet Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl fell from power. What led to his downfall is not known for certain. Aztec tradition says that the Plumed Serpent was overthrown when he tried to ban human sacrifice, which the Toltec practiced

Toltec clay figurine made from a mold

On a large scale. Legend has it that the followers of the Plumed Serpent were defeated by the devotees of Tez-catlipoca, the deity of the night, and that they then fled from Tula.

Perhaps Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl and his followers were the Toltec who invaded the Yucatan Peninsula to the east, interbred with the Maya, and brought about the Maya Postclassic era. Whether the great king survived his downfall or not, the legend of Quetzalcoatl was so strong in the later Aztec culture that they awaited his return and thought that Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, might be he.

The Toltec who overthrew Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl and stayed in power in Tula and the Valley of Mexico gradually fell into a state of decline. They were plagued by a series of droughts, famines, fires, and invasions of tribes who, as they themselves once had, came from the north. Tula was destroyed in 1160. After a period of tribal rivalries and power struggles, the Aztec, the founders of the last great Mesoamerican civilization, rose to dominance.