HISTORY & LANGUAGE
People have lived in Mexico for almost 40,000 years! So there’s a lot of history to learn about.
Mexico also has many languages. Although most people speak Spanish, there are plenty of other languages as well, like Nahuatl, Maya, Mixtec, Zapotec and many more.
The Aztecs
Lots of powerful groups have lived in Mexico over the years, like the Mayans and the Toltec, but one very powerful group were called the Aztecs.
They lived in southern Mexico about 700 years ago. They were very rich and powerful. They were also very organized - they had rules for everyone about what jobs they could do, where they could live - even what clothes they could wear!
They built a huge city called Tenochtitlan, which is now called Mexico City.
Mexico City is enormous!
One of the ways the Aztecs organized themselves was by using lots of calendars. These calendars were extremely complicated. They were carved onto a big stone called a Sun Stone, so that everyone would know exactly which day it was.
There were a few different calendars, but one of the most important ones was the Xiuhpohualli. One year was 18 months long, instead of 12 months, like ours. Each month was 20 days long, instead of 30 or 31 days.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Xiupohualli told people when different activities should be done. There was a time of year for hunting and a time of year for cleaning and a time of year to have a big party.
WHAT DO THE SYMBOLS MEAN?
The symbols around the edge of the calendar represent the different months and what activities should be done at that time.
Activity 3 is on pages 5 & 6 of the worksheet bundle
Activity 3: The Aztec Calendar Stone
This activity has 2 parts.
First you need to match the symbols to their meanings. We’ve already done a few for you.
When you’ve matched all the symbols to their meanings: look at the calendar stone above. One month has an orange dot on it. This is month one. If you move around the calendar stone clockwise, what do people do in month 9?
Month 9 is time for _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ ⭐
(only the last word goes in the Answer Grid)
Great job!
On to the next activity…
Cortes, Malinche & Moctezuma
In 1531 the Aztec Empire was very powerful. But it was about to collapse. The Spanish sailed to Mexico to take it for themselves and to destroy the Aztec Empire. Three people were very important in this story - Hernán Cortés, Malinche and Emperor Moctezuma II.
Read the stories of Cortés, Malinche and Moctezuma below.
Hernán Cortés
• Born in Spain in 1485
• Sailed to the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean
• Heard of a new land to the West called Mexico and decided to go there and win it for Spain
• Met a local woman called Malinche who could translate for him
• Visited the cities of Tlaxcala and Cholula and fought against the people. He won.
• Travelled to the capital city, Tenchtitlan to meet the Emperor
• He stayed there until Moctezuma was killed (this might have been his fault!)
• Had a baby with Malinche but didn’t marry her
• Became Governor of Mexico and found lots of gold
• Went back to Spain
Malinche
• Born as a princess in a small Aztec city
• Was kidnapped and made a slave when she was about 10
• Was given to Cortés as a present. He found out she could speak lots of languages
• Helped Cortés to defeat the cities of Tlaxcala and Cholula
• Travelled to the capital city to meet the Emperor
• Had a baby called Martin with Hernan Cortés
• But married another man and lived with him until she died
Moctezuma II
• Was Emperor of Aztec Mexico. He was so important he never walked in public - he was always carried by servants
• Priests predicted that in 1531 Quetzacoatl, the Sun God would come to Mexico. No one knew exactly what he would look like.
• Moctezuma won lots of battles against other clans
• He lived in Tenochtitlan the capital of Aztec Mexico
• In 1531 Cortés and Malinche arrived in the city. Moctezuma might have thought they were the Sun Gods and gave them lots of gold to make them happy
• Except Cortés didn’t want to be a guest, he wanted to take Mexico for himself and for Spain
• Moctezuma’s people became unhappy with the Spanish
• Cortés forced him to make a speech about how good the Spanish were
• But the Aztec people were angry and threw stones at Moctezuma until he died.
Activity 4: A Story Maze
Have you done a story maze before? It’s easy.
Download and print out the image on the right, or click on it to make it larger.
Follow each person’s story on the story maze, linking the events in their lives. Use a black pen for Cortes, a green one for Malinche and a red one for Moctezuma.
Some of the paths will cross or travel together, but that’s OK.
Before Cortés and Malinche met Moctezuma, which city were they in? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ⭐
Awesome work, that’s 4 answers you’ve got now!
The Spanish controlled Mexico for a long time. They made all the decisions from Madrid and everybody in Mexico had to do as they were told.
Here’s a little timeline to show you what happened between the Spanish taking control and the Mexican Revolution.
You can click on the little plus signs to find out more.
Revolution for Mexico!
In 1910 lots of people in Mexico were unhappy.
Peasants who worked on the land were angry that they had to work, but didn’t actually own the land they worked on. Other people were angry with the President, Porfirio Diaz, saying it was his fault that things were unfair.
Some groups decided to fight for a new President, which is called a Revolution. The problem was that each group wanted a different President and were willing to fight for it.
Two famous fighters were Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
Villa was a former bandit from the North who decided to fight for power in Mexico. Zapata came from the South and wanted land for the peasants.
They met in the middle and joined their armies. Although both of them died before the Revolution ended, they are still famous figures in Mexico. The Revolution ended in 1920, after 10 years of fighting!
Activity 5: Mexican Army cipher wheel
Have you ever seen a cipher wheel? It’s a way of making a message into code, so only people who know how to solve the code can read it. They were used a lot by the Mexican Army in different periods of history.
Can you crack this code?
You need to download these activity pages first and print them out.
Oh and you’ll need the message below - that’s the one you need to decode.
Who is the message from? That’s the answer to this activity ⭐
Oh hang on, we forgot a bit of history before the Mexican Revolution! Let’s rewind a few years…
Activity 6: The USA and Mexico
In the past, Mexico was much bigger than it is now.
In fact, lots of what is the United States of America today, used to belong to Mexico.
The US states of California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Utah used to belong completely to Mexico. The South-West corner of Wyoming and most of Colorado (except for the North-East corner) were also part of Mexico.
Can you draw where the old border used to go? We’ve started the line in red for you.
We’ve put a list of state abbreviations below to help you.
OR = Oregon
CA = California
ID = Idaho
NV = Nevada
UT = Utah
WY = Wyoming
MO = Montana
NM = New Mexico
AZ = Arizona
TX = Texas
SD = South Dakota
CO = Colorado
NE = Nebraska
KS = Kansas
OK = Oklahoma
Nowadays lots of people from Mexico and other Latin American countries live in the United States. In fact, Spanish is the second most spoken language in the USA, after English!
Many Mexican people living in the USA still follow lots of Mexican traditions. The patron saint of Mexico is especially popular. What is her name?
Our Lady of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ⭐
The Ancient Egyptians also had a written language, which you may have seen before. But the Egyptians didn’t use pictograms, they used hieroglyphics.
Activity 7: Nahuatl Pictograms
The Aztecs were very educated and were one of a few early civilizations that had a written language. Lots of civilizations only spoke, they didn’t write anything down.
The language of the Aztecs was Nahuatl, and many people speak it today.
However the writing system was a bit more complicated. Nahuatl was written using pictograms, not letters, which means that people would draw symbols to mean different things.
If the Aztecs needed to write something down, they would write a pictogram of what it was, rather than a word. You can see some common pictograms and numbers below.
Tenoch is a young Aztec boy who lives on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan, the biggest city in the Aztec Empire.
One day he goes walking in the jungle outside the city.
His mother asks him to keep a note of everything he sees, and how many of each thing he saw.
Can you decode his the pictograms and numbers in his message to her?
Tenoch saw 7 of something. What was it? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ⭐
(if it doesn’t fit the Answer Grid, try taking away the ‘s’)