TOLTEC MYSTERIES AND RESOURCES

The following section is adapted from several sources including books on Toltec philosophy and Religion

THE TOLTECS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Teotihuacán was conquered by northern tribes in 700 AD and began to rapidly decline in its influence over the Mexican peoples. For two hundred years following the decline of Teotihuacán, the region had no centralized culture or political control. 

Beginning around 950, a culture based in northern Mexico at Tula began to dominate Central America. These people were known as the Toltecs. They were a war-like people and expanded rapidly throughout Mexico, Guatemala, and the Yucatán peninsula. At the top of their society was a warrior aristocracy which attained mythical proportions in the eyes of Central Americans long after the demise of their power. Around 1200, their dominance over the region faded.

They were important as transmitters of the culture of Teotihuacán, including religion, architecture, and social structure. Their name, in fact, is not a tribal name (the original Toltec tribal names have been lost to us); the word, toltecatl , simply means "craftsman" in the Nahua languages. Toltec was simply the word used to distinguish the Mexican peoples which retained the culture and much of the urban characteristics of the culture of Teotihuacán from other peoples; even the Aztecs primarily referred to themselves by either their tribal name (Tenochca) or as "Toltecs."

The Toltecs expanded the cult of Quetzalcoatl, the "Soveriegn Plumed Serpent," and created a mythology around the figure.  In Toltec legend, Quetzalcoatl was the creator of humanity and a warrior-god that had been driven from Tula, but would return some day. The Toltecs also originated the Central American ball-game, which was played on a large stone court with a rubber ball. The game was primarily a religious ritual celebrating the victory of god-heroes over the gods of death; as a religious ritual, it involved the human sacrifice of the loser.

The Toltecs conquered large areas controlled by the Maya and settled in these areas; they migrated as far south as the Yucatán peninsula. The culture borne out of this fusion is called the Toltec-Maya, and its greatest center was Chichén Itzá— on the very tip of the Yucatan peninsula. Chichén Itzá was the last great center of Mayan civilization. The Toltec-Maya cultures greatly expanded the cultural diffusion of Mayan thought, religion, and art north into the Valley of Mexico.

The post-Classical Toltecs were a conservative culture. For the most part they preserved Teotihuacán traditions; the transformations that they introduced expanded on Mexican religions and reoriented much of the culture around a warrior ethic and warrior aristocracy. There was no real political center, but rather a diffuse set of tribes, some urbanized and some not, with distinct cultures. The last great period of cultural unification would come under the Aztecs who, at the very twilight of Mesoamerican culture in the fifteenth century, built the most complex urban culture in Native American history.

BOOKS  This page is intended to provide a complete listing and secure web store for available books about the Toltecs. Please bookmark for future reference. In association with amazon.com, this site offers the best updated selection at the best prices.  For reviews and information on specific books or to view all books available go to the following links...

The Art of Mesoamerica : From Olmec to the Aztecs

The Broken Spears : The Aztec Account of the conquest

Aztec Thought and Culture : A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind

Click below for a complete listing of books on the Aztecs and related subjects:

Aztec
Mayan
Mesoamerican


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