According to legend, the Aztecs once lived in a place (on an island) called Aztlan (“Place of the Herons”, “Place where the herons live”) - hence the name “Aztecs” (literally “people of Aztlan”). Further, leaving the island of Aztlan, the Tenochki (as they were also called) reached Chicomostoc (“Seven Caves”), the mythical starting point of the wanderings of many wandering tribes into the Valley of Mexico, including the Tlaxcalans, Tepanecs, and others. The wanderings of the Aztecs took more than 200 years before they settled in Tenochtitlan.
One day, the Aztec leader Tenoch had a vision in which the main god of the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli, predicted that they would settle where they would see an eagle holding a snake in its claws and sitting on a cactus. Much time passed before they found themselves on two islands in Lake Texcoco, infested with snakes, to the delight of neighboring tribes, who believed that the snakes would put an end to the Aztec tribe. But...
“The Aztecs were very happy to see the snakes and roasted them all. They were all roasted to eat. The Aztecs ate them all."
And then their prophecy came true:
“And they arrived where the nopal towered. And they saw with joy that a nopal towered among the stones, and an eagle sat on its top. He tore something with his claws and devoured it. Seeing the Aztecs, the eagle nodded its head. From afar they watched the eagle and its nest of magnificent feathers. There were blue bird feathers, red bird feathers, all of them were precious. The heads of various birds, their paws and bones were also scattered everywhere.”
Then Tenochtitlan was founded - in 1325.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru