Culhuacan was perhaps the first of the
chinampa towns founded on the shores of
Lake Xochimilco, with chinampas dating to 1100 C.E.[3][4]
From written records there is evidence that Culhuacan survived the fall of
Tollan and maintained its prestige until the mid-14th century. According to the Crónica Mexicayotl, transcribed in 1609, in 1299, Culhuacan's tlatoani,
Coxcoxtli, helped the
Tepanecs of
Azcapotzalco, the Xochimilca and other cities expel the
Mexica from
Chapultepec.
Coxcoxtli then gave the Mexica permission to settle in the barren land of Tizaapan, southwest of Chapultepec, and they became vassals of Culhuacan. The Mexica subsequently assimilated into Culhuacan's culture and their warriors provided mercenaries for its wars.
The
TenochtitlantlatoaniAcamapichtli was a grandson of Coxcoxtli. Nevertheless, in 1377
Azcapotzalco subdued Culhuacán in large part with Aztec troops. In 1428, the Mexica tlatoani
Itzcóatl helped to overthrow Azcapotzalco's hegemony, and accepted the title "Ruler of the Culhua".
^León-Portilla, Miguel and Sarah Cline, editors. Los Testamentos de Culhuacán: Vida y Muerte entre los Nahuas del México Central, siglo XVI. Transcripciones del náhuatl, traducciones al español e inglés. Edited with the collaboration of Juan Carlos Torres López. México: Universidad Iberoamericana
ISBN978-607-417-967-5
^Richard Blanton, "Prehispanic Settlement Patterns of the Ixtapalapa Peninsula Region, Mexico." PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1970.
^Richard Blanton, "Prehispanic Adaptation in the Ixtapalapa Region, Mexico" Science 1972; 175(4028):1317–26
Further reading
Brenner, Anita. The Influence of Technique on the Decorative Style in the Domestic Pottery of Culhuacan, Mexico. Publicación de la Escuela Internacional de Arqueología y Etnología Americana 1931.
Cline, S.L. "Land Tenure and Land Inheritance in late Sixteenth-Century Culhuacan," in Explorations in Ethnohistory, H.R. Harvey and Hanns J. Prem, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1984.
Cline, S.L. "A Legal Process at the Local Level: Estate Division in Sixteenth-Century Mexico," in Five Centuries of Law and Politics in Central Mexico, Ronald Spores and Ross Hassig, editors. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology 1984, 30:39–53.
Cline, S.L. Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600: A Social History of an Aztec Town. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1986.
Gallegos, Gonzalo. "Relación Geográfica de Culhuacan," Revista Mexicana de Estudios Históricos 1(6)1927: 171–73.
Gorbea Trueba, José. "Primer libro de bautismos del ex-convento de Culhuacán, D.F." Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Boletín 6:3. n.d.
León-Portilla, Miguel. "El libro de testamentos indígenas de Culhuacán," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 1976, 12:11–31.
León-Portilla, Miguel and Sarah Cline, editors. Los Testamentos de Culhuacán: Vida y Muerte entre los Nahuas del México Central, siglo XVI. Transcripciones del náhuatl, traducciones al español e inglés. Edited with the collaboration of Juan Carlos Torres López. México: Universidad Iberoamericana
ISBN978-607-417-967-5 digital, open access publication [1]
Pohl, John M. D. 1991. Aztec, Mixtec and Zapotec Armies. Osprey.
Prem, Hanns J. "Los reyes de Tollan y Colhuacan" Estudios de cultura náhuatl volume 30, (1999) pp.23–70
Wimmer, Alexis (2006).
"Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique"(online version, incorporating reproductions from Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl ou mexicaine [1885], by
Rémi Siméon) (in French). (in Nahuatl languages)