In
pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...
Aztec society
Aztec society was a highly complex and stratified society that developed among the Aztecs of central Mexico in the centuries prior to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and which was built on the cultural foundations of the larger region ...
, calpulli (from
Classical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl, also known simply as Aztec or Codical Nahuatl (if it refers to the variants employed in the Mesoamerican Codices through the medium of Aztec Hieroglyphs) and Colonial Nahuatl (if written in Post-conquest documents in the Lat ...
''
calpōlli'', , meaning "large houses", singular calpul) were units of commoner housing that had been split into kin-based or other land holding groups within
Nahua city-states or
altepetl
The ( , plural ''altepeme'' or ''altepemeh'') was the local, ethnically-based political entity, usually translated into English as "city-state", of pre-Columbian Nahuatl-speaking societiesSmith 1997 p. 37 in the Americas. The ''altepetl'' was ...
s. In Spanish sources, calpulli are termed ''parcialidades'' or ''barrios.'' The inhabitants of a calpul were collectively responsible for different organizational and religious tasks in relation to the larger altepetl. A calpul could be created based on an extended family, being part of a similar ethnic or national background, or having similar skills and
tribute
A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of lands which the state con ...
demands. The misunderstanding that calpulli were family units can be blamed on the fact that the word "family" refers to blood relations in English, while in Nahuatl it refers to the people whom you live with.
The primary functions of the calpulli were to coordinate land use for growing crops, food production, and manufacturing tribute. Tribute was owed by each tributary unity, typically determined as a group of course and co-residents. Tribute was paid in goods or in labor based on lists of tributaries. The most typical forms of agriculture in Aztec society were
chinampas
Chinampa ( ) is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. The word chinampa has Nahuatl origins, chinampa mea ...
and
check dam terrace farming. Chinampas' effective built-in drainage systems allowed for the flow of water and sediment, which was then stored as mud and used for fertilizer.
Tribute was a large part of Aztec society and supported the nobility. Tributes were expected from commoners around four times a year, the most common item being cotton textiles. Calpulli were also places for education. Women were taught to cook, sew, care for children, and work with textiles. The calpul also operated as the
Tēlpochcalli schools for young men to learn to be warriors.
Aztec warfare
Aztec warfare concerns the aspects associated with the military conventions, forces, weaponry and strategic expansions conducted by the Mesoamerican chronology, Late Postclassic Aztec civilizations of Mesoamerica, including particularly the milit ...
was extremely important and men were expected to go to battle beginning at the age of 15. Aztec warfare was organized so that men would go to fight for their calpul, so they were fighting for their familial pride.
See also
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Ejido
An ''ejido'' (, from Latin ''exitum'') is an area of communal land used for agriculture in which community members have usufruct rights, which in Mexico is not held by the Mexican state. People awarded ejidos in the modern era farm them indiv ...
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Georgism
Georgism, in modern times also called Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that people should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land—includ ...
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Land value tax
A land value tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land (economics), land without regard to buildings, personal property and other land improvement, improvements upon it. Some economists favor LVT, arguing it does not cause economic efficiency, ec ...
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Community land trust
Notes
References
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Aztec society