Nezahualcoyotl Acolmiztli ( , ), "Fasting Coyote" (April 28, 1402 – 1472) was tlatoani (king) of the Acolhua altepetl (city-state) of Texcoco from 1431 to his death in 1472, in pre-Columbian Mexico. He is noted for his achievements as a philosopher (tlamatini), warrior, architect, legislator and poet, earning him the nickname of "the Poet-King" (, in Spanish). In his lifetime, he was also known by his poetic nickname Yoyontzin. His difficult younger years following his father's assassination, and his efforts to reconquer his realm after being taken over by the powerful Tepanec Empire turned him into a hero in pre-Columbian society. In order to defeat the Tepanec Empire, and its ruler Maxtla, he formed an alliance with the (kings) of Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan (Itzcoatl and Totoquihuaztli I), becoming one of the founders of the Aztec Triple Alliance, commonly known as the Aztec Empire. His odyssey has captured the public imagination, which has been compared to the Shakespearean story of Prince Hamlet, albeit he remains an enigmatic figure, due to the lack of sources from his own lifetime or from his contemporaries.
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He was the legitimate son of Ixtlilxochitl I, the king of Texcoco who declared war on the Tepanec Empire approximately in 1415. Nezahualcoyotl was declared crown prince soon after the war started, and about four years later, when he was just 16 years old, he witnessed his father being assassinated by Tepanec warriors while attempting to flee Texcoco. Nezahualcoyotl spent several years of his life in exile, seeking refuge in Tlaxcallan and Tenochtitlan and evading assassination attempts. Following the death of the Tepanec emperor Tezozomoc, Maxtla took the throne and attempted to assassinate Nezahualcoyotl on multiple occasions, unsuccessfully. When Chimalpopoca, king of Tenochtitlan (and Nezahualcoyotl's uncle), was assassinated in 1427, Itzcoatl, his successor, launched a revolution to end Tepanec rule over Mexico. He and Nezahualcoyotl formed an alliance to defeat the Tepanecas, and after a series of combats, they managed to overthrow Maxtla, killing him and destroying the Tepanec Empire. With Itzcoatl's support, Nezahualcoyotl formally took Texcoco's throne in 1431, beginning a period of prosperity that would last until the 16th century.
He is credited with starting Texcoco's golden age. During his reign, Nezahualcoyotl led the construction of massive and impressive engineering projects, with a particular focus on hydraulic engineering, building aqueducts, flood-preventing structures and botanical gardens which worked for the benefit of the population of the Valley of Mexico for decades after his death. The remains of the botanical gardens of Texcotzingo serve as physical evidence of the impressive engineering skill and appreciation for nature the people of Texcoco developed during his rule. He also established a Hammurabi-like legal system consisting of 80 laws addressing matters such as robbery, adultery, military misconduct and more. Through conquest, Nezahualcoyotl managed to expand his realm's territory beyond that which his predecessors had ruled; his conquests were done along side the conquests of the rulers of Tenochtitlan (Itzcoatl, Moctezuma I and Axayacatl). Texcoco became a respected nation by its neighbors in the Valley of Mexico, being observed as a hub of intellectuals, engineers and legal experts, though the violence of his conquests is reflected in songs from the regions he attacked.
In the present, Nezahualcoyotl is best remembered for his poetry and the philosophical ideas reflected in the surviving works attributed to him. His poems address themes such as the ephemerality of human life and the "eternal" nature of "flower and song." Such poems continue being taught to Mexican children at schools, and have been praised for their beauty for centuries, in spite of the destruction of indigenous literature following the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Throughout the centuries following his death, many writers in Mexico and elsewhere wrote about his achievements, poetry and prosperous reign. Nevertheless, he has also been the subject of multiple myths and legends that may not be historically accurate. The very authorship of the poems historically attributed to him has been a subject of intense debate among scholars of Aztec culture, and it is believed that various elements of his biography may have been exaggerated to create a heroic narrative. Regardless, his biography was recorded on multiple pictorial documents, known as codices, and after the Spanish conquest it was preserved by his descendants and multiple historians who had access to these codices. Historians since the 19th century have referred to Nezahualcoyotl as a "Renaissance man of Aztec culture," and have compared Texcoco during his reign to Classical Athens.
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Name
thumb|left|upright=0.5|alt=Drawing of a coyote head with a collar.|Pre-Hispanic glyph of Nezahualcoyotl. Note the or fasting collar.
The Nahuatl name Nezahualcoyotl is commonly translated as "Hungry Coyote" or "Fasting Coyote". More accurately, it means "Coyote With a Fasting Collar", from , meaning a collar made out of bands of paper twisted together. Collars of this kind were worn by those fasting to show others that they should not be offered food. William H. Prescott, who translates his name to "Hungry Fox", believes that Nezahualcoyotl gave himself this name in reference to his cunning, but also to the hardships he endured during the early years of his life. In various poetic compositions, Nezahualcoyotl is referred to as Yoyontzin, a nickname used by himself and others.
Historical sources
Pictorial documents
thumb|alt=Refer to caption.|Plan of Nezahualcoyotl's palace, depicted on leaf 2 of the Mapa Quinatzin (1891 reproduction).
One of the most important primary sources we possess to understand the history of pre-Columbian Texcoco is a manuscript painted sometime in the early 1540s, during the early colonial period in Mesoamerican history, known as the Codex Xolotl. It is a cartographic history document made in Texcoco, described by historian Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci as "a map of exquisite delicacy", as it is the most extensive of three Texcocan cartographic histories known to exist, the other two being the Mapa Quinatzin and the Tlohtzin Map, both of which were also made in the 1540s. An annotation in Spanish attributes the ownership of the Tlohtzin Map to a certain Don Diego Pimentel, who was a descendant of Nezahualcoyotl.
The Codex Xolotl probably adapted or copied from an early 15th-century manuscript which would have been commissioned by Nezahualcoyotl himself as a document to legitimize his rule "through stories about migrations, marriages, births, deaths, dynastic successions, usurpation, battles, treason, ambushes, murders, imprisonment, and so forth." All three of the mentioned documents (Xolotl, Quinatzin and Tlohtzin) are characterized by being written "without words," i.e. in iconic script, though this does not imply they cannot be read, as, while words are not recorded as they would be using an alphabet, they communicate meaning through the textual traditions of the people who made them, as finds in his study.
These manuscripts were used by historians such as Fray Juan de Torquemada and Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl in the 17th century to write a significant number of works, and continued changing hands following Ixtlilxóchitl's death, until ultimately arriving in Europe in the 1840s in the possession of a French scientist profoundly interested in Mexico's past, . All three of these manuscripts are currently housed at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Analysis of the Codex Xolotl requires careful examination, however, as it was made with the intent of glorifying the descendants of King Xolotl, that is, the dynasty which ruled Texcoco, and thus probably underestimates the merit of other peoples who inhabited the Valley of Mexico who are described in the codex. Moreover, this codex also contributed to the creation of a narrative that turned Nezahualcoyotl into a near-invincible hero, who managed to escape from almost certain death on multiple occasions by outsmarting his adversaries, such as the Tepanec emperor Maxtla. This narrative was subsequently enhanced and exaggerated by later writers who used this codex as a source of information, adding their own narratives onto the already existing heroic tale. As a consequence of this portrayal of Nezahualcoyotl as a skeptical philosopher, future historians had the tendency of writing about Nezahualcoyotl as a peaceful monarch whose ideas contrasted with the "barbarous" Mexica. Today, it is well understood that Nezahualcoyotl was a powerful warrior king who greatly expanded his kingdom's territory through conquest.
Nevertheless, the importance of Ixtlilxóchitl's work in reconstructing the pre-Columbian past is beyond doubt, and as biased as his points of view were with respect to Texcoco's monarchy, the relevance of his work has been acknowledged by researchers for centuries, such as 19th-century historians José Fernando Ramírez and Alfredo Chavero, even if the latter believed the praise his works received was "exaggerated." Ixtlilxóchitl's work remains the most extensive source of information about Texcoco's history, describing its conflicts and the succession of its rulers over the course of centuries.
Codex Chimalpopoca
Another notable work from this era is the Codex Chimalpopoca, particularly one of the three sections it contains: the Annals of Cuauhtitlan, dated 1570. The Annals were written in Nahuatl by an anonymous author who went beyond just writing about his own nation (Cuauhtitlan), and built a comprehensive history of the Valley of Mexico. The text is notable for this reason, for the rare histories of several cities, and for its lengthy description of the Tepanec War, with a saga largely dedicated to Nezahualcoyotl. The sources used by the author included oral traditions from various informants, as well as pictorial documents in addition to them. He used these sources critically, dismissing those he found unreliable and adding disclaimers when necessary.
The three sections of the manuscript were originally written by different authors, but the whole manuscript was written by a single hand, approximately in the early 17th century, which has long been suspected to be that of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl himself, despite not demonstrating familiarity with the codex in any of his own works. The original manuscript has unfortunately been lost since 1949, forcing modern historians analysing it to rely on a photographic facsimile published in 1945 by Primo Feliciano Velázquez, and a copy produced by Antonio de León y Gama in the 18th century, currently housed at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (identified at this library as ms. Mexicain 312).
Early life
Family and early education
thumb|alt=Detail of a 16th-century manuscript painted by the Aztecs. Tecpaxochitl appears at the top-left corner, sitting behind King Ixtlilxochitl I, who is sitting on a throne in front of her. At the top-right corner, his wife Matlalcihuatzin sits facing him. Nezahualcoyotl appears beneath both, at the centre of the picture, connected to his parents with lines. Beneath him and also connected to him with a line is his younger sister, Tozquentzin. The individuals are identified by their name glyphs attached to their heads.|The family of Nezahualcoyotl (seen at the centre), depicted in this detail of the [[Codex Xolotl ( 1541). Ixtlilxochitl I sits on a throne () at the upper left. His concubine Tecpaxochitl appears sitting behind him.]]
Born Acolmiztli, on the morning of April 28, 1402, he was the son of the king of Texcoco, Ixtlilxochitl Ome Tochtli, better known as Ixtlilxochitl I, who held the title of 6th Chichimec lord, and Matlalcihuatzin, the daughter of Huitzilihuitl and sister of Chimalpopoca, both of whom were tlatoque (kings) of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. According to Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Nezahualcoyotl had a younger legitimate sister named Atotoztzin or Tozquentzin, as well as several siblings who were "illegitimate" due to being born out of concubines. One such concubine was Tecpaxochitl, daughter of Tezozomoc, king of Azcapotzalco and lord of the Tepanecas. Ixtlilxochitl refusing to accept Tecpaxochitl as his wife was considered an act of disrespect toward Tezozomoc, and has been described as one of the disrespectful actions that eventually led to the Tepanec War. Tecpaxochitl became the mother of several children, the first being Zihuaquequenotzin, the second being named Xiconocatzin or Ixhuezcatocatzin, and lastly Tilmatzin.
In spite of being "bastards," some of these children of concubines managed to obtain high positions in Texcoco's society. One such "bastard" was Zihuaquequenotzin, who was described by Alva Ixtlilxóchitl as a "great captain." Soon after being born, Nezahualcoyotl was assigned several tutors to educate him during the early years of his life, including one Huitzilihuitzin, "who at the time was a great philosopher," as Alva Ixtlilxóchitl describes.
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Ixtlilxochitl's war on the Tepanecas and assassination
thumb|alt=The assassination of Ixtlilxochitl I illustrated in a 16th-century Aztec manuscript. He appears laying on the ground with his eyes closed, struck by spears by warriors surrounding him. Nezahualcoyotl sits between the branches of a tree above the assassination scene.|The young Nezahualcoyotl, hiding between the branches of a tree (shown at the top), witnessing his father's assassination, as depicted in Codex Xolotl.
Since the times of Ixtlilxochitl's coronation, there had been an ambient of tension between the Tepanecas of Azcapotzalco and the Acolhua of Texcoco, particularly due to the former people's intention of asserting their dominance over the Valley of Mexico. In spite of the tension, there was no war between Texcoco and Azcapotzalco during much of Ixtlilxochitl's reign, until Azcapotzalco launched a surprise attack on Iztapallocan, approximately on August 6, 1415, with the intention of taking over this territory and then attacking the court of Texcoco. The inhabitants of Iztapallocan successfully repelled the violent attack, but the site's provisional ruler was assassinated in an act of treason by a Tepanec sympathiser. Ixtlilxochitl received the news of the attack that same day, and personally marched with an army of 4,000 to come to the aid of the Iztapallocans in case of a second attack. The invading army, however, had retreated back to Azcapotzalco to request reinforcements. Upon being informed of the failure of the attack, the Tepanec king Tezozomoc ordered for the Mexica armies of Tenochtilan and Tlatelolco, among other allies of his, to join the war.
thumb|alt=Photograph of the remains of the great walls of Huexotla, towering above the people walking beside them.|Great walls of Huexotla, the last standing walls of this sort built by the Aztecs, possibly built to mark the city's border. At this city, Nezahualcoyotl became crown prince.
After these events that same year, Ixtlilxochitl organized a meeting with his military commanders the lords of his domains at Huexotla. Following the meeting, the monarch concluded that his son Nezahualcoyotl should be declared as crown prince, when he would have been 13 years old, and that war must be waged against the Tepanecas, laying siege to the city of Mexico via Lake Texcoco, and assaulting Azcapotzalco by land and the lake, with the army marching on land having to march through enemy Tepanec territory.
The lake assault ended in failure rather quickly. Tlacateotl, king of Tlatelolco, intercepted the Acolhua troops before they reached either Mexico or Azcapotzalco, forcing them to retreat back to Texcoco's shore. The war against the Tepanecas lasted four years, during which neither side had a notable advantage. Tezozomoc, observing this situation, took a cruel decision: to assassinate Ixtlilxochitl and his family by pretending to make a truce with Texcoco. The unsuspecting Ixtlilxochitl accepted the truce offer and lifted the siege of Azcapotzalco, ordering his troops to return to their homeland. Approximately on June 25, 1418,