Organization
The Aztec army was organized into two layers. The commoners were organized into "wards" (calpōlli) that were under the leadership of tiachcahuan ("leaders") and calpoleque ("calpulli owners"). The nobles were organized into professional warrior societies. Apart from the Tlatoani the war leaders of the Aztecs were the High General, the Tlacochcalcatl ("The man from the house of darts") and the General the Tlācateccatl "Cutter of men"). The Tlacochcalcatl and Tlacateccatl also had to name successors prior to any battle so that if they died they could be immediately replaced. Priests also took part in warfare, carrying the effigies of deities into battle alongside the armies.The army also had little boys about the age of twelve along with them serving as porters and messengers, this was mainly for training measures. The image below shows the Tlacateccatl and the Tlacochcalcatl and two other officers (probably priests) known as Huitznahuatl and Ticocyahuacatl, all dressed in their tlahuiztli suits:
Read more about this topic: Aztec Warfare
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The organization controlling the material equipment of our everyday life is such that what in itself would enable us to construct it richly plunges us instead into a poverty of abundance, making alienation all the more intolerable as each convenience promises liberation and turns out to be only one more burden. We are condemned to slavery to the means of liberation.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)
“Unless a group of workers know their work is under surveillance, that they are being rated as fairly as human beings, with the fallibility that goes with human judgment, can rate them, and that at least an attempt is made to measure their worth to an organization in relative terms, they are likely to sink back on length of service as the sole reason for retention and promotion.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)