The Ethnogenesis Myths of the Nahuas of the Basin of Mexico and Tlaxcala as Ethnopolitical Sources

The Nahua is one of largest indigenous ethnolinguistic entities of the cultural area of Mesoamerica, a center of origin and evolution of early states which is isolated from the Old World. Today they live predominantly in mountain areas of the Central Plateau and southern region of the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico. Few Nahua groups currently inhabit the Central American countries of Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. This article examines the origin myths of three large Nahua ethnic groups of Central Mexico before the Spanish Conquest. These groups are the Aztecs or Mexica, one of the founders of the Triple Alliance confederation, frequently and erroneously called the «Aztec empire»; the Chalca, the inhabitants of the south-eastern part of the Basin of Mexico, and the Tlaxcaltecas, the residents of the present-day State of Tlaxcala in the eastern part of the Central Plateau. This approach permits conducting a comparative analysis of the narratives of ethnic groups that have common origin but different identity and cultural traditions, as well as to detect basic elements concerning Nahua migrations to Central Mexico, their relations with the autochthonous population and the foundation of their proper states and dynasties in the Late Postclassic Period, that is in the 13–16 th centuries. The aim of this article is the analysis of the ethnogenesis myths of the Aztecs, the Chalca and the Tlaxcaltecas as an ethnopolitical source, which allows to reconstruct the early stage of their history, the main sociopolitical institutions, their ethnic identity and notions about power and forms of its legitimization before the Spanish Conquest.