Although fond of warfare and cruel in their tortures to prisoners, the Aztecs had many wise laws and institutions, and were, in some respects, highly civilized. They were governed by an Emperor, and, when he died, another one was chosen by four nobles from among his sons or nephews. The one preferred was obliged to have distinguished himself in war, and he was not crowned until he had waged a successful campaign, had captured large numbers of the enemy, and thus provided enough captives to grace his entry into the capital.
The Aztecs worshiped thirteen principal gods, and more than two hundred of less importance, whose temples were everywhere to be seen. At the head of all the gods was the great Huitzilopochtli, whose temples were in every city of the empire, and whose image was always loaded with costly ornaments.
They also had a legend that there had once dwelt upon the earth the great god, Quetzalcoatl, god of the air, under whose sway the Aztec people had flourished and there had been peace and prosperity among all men. He was said to have been tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. He had, in fact, quite resembled a Spaniard, and this led to the success which Cortés had with the Mexicans, as you will presently see.
Quetzalcoatl, it was said, had in some way incurred the wrath of the principal gods, so that he had been forced to leave the country. He had turned towards the Gulf of Mexico, had stopped at the city of Cholula, and had then departed in a magic boat, made of serpent’s skins, to the fabled land of Tlapallan. Tradition had it that as he was leaving, he had turned to the faithful ones who had followed him saying: “Watch and wait for me, I shall come again.” For this reason the Aztecs were ever on the lookout for the great and benevolent god of the white skin and flowing beard.
As horses were not known, communication was held by means of couriers, who, trained from childhood to run, traveled with amazing swiftness. There were relay stations, or post houses, for these couriers, and they would thus carry on their messages for a hundred to two hundred miles in a day. In this manner the Emperor of the Aztecs, as he sat in his palace in the City of Mexico, would feast upon fresh fish, which, twenty-four hours before, had been caught in the Gulf of Mexico, over two hundred miles away. Thus the news was transmitted when war was in progress, and, as the messengers came along the highways, the people knew whether the tidings were good or bad, by the dress which they wore. If bad news, the runners were in black. If good, in gay colors.