Shield Flower faced her own mortality and mustered the bravery to go from this world with the grace and elegance worthy of a queen. At least that’s what her folks said in the legends they passed down to succeeding generations. At times, they referred to her as the more courageous Chimalexochitl (Chi-mal-eh-SHO-cheet), which means Shield-Bearer Flower, rather than Chimalxochitl (Chi-mal-SHO-cheet, Shield Flower). Her forefathers, who date back six or more generations, had been among the last to depart from the parched, devastated areas of the American Southwest and set out on a journey over the vast desert in pursuit of the southern regions that were supposed to exist.
The stories about the land’s fertility had all come to pass by the time their ancestors arrived in the central basin of Mexico, some two centuries later. The priceless harvest of maize thrived here. However, they discovered that other groups of northern warriors, who were equally skilled with a bow and arrow as Shield Flower’s grandpa and his soldiers, had already taken control of the best territories. Without a better option, Shield Flower’s family rented themselves out as mercenaries, participating in other people’s conflicts in return for the freedom to set up camp peacefully, shoot a few deer, and sow a little amount of maize.
However, her folks had suffered hardship in 1299. As it transpired, their misfortune had been so dire that one narrator would go on to say that it had all occurred in a year One Rabbit, not a year Two Reed, as everyone else had said. An ancient proverb read, “We were really one rabbited,” which translates to, “We were really up a creek.” One rabbit has traditionally been connected to misfortune. Either way, Shield Flower’s father believed his people had become strong enough to no longer be afraid. He proclaimed himself to be the group’s voice and an autonomous monarch or chief, known as a tlatoani (tla-to-WAN-ee), which means “speaker.” He made it clear in his vow that he would never longer serve as a mercenary or pay tribute to others. To make sure he had gotten his message across, he even made fun of the most influential chief in the region. According to others, he even asked to marry the daughter of the main chief, but when she came, he sacrificed her.3. Given that he wasn’t a lunatic, it is more plausible that he was teasing the strongman by attacking one of his buddies or by disobeying one of his explicit commands. Whatever his uppity action was, it turned out to be a very bad decision.
The Culhua (CUL-wa) people’s King Coxcox (COSH-cosh) personally led the war force that arrived to exterminate the intruders. The group of warriors was made up of cooperative members from six different villages. They showed no mercy in their killing, leaving only a small number of warriors alive to be taken prisoner by the cities that had vanquished them. After being split up, the young ladies were taken to their new life as concubines. The most significant Culhua village is Culhuacan, where Shield Flower and her father, Huitzilihuitl (Wee-tzil-EE-weet, Hummingbird Feather), were brought. Huitzilihuitl’s heart ached for his daughter, whose ripped garments made her body obvious to everyone and shamed her. He pleaded with Coxcox to spare the girl’s feelings and give her a small item of clothing. After turning to face her, Coxcox burst out laughing. The people will never forget him saying “no.” “She’s going to stay the same.”
Shield Flower was therefore left hand and foot chained and had to wait under guard to find out what would become of her. Days passed, the suffering lasting longer. The wetlands around the Culhua people were being scoured for survivors of the war. They anticipated that hunger would eventually drive many of them out, and it did. Shield Flower was still a humiliated hostage when they started to stream into Culhuacan—some carried by captors, some arriving voluntarily to volunteer to act as slaves in return for their lives.
It was something she could put up with when her people were not around to witness it, but not just now. She requested that someone grab her some charcoal and chalk. Her kidnappers consented to it. Maybe they were laughing. The tied girl labored to brand herself in the traditional manner using the black and white materials. Then she got up and cried out, “Why don’t you sacrifice me?!” The gods and her were both prepared; the Culhuas simply disgraced themselves by waiting, as though they lacked the bravery to carry out the act. Afterwards, some of the bards would claim that the Culhuas lighted the fire because they wanted to quiet her because they felt ashamed of what she had spoken. Others said that some of her own people performed the act themselves at her instruction since they respected her honor more than their own lives.
Shield Flower stood erect as the flames rose, knowing she had nothing left to lose. She cried at her foes, “People of Culhuacan, I go to where my god lives,” as tears flowed down her cheeks. You will see that all of the descendants of my people will become outstanding fighters. The Culhuas cleaned away her ashes and blood when she passed away, but they were unable to remove the fear that her words had instilled in them.
Some might argue that Shield Flower may not have truly lived all those years after her people had risen to great prominence only to lose it again when the Christians arrived. Ultimately, her name was Azcalxochitl in some of the legends. She was also the elder sister of the chief in some of them, and in some of them she was meant to raise the future chief instead of being the chief’s daughter. Why trust any of it if the bards could not even agree on such fundamental story points?
The basics are true even if we don’t think we can hear the precise words of a discussion that took place in 1299. The ancestors of the people who are now known as the Aztecs descended from the north over several centuries, and those who arrived last were left without land, forcing them to compete for dominance in the fertile central valley, according to archeological and linguistic evidence as well as the written historical chronicles of several Mexican towns.
We are aware of their methods for waging war and the symbolic importance of the chiefly sisters and daughters being brought up to raise the leaders of the following generation. We even know that Shield Flower and Lily were frequent indigenous names for aristocratic daughters, and that the inhabitants of the valley trained their daughters to be almost as stoic as their boys in times of stress. To put it briefly, Shield Flower’s narrative would have involved several young women.
Together with their warrior brothers, all those young ladies gathered around the fire in the evenings to hear the storytellers share their knowledge of their heritage. They all discovered that their people had traveled over mountains and deserts to start again after leaving the far north, with their leaders transporting the holy bundles of their gods to their new home. While there were some differences across the accounts, there were also some similarities, and we can combine these with the information from linguistic mapping and archeology to create a cohesive picture of what transpired. The story has all the elements of a great drama.
It extends to a period of time that Shield Flower is ignorant of, save from story and dreams, and it begins in northern Asia during the last Ice Age and ends with the arrival of the first people in the Americas. By then, humanity had left Africa and traveled great distances, settling nearly everywhere in the Old World. Eventually, every tribe would come to appreciate the unique qualities of the places they called home, whether it was the dry Deccan peninsula of India or the frigid fjords of Scandinavia. However, the area was not as diversified and was still mostly covered in glaciers that were gradually melting twenty thousand years ago or more. It was therefore less obvious where “home” was. Big wildlife was tracked about by small groups of humans, and brave hunters killed it with their comparatively weak spears. According to most experts, some people from northern Asia crossed the Bering Strait into Alaska around thirteen thousand years ago.
The land bridge was miles wide at the time, and the strait was encased in ice. At least three separate waves of people crossed this strait due to conflict, resource scarcity, or both. They eventually occupied two continents as they, or their progeny and descendants, persisted in pursuing caribou, mastodons, and any other edible animal. Occasionally, they came across some tribes who had arrived in the new hemisphere earlier than them, seemingly making their way along the shore in canoes. A handful had reached southern Chile by perhaps fourteen thousand years ago, before the land bridge allowed for large-scale immigration. A toddler walked in the dirt beside a cooking fire in a location that is now known as Monte Verde, leaving a distinct footprint that archaeologists would discover many years later.