Muse

The story that I'm about to tell you about the rise of the Aztec is a version that was not taught in school. When I first read about the revenge of the hungry coyote, my jaw dropped. This is a wild story. I really enjoyed writing this and narrating it. The scenes that you're about to see were prompted by me using the latest AI video technology. Viewer discretion is advised. Nearly 2,000 years before the Mexica entered the Valley of Mexico, another city had already risen. It was called Coequilco. Its people built one of the earliest major ceremonial centers in the region, including a massive circular pyramid that still survives today. For centuries, Coequilco grew near the volcanoes south of the valley, and around 250 AD, that world collapsed. The Chitle volcano erupted and poured lava across the land. Homes, fields, temples, and entire sections of the city were buried beneath black volcanic rock. Coiquilco was broken and its people scattered. In Mesoamerica, this pattern repeated again and again. Cities rose, rulers built monuments to make their power look permanent, and then drought, war, fire, or natural disaster brought them down. Some survivors appear to have moved north toward a city already rising in power, Tewatewa Khan. The city became one of the largest urban centers in the ancient Americas. It was a planned metropolis with multi-story apartment compounds, organized neighborhoods, massive pyramids, and a ceremonial center that still stands as one of the greatest achievements of the ancient world. The sun, rain, fertility, and war were not separate from politics. They helped explain the order of the world and the power of the people who ruled it. And sacrifice was part of that order. In one chamber, 12 bodies were discovered. Their hands had been bound behind their backs. Ten had been decapitated. Animals were buried with them as well, including eagles, felines, canines, and serpents. By the 6th and 7th century, they began to fall apart. Drought and food shortages may have weakened the city, but the strongest archaeological evidence points to internal violence. Destruction was concentrated in places connected to power. Areas near the Avenue of the Dead were damaged, while many ordinary residential neighborhoods survived. This suggests a possibility that the people inside Tehuatayucan may have turned against the elites who ruled them. After Tehuatayucan collapsed, the next major power remembered in central Mexico was the Toltec civilization. Their capital was Tula, north of the Valley of Mexico. By 950 AD, it had become one of the most important cities in the region. Its temples showed warriors, jaguars, eagles, serpents, and gods. On one pyramid stood massive stone warrior figures looking out over the city.

Later civilizations saw them as a symbol of kingship, art, religion, and sacred knowledge. They were also tied to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, one of the most important figures in Mesoamerican religion. In later traditions, Quetzalcoatl was connected to Tula as a priest king whose story blended history and myth. He was said to have been driven into exile and disappeared toward the east. Some stories say he crossed the sea, others say he burned himself and became the morning star. The people of central Mexico measured time differently than we do today. Time moved in cycles. One calendar followed the solar year, another followed a sacred cycle of 260 days. And every 52 years, the two calendars aligned and that moment was considered dangerous. The world might continue, or it might end. At the end of the cycle, fires were put out across the cities, homes and temples went dark, families waited without light, while priests prepared the new fire ceremony. At the Hill of the Star near Kulvakan, a captive was laid on his back, his chest was opened, his heart was removed, and a priest used a wooden fire drill to create a new flame over the wound. If the flame caught, the cycle had been renewed. Torches carried the new fire back into the city, temples were relit, and life could begin again. By the 1100 Zaydi, Tula began to weaken. A major Anjured drought struck central Mexico, parts of the city showed signs of burning and destruction, buildings were abandoned, and political power broke apart. While rival city-states competed for power after the fall of Tula, another people were moving south toward the valley of Mexico. They were the Mexica. According to their traditions, they had come from a place called Aztlan. Its exact location is unknown, but later pictorial histories showed them leaving their homeland under the guidance of their god, Huitzilopochtli. By the time the Mexica reached the Valley of Mexico, the region was already crowded. Older city-states controlled the lakes, farmlands, trade routes, and temples, so survival meant service. They became soldiers for stronger rulers, fought in other people's wars, and accepted land that more powerful groups did not want. By the late 1200s, the Mexica had settled at Chapultepec on the western side of Lake Texcoco. The hill had springs land in a strong position near the water, and other powers did not want these armed outsiders controlling such an important location. In 1299, a coalition attacked the Mexica and drove them out. Some leaders were captured while others fled. Kulwakan then allowed the Mexica to settle at Tezapapen. It was rough land remembered as a place filled with snakes, but it gave them a place to survive. The Mexica

served Kuluacan as warriors. They fought in its wars, learned its customs, and moved closer to the world of kings they had once stood outside. But service was not enough. The Mexica wanted legitimacy. That ambition led them to ask the ruler of Kuluacan for his daughter in a marriage alliance. By giving his daughter to the Mexica, he likely believed he was strengthening an alliance with the useful warrior people. A marriage connection would give the Mexica access to one of its most prestigious bloodlines in the valley. A ceremony was prepared, and the ruler of Kulwakan was invited as an honored guest. He arrived expecting to see his daughter elevated. Inside the dark temple, Mexica priests and elders gathered around the offering. the Kulwakan ruler stepped forward and began burning incense then the firelight revealed a priest standing before him and that priest was wearing his daughter's skin the Mexica had sacrificed her flayed her and dressed a priest in her skin as part of the ceremony in their eyes she had been transformed into a sacred figure connected with the gods to her father and Kulwakan she had been murdered the Mexica were driven out again and forced back to the marshes of Lake Texcoco. Exal had pushed them deeper into the lake, Huitzilopochtli had promised them a sign, an eagle perched on a cactus rising from the stone in the lake, and according to their traditions, the Mexica finally saw it. But finding this sign did not give the Mexica a great city. It gave them a swampy island in Lake Texcoco. The land was small, wet, and difficult to build on, So the Mexica got to work. They marked off shallow waters with stakes and reeds, then filled those spaces with mud, stone, plant, and soil pulled from the lake bottom. Simple homes came first, then raised paths, canals, small temples, and farmland. But the island had its advantages. Water made it harder for their enemies to attack. Canoes could move people and goods across the lake. The Mexica expanded the land, connected themselves to trade routes, and slowly turned the marsh into a permanent settlement. The name of this city would be called Tenochtitlan, and it began to grow. But they were still not independent. Older and stronger powers still surrounded Lake Texcoco. And the most dangerous was Azcapotzalco, the Tepenex city-state that dominated the valley. By the late 1300s, its ruler Tezozomoc had become one of the most powerful men in the valley of Mexico. Tenochtitlan was growing, but the Mexica still lived under his shadow. Their island city owed tribute. Tezozomoc once demanded something almost impossible. The Mexica had to send him a floating garden.

It had to arrive at Azcapotzalco with a live duck and heron sitting on their nests. even more difficult their eggs had to hatch at the exact moment that the tribute was presented. The Mexica returned to the lake and built the garden piece by piece and when the timing was right the floating garden moved across the water to Azcapotzalco it arrived with the duck and the heron sitting on their eggs, and as the tribute was presented to Tezozomoc, the eggs hatched. The Mexica had survived the humiliation, and their next tribute would be paid in blood. In 1418, Tezozomoc turned against Texcoco, one of the strongest cities in the region. Its ruler was Ixtlil Xochitl, father of the young prince Nezahualcuelto. The English translation of his name is the Fasting Coyote or the Hungry Coyote. And for the sake of clarity, and so my English audience can follow this character, character arc, we will refer to him as the Hungry Coyote from this point forward. The Mexica fought on Tezozomok's side against the ruler and his son, the Hungry Coyote. This created a brutal conflict. The other side was connected to Tenochtitlan by marriage, but the Mexica were still beneath Azcapotzalco. Survival meant obeying the stronger king. Their ruler and his son, the Hungry Coyote, fled as Teppinoc and Mexica forces hunted them down. The king told the hungry coyote to climb into a tree and hide among the branches. And from above, the young prince watched as soldiers closed in, and his father was found and brutally killed below him. The prince stayed hidden, and the hungry coyote had become a fugitive. He did not return to Texcoco. He spent years moving through the mountains and borderlands of the valley, protected by relatives, loyal nobles, and supporters of the old royal line of Texcoco. Eventually, his family helped arrange a pardon. The hungry coyote was permitted to enter Tenochtitlan, where he lived under the protection and watch of the Mexico ruler Ximalapopoca. This placed him among the same people who had fought for the army that destroyed his father. The Mexica were still not exactly free. Tenochtitlan was still paying tribute, supplying soldiers, and obeyed Tezozomok because it had no better choice. The hungry coyote's enemies still ruled the valley, but they were getting old, and in 1426, Tezozomok died. His death triggered a secession crisis inside Azkipasalko. Tezozomok had chosen one of his sons named Tayatsin to inherit Azkipasalko. Another son named Máxtla refused to accept the decision.

He was the ruler of Coyoacán, but he wanted the entire Tepenoc Empire. The Mexica ruler backed Tayatzin, and together they plotted to kill his brother Máxtla during a feast. But this plan was overheard by a palace dwarf, serving as a court entertainer, who carried the warning back to Máxtla. And so he decided to attack first. Assassins entered Azcapotzalco at night, they found Tayatsin inside the royal compound and killed him before his supporters could respond. Mashkla had murdered his own brother and seized the Teppinoc empire, and next he would turn on Tenochtitlan. Mashkla sent women's clothing to the Mexica rulers as a public insult. Shemal-Papoca understood what was coming. prepared to offer himself to the gods of Tenochtitlan rather than be captured, but Mashtla denied him that death. Tepenoch warriors entered Tenochtitlan, seized Shemalpapoka, and dragged him back to Azcapotzalco. His young son was captured with them. The Mexica ruler was locked inside a wooden cage and deliberately starved, and his next target would be the hungry coyote. This prince of Texcoco was still living in Tenochtitlan under Mexica protection. As long as he was alive, Texcoco still had an heir. The hungry coyote was warned before the assassins reached him and fled back into the mountains. With Ximpalpoboca dead, the Mexica chose a new ruler, Itzquatl, or the Obsidian Serpent. He was a war leader for a city that had run out of room to submit. As Tenochtitlan prepared for war, the hungry coyote returned from exile. This prince of Texcoco had spent years gathering allies among nobles, warriors, and cities that hated Máxtla, and he joined this new Mexican leader against Azcapasalco. In 1428, the rebel army marched at the Tepenoc capital, and the siege lasted for 114 days. The rebel forces entered the capital and massacred the city. were killed, houses were attacked, temples were burned. Mashala tried to hide. Nezawalkoyato, or the hungry coyote, found him inside a temezcal, a stone sweat bath. The hungry coyote would tear out his heart and avenge his father by sacrificing him. After the fall of Azcapotzalco, power was divided between three cities. From that alliance, the Aztec Empire was born. But Coyoacan refused to submit. The Triple Alliance sent ambassadors to demand tribute and Coyoacan answered with humiliation.

The ambassadors were seized, stripped of their warrior insignia, and dressed in women's clothing. The experience was utterly humiliating. This insult gave the new alliance a reason to strike. So the Mexica army marched on Koyoacan. Its defenses collapsed and the lords that had mocked Tenochtitlan were stripped of their wealth and power. Its people became tribute payers and laborers under the new order and the news started to spread across the valley. The triple alliance would not ask cities to obey, it would make refusal impossible. Tenochtitlan was rich, but the empire needed captives for sacrifice. If conquest slowed, the supply of prisoners slowed with it. So the solution was the Flower Wars. These were arranged battles fought against independent enemies like Tlaxcala and Huehotsingo. The Flower Wars allowed the empire to keep war alive, even when conquest slowed. By the late 1400s, Tenochtitlan had become one of the greatest cities in the world. Less than two centuries earlier, the Mexica had been outsiders living on a difficult island in Lake Texcoco. Now the island held more than 200,000 people. And at the center of Tenochtitlan stood Templo Mayor, the main temple of the Mexica capital. It rose above the city in massive stepped platforms and was expanded by generations of rulers. To dedicate this new construction, thousands of captives were sacrificed over several days. The exact number is disputed, but many estimates range between 20 and 80,000 victims. Lines of prisoners were brought into the capital. Priests worked at the summit while crowds watched from below. Heads could be removed, cleaned, drilled through the sides and displayed on a massive wooden skull rack near the temple precinct. In 1502, Montezuma II became ruler of Tenochtitlan. Before taking the throne, Montezuma had been trained in war, religion, and government. He had fought in campaigns, held military rank, and served as a priest. During his reign, the Triple Alliance reached its greatest extent. Tenochtitlan consumed wealth across all of Mesoamerica, and their time at the top would soon run out. Strange signs appeared before 1519. A fire burned across the night sky. The temple of Huitzolopochtli caught fire without warning. Lake Texcoco flooded parts of Tenochtitlan without a storm. Then fishermen brought Montezuma a strange bird with a mirror-like surface on its head, and when he looked into it, he saw armed men riding deer like beasts. These signs pointed east. That direction carried old religious weight. Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent was tied to the stories of exile and return and then a runner came from the

coast exhausted covered in sweat and road dust he was taken straight into the palace then the painted sheets were brought forward they were laid out before Montezuma the ruler of Tenochtitlan looked down and for the first time he saw it and that is the story of the revenge of the hungry coyote thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support my work please join my ai filmmaking community on school where all new episodes are released early there it's a great way to support the channel and you'll learn a lot about ai filmmaking as all of this evolves it's evolving very quickly if you join make sure to say hello to me i'm in there every single day please like and subscribe and stay Stay tuned for the next one, take care.