Mexica The Mexica (Nahuatl: , ;''Nahuatl Dictionary.'' (1990). Wired Humanities Project. University of Oregon. Retrieved August 29, 2012, frolink/ref> singular ) were a Nahuatl-speaking indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico who were the rulers of ...

legendary tradition Huemac (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

c. 11th century), also spelled Hueymac or Huehmac, is described as being the last

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

of the (equally legendary and semi-mythical)

Toltec The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...

state before the fall of

Tula Tula may refer to: Geography Antarctica *Tula Mountains *Tula Point India *Tulā, a solar month in the traditional Indian calendar Iran * Tula, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province Italy * Tula, Sardinia, municipality (''comune'') in the pr ...

/ Tollan. His name is traditionally translated as "Big Hand", but other scholars maintain the more succinct translation is "Big Gift".See Andrews (2003), pp.601-602. All information about this figure stems from Aztec literature written centuries later. As with just about everything to do with the 'Toltecs', whom the Aztecs and other central

n cultures of the Postclassic era held up as their valiant precursors whose legacy and authority they inherited, actual and discernible historical data is scant. A number of contemporary Mesoamerican studies question whether the Toltec existed as a coherent state or group at all, and likewise whether Huemac was an actual figure remains highly debatable. After the fall of the Toltec capital Huemac traveled for some years with a diminishing band of followers, and then died in a cave at

Chapultepec Chapultepec, more commonly called the "Bosque de Chapultepec" (Chapultepec Forest) in Mexico City, is one of the largest city parks in Mexico, measuring in total just over 686 hectares (1,695 acres). Centered on a rock formation called Chapultep ...

, part of

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. The date of his death, from various accounts and various attempts to correlate the accounts with the

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

, range from the 1090s to the 1170s.

Notes

References

*{{cite book , author=Andrews, J. Richard , origyear=1975 , year=2003 , title=Introduction to Classical Nahuatl , edition=Revised , location=Norman , publisher=University of Oklahoma Press

External links

Huemac and the Legendary Fall of Tollan
a look at various accounts by Eric Rosenfield Mesoamerican people Toltec people Toltec history