Early Life and Education
The always wonderful /u/drylaw has beaten me to the punch on the general gist, but I would like to add some odds and ends. In particular, I want to note how the lives of children were gendered from the very beginning. Just as pink or blue balloons and other gender-specific accouterments celebrate the birth of a boy or girl today, the Aztecs also had different ways of welcoming a new child based on their gender. Once the midwife cut the umbilical cord, for instance, what she did with it would depend on whether the newborn was a boy or girl. In the former case, the cord would be given to experienced warriors to bury on a battlefield, but in the latter case the cord would be buried in the home, near the hearth. In both cases the selected burial spot signified the spiritual home of the two genders: men were to seek their cosmic fulfilment in war, whereas for a woman
her dwelling place was only within the house; her home was only within the house; it was not necessary for her to go anywhere. And it mean that her very duty was drink, food. She was to prepare drink, to prepare food, to grind, to spin, to weave.^1
The seperate spheres for genders, with the domain of the woman being hearth, metate, and spindle, informs much of the way girls were raised. Gifts were given upon the first bathing of the newborn, and for girls they were given, per Sahagun,
all the equipment of women -- the spinning whorl, the batten, the reed basket, the spinning bowl, the skeins, the shuttle, her little skirt, her little shift.^2
/u/Drylaw has already touch on education, but I'll also note that, even while still in the cradle, the child would be declared assigned to a specific calmecac or telpochcalli, again using gendered language. While still a child the lower lip would be pierced to show they had been declare for a telpochcalli, while those headed for a calmecac would be scarified on the chest and hip. The emphasis on an early assignment to a school was in part superstition that a child unmoored from such an institution would not live long, but also was part of the general Aztec emphasis on communal rearing. Not just the parents, but grandparents, extended family members, and community members were expected to take an active role in guiding a girl to be a proper daughter, one who was
obedient, honest, intelligent, discreet, of good memory, modest, respectful, revered, well reared, well taught, well trained, well instructed, prudent, chaste, circumspect.^3
In practice, of course, the parents shouldered much of the burden of raising the child, which for a girl meant observing her mother at work at domestic tasks, before starting to take up spinning, weaving, and grinding maize herself around age 6. Formal education in the sense of going off to live at the school was traditionally at age 15, though in actuality there would be education going on almost from the time the girl could walk, but with girls the emphasis was always in learning the arts of the home and what we know of the education of commoner girls points towards their schooling being much less formalized than for boys.
There's actually a whole sequence of paintings in the Codex Mendoza which shows various expected things at every year of a girl and boy's life, including how many tortillas they were expected to eat at a meal (1 up to age 6, then 1.5 up to age 13). In addition to first observing and then learning how to spin and weave, as well as prepare food and sweep the house, the ages from 8-11 are shown as a time period when a child is to learn obedience, with rather severe punishments for negligence and disobedience. These punishments could include having a hand pierced by a maguey spine, being beaten, or being forced to breath in smoke from burning chilies.
When it was time for a girl to go off to the calmecac, the old women would go give a final speech of advice to them. In the version from Sahagun, the young women are admonished to "live in purity" and not allow vice into their heart, to remain diligent with their chores and obedient to their superiors, and ultimately to take responsibility for themselves, with the passage ending by saying:
Do not live like a fool; do not go panting. Let people live as they will live; do not take heed of others. Pay special attention, be especially humble, incline thy body considerably, put forth all they effort to enter unto our lord. Cry out unto them, appeal to him in sorrow.
Take heed of what is said, my daughter, my noblewoman, my youngest one; it is not a matter of the conduct of others on earth. We ourselves are accountable for ourselves, whatsoever is done. Especially do not deviate in something; do not go crooked before out lord; do not falter in something before him.^4
I will take a bit of a broader approach to the question: Looking first at gender roles and female education in pre-Hispanic, and then in early colonial times, focusing on central Mexico.
Gender roles : ''parallel and complementary”
The term « Aztec » was popularized only in the 19th c, so the different population groups speaking Nahuatl are often rather called Nahua, which I will use in the following.
For native people in the pre-colonial Valley of Mexico, identity and ethnicity were strongly tied together, and were based on membership of an altepetl. The altepetl corresponded roughly to the European city-state concept. Male and female identities were only one aspect of the socio-political whole, with gender roles subsumed to altepetl membership. A person's character was also less tied to the body than in Christian conceptions, but rather to meanings connected with one's birth date. These roles also show in terminology: The use of gendered terms depended on the speaker him- or herself, and for younger relatives there existed no gendered forms. Male or female terms changed according to who was speaking.
Thus it is difficult to use Western definitions of gender for the Nahua, or other Mesoamerican population groups. For the Mexica, Susan Kellogg talks of «parallel and complementary gender relations”: Women had certain property rights (e.g. via inheritance) and held central positions, while for the most part they could not access the highest religious and political offices. In addition, claims to group membership and properties were based on the genealogical equality of men and women. Complementary also describes the way that men and women “completed” each other to achieve a certain status, such as adulthood; and it refers to the gendered tasks that men and women jointly performed to produce goods and services for the community.
In pre-colonial Mexico noble women also were of special importance, as inter-ethnic marriages between rulers and nobles of different altepetl were used strategically. Within this matrilineal system we also know of cases were female nobles and even some female rulers held political influence. In this vein, the significance of priestesses and female traders shows the existence of women's own, seperate sphere of influence.
Nahua school days
Regarding female education Caroline Dodds Pennock notes (in “A remarkably patterned life”: Domestic and public in the Aztec household city):
The calmecac and telpochcalli were 'public' institutions which specialised in preparing young men for their 'public' roles, while young women principally learned their domestic skills in the household.” Noble daughters could become priestesses and (mostly) daughters of commoners could be taught skills in the telpochcalli, but the main place for learning for women was the private household. What is more, the cihuatlamacazque (“priestesses”) were provided for by their families so they could concentrate on their tasks at the temple, which included lighting incense in front of idols and spinning blankets. Providing for all daughters of one noble household would have clearly been too unprofitable for the parents.
Pennock also mentions another type of school, the cuicacalli or “house of song”, although her focus lies on (the Mexica capital city) Tenochtitlan, and I'm not sure if this school was common in other cities/regions. In the cuicacalli the male and female students first stayed segregated while they studied, like in the other two schools, and then mingled in the courtyard to learn music and chanting – in this way “children were taught the essentials of their faith, their history and their heritage”. Universal education was provided through this school as attendance was obligatory.
Regarding changes coming into adolescence, there is a brief discussion of girls' coming of age ceremonies in Girlhood in America: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2 (ed. Miriam Forman-Brunell):
[…] the Aztec celebration of a girl's puberty signified a social shift in her status in society. At the age of twelve or thirteen, the girl could attend two types of preparatory schools, the Calmecac or the Telpucucali. Young women who entered the Calmecac school were prepared to commit their lives primarily to religious service, whereas those attending the school of Telpucucali were primed for marriage [here Quinceanera: Celebrating Fifteen by Elizabeth King is quoted].
The selected daughters of nobles went to the Calmacac school, where they were taught by priestesses. As part of their rite of passage, the young girls participated in several nightly offerings of incense to the gods, practiced celibacy, and embroidered fine clothing. The daughters of commoners went to the less formal Telpucucali were women known as ichpochtlatoque, „mistresses of the girls“, prepared them for marriage. By fifteen the Aztec girl was ready to leave her parents and teachers and enter the life of adulthood either as a wife or priestess [...].
A festival honored the young women's coming of age, and included other women of the community instructing the young adult in her responsibilites and traditions, and presenting gifts. I should add that young men also went to both of these schools, but that male students were rather educated as warriors in the Telpucucali (or Telpochcalli) and as priests/wise-men or noble leaders in the Calmecac. The education in the Calmecac was not necessarily restricted to noble children, although they were far more numerous (see León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture) - I adapted the last part from an earlier answer of mine on quincaneras.
Changes in colonial times: “complementary & hierarchical”
The complementary gender roles of the Nahua lost influence over the duration of the colonial period. This gradual change was due to the long-term development of a colonial cultural system. Because of this, a stronger influence of patriarchal European norms can be traced only from the late 16th and especially the 17th c. onwards. According to Iberian law codes women had access to certain properties, especially through dowry and inheritance. Nonetheless, female inequality was specifically written into Spanish laws: Rights were negotiated within the framework of a patriarchal society, which protected the power of fathers and husbands.
Iberian influence is for example clear in the introduction of the primogeniture; but also as lower-class indigenous women were declared to be minors before the law, and thus restricted especially often. Moreover, the Castilian-Christian "purity of blood" (or limpieza de sangre) discourse was partially applied in Spanish America. This goes back to medieval Iberia and the “reconquista”, following which one had to prove that one's ancestors were not Jewish or Muslim in order to access certain positions and privileges.
Such laws led to strong discrimination against non-Christian groups in the Americas as well. In this manner, in colonial Mexico fears of the conversions' failure were projected on the bodies of native women -- similar to fears regarding Muslim and Jewish women in medieval Iberia. With descentants of Spanish-indigenous couples, Spanish blood was portrayed as "stronger" and "masculine", which would allegedly absorb the "weaker" and "feminine" native blood over time. In this way gender and race were connected to the hierarchical casta system, in theory used to order society via lineages.
On the other hand, in parallel with the introduction of such Iberian regulations and ideals, native traditions continued to thrive or to be adapted. The central role of genealogies and “marriage policies” for the Nahua was even amplified in many cases through the colonial bureaucracy. Through the “colonial pact”, native communities and nobles could often hold onto their ancestors' traditional rights and properties, in return for their protection and conversion. In the 16th c. colonial structures were still flexible enough to have some noble indigenous women recognized as local rulers or caciquas.
The early conquistadors also tried to legitimize or extend their holdings by marrying local noble-women. The most famous cases were dona Isabel Moctezuma's (formerly Tecuichpochtzin), the late Mexica ruler Moctezuma's most important female heir, and her half-sister dona Leonor. After fathering a child with her, Cortés had her married to another conquistador. Both sisters received important encomiendas (large territories with rights over indigenous labor and tribute), which were defended by their Spanish husbands, and later by their descendants. In these defenses before courts the royal Moctezuma's patrimony and conversion were invoked succesfully. Despite this judicial paternalism (not to mention the marrying off part), we know the practice of men "representing" their wives at court from other cases as well. What is more, at least in name two women ruled over two of the most prestigous holdings in New Spain (=colon. Mexico) at this time, with legitimacy resting on their ancestry.
Follow up: how much of a difference would it have been to be a peasant girl vs a noble or princess?
So this is a really understudied area. I spent a semester studying Mexican History and eventually wrote a research paper on how Nauhuatl women were sort of insulated from "La Orta Conquesta" (The Other Conquest) or the conversion of natives to the areas of the Yucatan up to what is current day South West United States and Mexico.
Women did a lot of things. They farmed, they raised children, they even made decisions, like any leader of a group of people would.
In the book Indian Women of Early Mexico we continue to see this pattern as Stephanie Wood shows us with Nahuatl Testaments of Rural Women. In this chapter farming and women’s role in farming, owning land etc are looked at. We see that “As concerns Spanish and indigenous terms for measures, some variation appears in the way men and women used certain terms. While approximately the same proportion of women as men referred to the indigenous quahuitl, a rod or stick of undetermined length, a somewhat greater proportion of men than women counted their lots by the Spanish surco …” (Wood 174).
So here you can see that women played a big role in their society.
Susan M. Deeds in Indian Women in Jesuit Missions, which is another chapter from Indian Women of Early Mexico, says that as the Jesuits came in and “The intensification of agriculture near mission villages and the introduction of livestock … Men hunted and primarily women gathered although these activities became circumscribed as the non-Indian population increasingly encroached on the wilderness areas. Forced draft labor took men away from mission villages to work rotations in Spanish mines … women stayed behind to tend their fields … colonial demands often necessitated a practical flexibility in the allocation of tasks.” (Deeds 259).
So prior to contact, women were gathering food in these areas, they were farming, so on and so forth. Children would be expected do much the same and help there parents. Children helping their parents in this area of the world is even seen today.
Some further readings ....
Burkhart, Louise M. “Mexica Women on the Home Front”. Indian Women of Early Mexico. Ed. Schroder et all. University of Oklahoma: 1997. Print.
Deeds, Susan M. “Indian Women in Jesuit Missions”. Indian Women of Early Mexico. Ed. Schroder et all. University of Oklahoma: 1997. Print.
Voss, Barbara L. “Gender, Race, and Labor in the Archaeology of the Spanish Colonial Americas.” Current Anthropology Volume 49, Number 5 (2008): 861-893
Restall, Matthew. “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest”. Oxford University: 2003. Print
Woods, Stephanie. “Nahuatl Testaments of Rural Women”. ”. Indian Women of Early Mexico. Ed. Schroder et all. University of Oklahoma: 1997. Print.