How the Nahua People Live

The Nahua live in Central Mexico and their living conditions reflect their lifestyle. Nahua houses consist of one-room and are usually built from cane, wood, adobe, or stone, with they have thacth or tile roofing. The Nahua traditional clothing consists of a long wraparound skirts, blouse, sash, short triangular cape, and a shawl for women; short white cotton pants, cotton shirt,woollen overshirt, sandals, and straw hat for men. Non-Traditional clothing are commonly worn by men as well. Commericial clothing is worn by men and women, but mostly men. The Nahuatl culture is also well known for their impressive masks, head ornaments, and costumes. They use big and colorful feathers from several types of birds which live in the Central America area.  Three main impacts of the Nahua culture are dance, music, and poetry. Dance is also very popular among the Nahua and they create their own instruments such as shakers out of shells and seeds, drums are a very important part of their instruments. The Nahua use things in their natural environment to create their instruments, this can be noted as independent invention. The Nahua dance when certain events happen such as rainfall, germination, ripening of corn, war victory, hunting, and tribal death. The ability to dance gives you credibility in their culture. Facial paints such as red and yellow were connected with the sun, fertility, and rebirth of nature. The color blue honored manifestation of rain and fire, these colors signified abundance. Only men were allowed to paint themselves black. The color white, which is usually associated with death, was rarely found as a facial paint. Facial painting was considered a great privilege because it honored the manifestations of the creator. There were many forms of dancing, but the general types were serpentines, circulars, and processions.The Nahua also worship the "feathered" snake, as this brings them prosperity as well and is a sign of abundance. Most of their dances included the serpent.The most important thing to the Nahua culture is their art. The Nahua put a lot of time and skill into their art work. The Nahua equates any form of their art with greater knowledge and prosperity.

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References:

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2014. Nahua. Electronic document, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/401786/Nahua, Accessed March 21, 2014.

The Gender Roles of the Nahua Culture

In the Nahua culture immediately following birth male and female infants go through a birth ritual. The purpose of this ritual is to introduce the newest member into the society. According to the Nahua culture boys were supposed to be warriors and craftsmen while the girls did the domestic chores. During the ritual the boys wore loincloth and a cape and their umbilical cord was buried in a field, which was meant to associate the boys with a battlefield. The girls wore shift and a skirt and their umbilical cord was buried in the corner of a house. In the Nahua culture children were separated into age groups and each group had certain expectations they had to meet. Every four years a ritual called izcalli happened every four years where the children of each age group were held above a fire in order to purify them.

After the Nahua children reach the age of four they begin to take on gender specific roles and dress like adults. For the boys this means they were taught to sleep on the floor, endurance, carry firewood, and learned to fish. For the girls this meant learning how to sweep perfectly, grind maize and make tortillas, and spin thread on a back-strap loom. All these mandatory tasks that were to be learned by the children were meant to help them reach a certain size and strength depending on their gender. The Nahua believed these measures in early childhood would reflect on the children’s future lives and help contribute to the prosperity of the society. 

References: 

Douglass, Susan. N.d. Gender Roles Among the Nahua in the Codex Mendoza. Electronic document, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/276, Accessed March 20th, 2014.

Marriage and Kinship in the Nahua Culture

      Marriage customs in this culture are not concrete. In remote areas, eloping is more common and are done without the permission of family members. Out of the family members, usually the father of the eloped bride is the least happy about the marriage. The father often shows anger towards the marriage but later accepts it. In other cases, marriage is a big affair and presents are exchanged between families. Feasts or other large gatherings are typically held in which both families come together to celebrate. After marriage, it is common for the newly wed couple to live in the grooms household with his family.
      To the Nahua people, the "nuclear" family is the very important. The children of the Nahua people are given extensive love and and support from their family members. Education is valued high in the Nahua family and the parents support the continuing of education. Nahua families are large and normally include many children who are similar in age. Older sisters typically care for their younger siblings.
      Family inheritance is usually equally distributed equal between male and female siblings. For females, land is acquired through the absence of male siblings. When the parents of the Nahua people become elderly, the house is usually taken in by the youngest son in the hopes that he will care for the elderly parents and the land.

References:

Alan R. Sandstrom. N.d. Nahua of the Huasteca. Electronic document, http://faculty.smu.edu/rkemper/anth_3311/EWC_Nahua_182-193.pdf, Accessed March 25, 2014.