The Great Flood of the Eleventh Century and the Migration of the Aztec-Mexica and the Anahuac Peoples

Abstract This work relies on the proposal that Aztlan was on the same islets of Texcoco Lake where Mexica founded Mexico-Tenochtitlan, that Teocolhuacan was where Iztapalapa town is today and that the Aztec-Mexica migration happened in the context of the great flood of the eleventh century. Based on human geography, this article aims to take a step forward and test this proposal by developing the migration routes that the Aztec-Mexica and the eight peoples that walked with them, according to the Tira de la peregrinación, might have followed. From the analysis carried out, this essay proposes that these peoples walked south and split themselves in the valleys of Cuauhtla or Cuernavaca. From there, this work suggests migration routes for these eight peoples and argues that most of them came back to the Anahuac Valley because of the high political value of this territory. Finally, this article locates the migrations of the Toltec, Colhua, Chichimeca, Acolhua, and Otomi in the context of the flood and provides a general panorama of the migratory process that this natural catastrophe could have caused. This examination reinforces the claim that the Aztec-Mexica were in the Anahuac Valley in Toltec times.