Of essential importance for the study of kingship in Mesoamerica and South America is the profound connection between supernatural authority and political power residing in an elite class of sacred kings who directed the interaction of the natural environment, the human population, technology, and developments in social structure from sacred precincts and ceremonial cities. In the Aztec, Maya, and Inca patterns of sacred kingship are found distinct versions of this connection.

Aztec Sacred Kingship

The supreme authority in Aztec Mexico was the tlatoani (chief speaker), who resided in the imperial capital of Tenochtitlan. This pattern of rulership grew out of earlier forms of sacred and social authority in which each political-territorial unit (altepetl in Nahuatl) was governed by a titled lord, or tecuhtli, living within a noble estate or elite social and geographical domain. This local ruler was...