Note Back to Main Text — Chapter I · ANCIENT AMERICA.

The supreme government of the Aztecs was vested in the tribal council composed of twenty members, The tribal council. one for each clan. The member, representing a clan, was not its calpullec, or "sachem;" he was one of the tecuhtli, or clan-chiefs, and was significantly called the "speaker" (tlatoani). The tribal council, thus composed of twenty speakers, was called the tlatocan, or "place of speech."[114] At least as often as once in ten days the council assembled at the tecpan, or official house of the tribe, but it could be convened whenever occasion required, and in cases of emergency was continually in session. Its powers and duties were similar to those of an ancient English shiremote, in so far as they were partly directive and partly judicial. A large part of its business was settling disputes between the clans. It superintended the ceremonies of investiture with which the chiefs and other officers of the clans were sworn into office. At intervals of eighty days there was an "extra session" of the tlatocan, attended also by the twenty "elder brothers," the four phratry-captains, the two executive chiefs of the tribe, and the leading priests, and at such times a reconsideration of an unpopular decision might be urged; but the authority of the tlatocan was supreme, and from its final decision there could be no appeal.[115]