Abstract
AbstractThe Nahua-speaking area of Postclassic central Mexico was composed of many city-states, which consisted of a nucleated and urbanized central area where the major political and economic centers were located, and a predominantly rural area where most of the people lived. This outlying area and its small communities had to be governed, and this paper identifies, from ethnohistorical sources, the most likely tasks of local government and the local officials responsible for carrying them out. Special attention is given to the role of the local nobility, where present, and of their equivalent, when not; to overseers of labor, and to leaders of the all-important labor squads which built and maintained the urban centers. The custodians of wealth and those most likely to have been military or ritual leaders are identified.
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