Xaltocan

Xaltocan was a pre-Columbian city-state and island in the Valley of Mexico, located in the center of Lake Xaltocan, part of an interconnected shallow lake system which included Lake Texcoco; this place is now inside the village of San Miguel Jaltocan in Nextlalpan, State of Mexico. The site was originally settled by the Otomi people but following a war in the late fourteenth century where the Otomi were defeated by an alliance of Tepanecs and Mexica, the Otomi were driven off the island and relocated to Otumba, Metztitlan and Tlaxcala. The island of Xaltocan was then resettled by Nahuatl speakers. The name can mean either of two things in the Nahuatl language: either 'sandy ground of spiders' or 'where it is planted on the sand'. Xaltocan is known to have been inhabited in the Postclassic period. Ceramics and other archaeological remains dating to this period have been recovered in excavations at the site. It is thought to have been a local center of power capable of exacting tribute from other city-states in the area. The founding of Xaltocan is described in the mytho-historical documents, the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca and Anales de Cuauhtitlan. According to the Anales the Xaltocameca (people of Xaltocan) were among the Chichimec tribes that left the mythical place of origin, Aztlán, under a leader named Quauhtliztac ("White Eagle"). The Historia also identifies the Xaltocameca as belonging to the Otomi ethnic group.