Some of the most prestigious warriors in Aztec culture were the Eagle warriors and the Jaguar warriors.

Both the Eagle and Jaguar warriors were referred to as ‘cuāuhocēlōtl’ and were the two most elite types of warriors in the Aztec military. The warriors that earned these designations were regarded as the best for their ability to capture prisoners in battle, which was one of the main objectives of the Aztec military.

Both sets of these types of warriors wore very distinctive types of outfits that were separate from the rest of the Aztec warriors. For instance, the Eagle warriors were known to wear helmets and suits decorated with eagle feathers. As well, they would usually have an eagle head on their head, with their face showing out of the open beak. Whereas, the Jaguar warriors wore the hide or skin of a jaguar which usually covered their entire bodies. They had their faces showing out of the open jaguar mouth. Jaguar warriors wore this in belief that they gained the strength of the animal in battle. Both Eagle warriors and Jaguar warriors went into battle with a weapon called a macuahuitl, which was a type of wooden club that had very sharp obsidian blades attached to its edges.