In fact, that"s the most common thing people in Mexico know about them, said Fernando Pérez Montesinos, assistant professor of indigenous environmental history at the University of California, Los Angeles. "That"s a very usual [way] of referring to the P"urhépechas and their history, but that"s because we know that the P"urhépechas were as powerful as the Aztecs," he said, explaining that the Aztecs tried to fight the P"urhépecha in battle, but couldn"t defeat them.