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Mayans and Aztecs - Amerindian Civilization in Mexico
I. Major Periods
- A. Archaic - up to 2000 BC
- B. Late Archaic - 2500-2000 BC
- C. Formative/Pre-Classic - 2000 BC to 250 AD
- D. Classic 250-900 AD
- E. Post Classic 900-1521 AD
II. Mayans
- A. Occupied lower Mesoamerica (Yucatan, Chiapas, Guat., El Sal., Bel.)
- B. Myths of the peaceful Maya and the ceremonial cities.
- 1. Archaeologists long held Mayan were without war, used cities only for ceremonies.
- 2. New research proves this is nonsense - very warlike, large, overpopulated cities
- C. Society based on city-states ruled by hereditary king
- D. Tikal most important - founded 292 AD
- E. Highpoint of development in Lowlands, 250-900 AD.
- 1. Sudden collapse in 900 AD.
- 2. Probably brought on by war and environmental degradation.
- F New centers develop in Yucatan after 900 collapse. Civil war in 1411 brings sharp decline.
- G. Society revolved around corn
- 1. Primary food stuff
- 2. One creation myth held that humans were born of corn.
- H. Economy depended on long distance trade (Spaniards encountered canoes).
- I. Highly stratified society
- 1. Nobility/priesthood divided from peasantry
- 2. King paid for prominence with own blood
- 3. Ritual bloodletting by king thought to be crucial for society to survive
- 4. These rituals used to reinforce power -- without king, city dies
- J. Religion focused on flow of cyclical time and calendrics
- 1. Fusion of observed/unobservable, earthly/celestial, time/space - no distinction
- 2. Orderly universe - basic unit of organization is the day (kin)
- 3. The day itself is the basic unit/building block of the universe
- 4. Hero Twins - sacrifice and rebirth
- a. One of the best-preserved creation stories involves the Hero Twins
- b. champion ball players
- c. sacrificed themselves in order to defeat the gods of death in ball game
- d. Are reborn, decapitate the death gods
- e. become sun and Venus - their death and rebirth seen each day
- e. represents several central ideas in Mayan belief
- i. that rebirth comes only from sacrifice
- ii. that there is a continual struggle between good and evil
- iii. that extraordinary humans could outwit the gods of death
- iv. also a metaphor for the power of the greatest life force - the sun
- 5. Flow of time sacred, seen a a grand series of cycles
- a. series of worlds had been destroyed in floods
- b. current world is at least the fourth, though some information lost
- K. Emphasis on time produces emphasis on
calendars -- highly advanced
- 1. Mayans counted days
- 2. Had a number of different counts for various purposes
- 3. some of the counts encompassed billions of years
- 4. Most important is the Long Count
- a. Long Count starts 7 Sep 3114 BC
- b. Great Age in the Long Count is 13 Baktuns
- 1. One Baktun is 144,000 days
- 2. thus 13 is 5125.36 Years - ending on 22 Dec 2012
- c. August 23 1999 - 12.19.06.08.10
- J. In art and science, most advanced Amerindian group.
- 1. Development of zero, advanced calendars
- 2. fantastic "organic" art
II. Aztecs
- A. Last in a series of civilizations to develop in Valley of Mexico
- 1.Teotihuacan
- a. ruled Valley 200 BC-650 AD
- b. mysterious -- no writing
- c. very powerful for long time
- d. evidence of a great fire near time of collapse
- 2. Tula ruled Valley 968-1200
- a. warrior culture
- b. Aztecs would claim descent from Toltecs
- c. Collapse of Tula c. 1200 opened space for Aztecs to migrate south
- B. Arrived in valley c. 1218.
- 1. Last Nahua group to arrive in Valley
- 2. trouble fiding land
- 3. worked as mercenaries for other Nahua city-states
- 4. Founded
Tenochtitlan on islands in lake Texcoco c. 1325
- C. Economy and society
- 1. Complex system of agriculture based on irrigation, chinampas produced wealth
- 2. Extensive trading system all over Central and North America
- 3. As empire expanded, tribute vitally important to trade
- a. Vassal states tribute turned in to trade goods
- b. Yearly tribute included
- i. 14 million lbs corn;
- ii. 8 million lbs beans;
- iii. 2 million cloaks;
- iv. weapons, gems
- c. This tribute vital to Aztec economy
- d. Spaniards found an enormous market in Tenochtitlan
- e. Traders/merchants also important as spies
- 4. Family
- a. Thought more in terms of household
- b. Word for "relative" translates as "one who lives in same house"
- c. Major social unit was the calpulli - ward/clan
- 5. Rapid expansion of empire brought enormous social
disparities
- a. Offering a feast was a key social ritual for all classes
- b. those unable to offer feasts were not able to meet social obligations
The poorest "had nothing to use, with which to gather and assemble people. He in no way excelled others...He had no bowl or jar. He visited and inflicted pain, misery and suffering on one."
- c. At certain times, before the harvest, the rich gave out food.
- i. poor lined up to receive it
- ii. lined up on basis of rank in the capulli
- iii. expected to be docile and passive
- iv. fate blamed as reason some got none when food ran out
- v. no provisions for those unable to get to distribution point
- d. beggars were know as "bumblebees"
- 6. A socially controlled society
- a. severe punishments for public drunkenness
- b. people out of control thought to be risking an eruption of the sacred
- c. but also social conflict - many brawls in the marketplace
- D. Creating the Empire
- 1. Begin big push outward in 1430, gaining subservience of north Mesoamerica.
- a. Itzcoatl (1428-1440) builds the empire with Tlacaelel
- b. Itzcoatl rewrites history to be descendants of Toltecs
- c. meant to legitimize this new empire
- E. Religion and Empire
- 1. Sense of Doom
- a. Man is rootless, without foundation
- b. Universe is doomed - cycles of sun, each must end - 5th Sun must die
- c. End of 52 year cycle
- 2. Huitzilopotchli - God of War and the Sun
- a. Huitzilopotchli - the chief tribal god of Aztecs
- b. The sun formed by a god sacrificing himself on coals each day - reborn as sun
- c. Nourishment comes only from human heart (purity) - must be physically freed
- d. Thus human sacrifice vital to religion
- e. Numerous examples of human sacrifice
- i. New Year's celebration - lighting the fires
- ii. Flayed One's - Priests wearing human skins
- iii. rededication of Templo Mayor - in 1487, as many as 80,000
- iv. Increasingly common on community, family level
- 3. Sacrifice taken to new heights as part of statecraft
- a. intimately tied to expansion under Itzcoatl.
- b. War both religious and political.
- 4. All nations must serve Huitzilipotchli
- a. tribute cities must give over sacrificial victims
- b. Flowery war
- i. meant to take captives, not kill
- ii. Often orchestrated
- iii. hurt them with Spaniards
- 5. An empire based on fear
- a. Aztecs did not govern their conquests directly
- b. left them intact as source of tribute
- c. left them intact as source of "war captives" for sacrifice
- d. Need to constantly ratchet up the fear
- e. sacrifice and war become a self-reinforcing obsession
- f. life of nobles a constant preparation and participation in war
- g. yet also a society that valued speech, dance, poetry
- 6. This empire of fear left them vulnerable to Spaniards
- 7. Spanish Conquest
- a. Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico in 1519
- b. Able to forge an alliance of enemies of the Aztecs
- c. Assisted in forming alliance with the aid of La Malinche
- i. Given to Cortes as slave
- ii. apparently from elite classes, understood politics of Mexico
very well
- iii. Learned Spanish quickly, translated for Cortes, helped him
build alliances
- d. Main allies were the Tlaxcalans, traditional enemies of the
Aztecs
- e. Technology, such as cannon, guns, played a role
- f. Spaniards had horses and large dogs, which the Aztecs did not
- g. Disease also played a role - in particular smallpox, which broke
out in Tenochtitlan
- h. Cortes led final assault on Tenochtitlan in 1521, defeating the
Aztecs and founding Spanish rule in Mexico.
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