Mexico and Central America
The circumstances of Olmec decline, whether by military defeat, cultural exhaustion or environmental catastrophe is unknown, however evidence does suggest a violent end. What is known, is that Olmec cultural traits and technology were embraced, and carried forward by the Amerindian peoples in Mesoamerica and South America. The most prominent Olmec technology carried forward was building construction, especially Pyramid building. All of the later major American Indian cultures (south of the United States), engaged in Pyramid building. Pottery and metallurgy were also important Olmec contributions to the Americas.
Neither the Olmec civilization, nor the Olmec people, died off suddenly. There was a gradual process of one ascending and the other descending. Though fundamentally Olmec, the Izapan civilization is a clear example of a midpoint between the Olmec and the Classic Maya {the next great civilization}, in time and cultural content. For the following early Maya traits are found there: the stele–altar complex, long-lipped deities, hieroglyphic writing and Long Count dates on some monuments, U-shaped motifs, and painted reliefs.
The Maya were the first of the Amerindian people to
gain hegemony in MesoAmerica {Mexico and Central America}. From as early as 1500 B.C, the Maya people had settled in villages and were practicing agriculture based on the cultivation of corn (maize), beans, and squash. They also began to build ceremonial centers, and by 200 A.D, these had developed into cities containing temples, pyramids, palaces, plazas, and courts for playing ball. There was also a system of hieroglyphic writing and highly sophisticated calendar and astronomical systems. At this point it is not known how much of this was uniquely Mayan, and how much was taken directly from the Olmec.
Mayan hieroglyphs often depict the histories of Mayan rulers who waged war on rival Mayan cities and took their aristocrats captive. These captives were then tortured, mutilated, and sacrificed to the Mayan gods.
Torture and human sacrifice were fundamental religious rituals of Mayan society; they were thought to guarantee fertility, demonstrate piety, and propitiate the gods, and if such practices were neglected, cosmic disorder and chaos were thought to result. The drawing of human blood was thought to nourish the gods and was thus necessary to achieve contact with them; hence the Mayan rulers, as the intermediaries between the Mayan people and the gods, had to undergo ritual bloodletting and self-torture.
 |
Above is one panel of the oldest known Maya mural, discovered in 2001 at the ancient Maya city of San Bartolo in the lowlands of northeastern Guatemala. The mural tells the story of creation, the mythology of kingship, and the divine right of a king. The first part of the mural shows the establishment of order in the world. The world is propped up by trees with roots leading to the underworld and branches holding up the sky. Four deities, who are representations of the maize god's son, provide a blood sacrifice and a unique offering before each tree.
The story starts with the deity above, who is patron of kings, standing in water. He's running a large spear through his own penis, letting blood. Each additional panel depicts rituals and sacrifice culminating in the crowning of the king.
The Maya however, were not only interested in ritual and sacrifice: In mathematics, positional notation and the use of the zero represented a pinnacle of intellectual achievement. Mayan astronomy underlay a complex calendar system involving an accurately determined solar year (18 months of 20 days, plus an unlucky 5-day period), a sacred year of 260 days (13 cycles of 20 named days), and a variety of longer cycles culminating in the Long Count, based on a zero date in 3114 BC. Mayan astronomers compiled precise tables of positions for the Moon and Venus and were able to predict solar eclipses.
 |
The next culture to arise was that of Teotihuacán, it was the most important and largest city of pre-Aztec central Mexico, located about 30 miles northeast of modern Mexico City. At its height (about 500 A.D.), it encompassed some 20 square miles and supported a population estimated at 200,000 people, making it at the time, one of the largest cities in the world. Their language is unknown, their ethnicity appears to be Olmec.
 |
Unfortunately no ancient Teotihuacano texts are known to exist, but the city is occasionally referred to in the texts of Maya monuments, these show that Teotihuacan nobility traveled to and married with the families of local rulers as far away as Honduras.
Maya hieroglyphs mention a “Spearthrower Owl”, apparently an Emperor of Teotihuacan, who reigned for over 60 years and apparently imposed his relatives as kings of the cities of Tikal and Uaxactun, which were cities in Guatemala. The city also had large numbers of merchants, many of whom had immigrated there from great distances. The priest-Emperor who governed the city also staged grand religious pageants and ceremonies that often involved human sacrifices.
The next great culture was that of the Zapotec, their capital city of Monte Albán, was built over a period of 2,000 years, starting at about 900 B.C. Though their early art shows Olmec influence, there can be little doubt that the people of Monte Albán were Zapotec. Who during Classic times had the opportunity to develop their civilization, unaffected by the major troubles that disturbed Teotihuacán and the Maya at the close of the Early Classic period.
Then came the Mixtec people, who flourished between 1200 A.D, and 1521 A.D. They were contemporaneous with the Aztecs but managed to retain their independence. Their homeland was a mountainous region in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, known as the Mixteca. They also came to dominate areas of Oaxaca previously under the control of the Zapotec civilization, notably the city of Monte Albán. The Mixtecs were renowned for their skilled work with gold and turquoise mosaic, many of them were employed as artisans by Aztec kings.
 |
Next are the Huastec, they are thought to date back to approximately 1000 B.C, however their most productive period is usually considered to be the Post-Classic era, between the fall of Teotihuacan and the rise of the Aztec Empire. They constructed temples on step-pyramids, carved independent standing sculptures, and produced elaborately painted pottery. The Huastec were unusual for being the only highly advanced people, who built cities, yet usually wore no clothing.
Then there were the Toltecs, who dominated much of central Mexico around 1200 A.D. Their language “Nahuatl”, was also spoken by the Aztecs. They were a militaristic nomadic people, and they or their ancestors may have sacked the city of Teotihuacan in 750 A.D.
Above, and to the right, we have a priest wearing the skin of a sacrificed victim. A living human, clothed in a sacrificial victim's skin, (this is clearly visible around the mouth and wrists). This type of image is among the most awesome and most disturbing ever created by Mesoamerican artists. It expresses the deeply held belief that death is necessary to life. Accordingly, such figures were associated with fertility, rain, and the springtime renewal of the earth's vegetation. Perhaps the wearer, upon shedding the skin, was perceived as a sprout, emerging from a withered husk. Such figures also had military meanings.
The last of the great MesoAmerican cultures were the Aztec, they were a Nahuatl-speaking people, who in the 15th and early 16th centuries, ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. The Aztec are so-called from the word Aztlán (“White Land”), an allusion to their place of origin, possibly in northern Mexico. They were also called the "Tenochca" from a mythical ancestor "Tenoch" and the "Mexica" probably from Metzliapán (“Moon Lake”), the mystical name for Lake Texcoco. From “Tenochca” was derived the name of their great city, Tenochtitlán; and from “Mexica” came the name for the city that succeeded the Aztec capital, and the surrounding valley. This name was applied later to the whole Mexican nation.
By 1492 A.D, Europeans (the Spaniards), had discovered the "New World" (smile: it had a 100 million people)
Christopher Columbus, had earlier landed in the Caribbean, and had set in motion the killing, looting and subjugation of the Arawak and Caribe indians that he had found there. This precipitated the mass influx of Europeans, (mostly at this time from Spain and Portugal), who all had the same thing in mind, plundering and looting.
Now enters Hernando Cortes: After several years as a gentleman farmer on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican republic). Hernando Cortes (a Spaniard), now felt the desire for adventure and booty, accordingly he joined the military expedition of Diego de Velazquez, which was bent on capturing Cuba. After that victory, Cortes became the mayor of Santiago Cuba, and married the sister-in-law of Velazquez. In 1518, Velazquez gave Cortes permission to form a small force of about 550 men, with a fleet of eleven ships, to conduct an exploration of Mexico.
In 1519 Cortez landed in Mexico, the first great cities that Cortes encountered, were the cities of the Totonacs, he first went to Cempoala, (population about 80,000). Here they told Cortes of the great and rich Empire of the Aztec people further inland, {and it is here at this time that Cortes is offered twenty young women as his slaves, one of them is an Aztec maiden, later to be known as Malinche, she will serve as his interpreter with the Aztec}.
"La Malinche" Slave, interpreter, secretary, mistress, and mother of the first "Mexican", their son "Don Mahin Cortes", her very name still stirs up controversy. Many Mexicans continue to revile the woman called Doña Marina by the Spaniards and La Malinche by the Aztecs, labeling her a traitor and harlot for her role as the alter ego of Hernando Cortes as he conquered Mexico. Her ability to communicate also enabled the Spaniards to introduce Christianity. Herself a convert and baptized Marina, she was an advocate for her new faith.
Her story, is one that causes great consternation to the non-European people of Mexico. There is however, no room to go into it here.
Likewise, there is no room to go in-depth into the relationship between the Aztec people, and the people that they maintained Hegemony over. Suffice to say, that the Aztec required the people that they had conquered, to participate in what were called, “Flowery Wars”. These were mock battles, where the Aztec, after symbolically capturing an enemy (who would be un-injured), would then have an un-blemished candidate, for sacrifice to their gods.
Needless to say, the tribes saw Cortez and his cannon as a god-sent. Each tribe raised its army, and rallied to Cortez, (these numbered in the many tens of thousands). Of course the tribes would quickly come to regret this, after the Aztec had been defeated.
Next Cortez encountered the Tlaxcalans, they also joined. And on they went to confront the Aztec. In Tenochtitlan Montezuma hears of the pale invaders. He considers Cortés to be Quetzacoatl, the great god who left Mexico many years before, on a raft of snakes, vowing to return. And who, according to legend, had taught them about agriculture and government and whose return they were to welcome with great ceremony. Believing the Spanish to be descendants of the god Quetzalcoatl, Montezuma tries to persuade them to leave by offering rich gifts.
Also knowing of this Aztec myth (probably from Malinche) Cortes exploits the Aztec myth of a pale skinned, bearded god-king named Quetzalcoatl as he approaches Tenochtitlan. Montezuma made an attempt to stop Cortes, but his defenses lacked unity and tenacity both because of the Quetzalcoatl legend, which dictated that his people welcome the return of the "white god," and the fear generated by the sight of Spanish horses and firearms, which the Aztecs had never seen before. As a result of their quandary, as well as the the tactic used by the Spanish conquistadors and their allies of actually killing their enemies in battle as opposed to capturing them for sacrifice. By the time the Aztecs had caught on and changed their tactics, it was too late. Cortes quickly defeated their army and on November 18, 1519, Cortes entered the Aztec capital and imprisoned Montezuma. Later, after seeing that Montezuma had no value as a hostage, he was later killed.
The Aztec continued to battle for quite a bit longer, but the die was already cast, with all of the other tribes against them, the Aztec cause was hopeless. Of course after the Aztec were defeated, the Spanish turned on the tribes, and one by one they were defeated and enslaved. Then the plundering and looting, which had already begun, could proceed in ernest. The subsequent killing, slavery and disease would destroy over 75% of the population, and bring an end to the MesoAmerican cultures and most of their people.
Now lets go down to South America, and see what is happening there.
Please visit the "Additional Material Area" for many more photographs of each civilization, and related material <Click> |
| < Back | Home | Next > |