Native Americans of Middle and South America

Article Outline

Introduction; Culture Areas; History; Native Americans Today

Transportation

Since Mesoamericans did not domesticate draft animals or use wheeled vehicles, most loads transported between settlements were carried on the backs of people. In the low-lying jungles of present-day Guatemala, Belize, and southeastern Mexico, the Maya built roads paved with stones, called sacbe, between some of the major cities. However, transport and travel throughout most of ancient Mesoamerica was carried out on rough trails that crisscrossed the vast area. Porters with backpacks carried loads of commodities such as maize, beans, cotton, feather ornaments, animal skins, and firewood, from rural areas to the cities. In some areas, including Lake Texcoco in central Mexico, canoes were used for transport and travel. The Maya carried trade goods along coasts and rivers in large dugout canoes.

Official messages were frequently carried between settlements by runners working in relays. These trained athletes, similar to the chasquis used by the Inca Empire in South America, could cover several hundred kilometers in a single day. Rulers and other elites were often carried by teams of men on fancy mats known as litters.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Mesoamerican clothing was varied and colorful. Cloth was woven from cotton and from the fiber of the agave plant. In the warm tropical lowlands, there was little need for elaborate clothing. Among the Maya, men wore a woven loincloth; women wore an outer dress fashioned from a single piece of cloth with holes cut in it for the head and arms, as well as a loincloth undergarment beneath. In cooler weather, both sexes wrapped a heavier square cloth around their shoulders.

The clothing of highland people was similar to that worn in the lowlands. Among the Aztec, for example, men wore a loincloth and—given the cooler temperatures—often added a cape for warmth. Women wore ankle-length dresses fastened at the waist with embroidered belts. Over their dresses, they wore hip-length blouses.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

As farming peoples, Mesoamericans frequently worshiped the forces of nature as gods, including agricultural deities. Most of the elaborate rituals and ceremonies conducted by Mesoamerican priests were intended to secure the goodwill and support of these gods. Among some groups. human sacrifice was used to appease the gods. Rulers were seen as religious leaders who served as intermediaries between humans and the gods, or spiritual forces. As a result, the civil and religious aspects of life in Mesoamerica were often inseparable. See also Pre-Columbian Religions.

The complex religion of the Maya included belief in a supreme god, called Hunab Ku. This deity was seen as too remote from humans to have any effect on their daily activities. His son, a sky deity called Itzamna, was believed to be the god who gave humans food, medicine, and the art of writing. Numerous other deities—including the gods of rain, maize, war, medicine, wind, death, Moon, and Sun—were thought to control the specific affairs of humans. These deities all had a dual aspect: they could bring good things to humans, such as rain, a plentiful harvest, or peace, but they could also bring harm, such as drought, famine, or war. Many rituals and ceremonies performed by the Maya, including human sacrifices, were intended to secure favorable treatment from these gods.

Among the people of Teotihuacán, religious ceremonies included sacrifices of birds, flowers, dogs, and sometimes humans, to feed hungry gods and keep them strong. Doing so was necessary, they believed, to continue life and keep the world in harmony. A principal deity was Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Plumed, or Feathered, Serpent, a beneficial god who was frequently locked in combat with evil gods.

The Aztec worshipped a pantheon of gods, including more than 60 major deities and numerous lesser spirits. The ancient deity Quetzalcoatl, among others, was revered, but the principal god was the Aztecs' own, Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and of the Sun. The gods were ranked in importance, and each one had its own cult and special hierarchies of priests. Many Aztec ceremonies entailed sacrificing human victims to the gods, whose strength needed perpetual renewal with human blood. Sacrificial victims, sometimes large numbers at once, were led up the steps of pyramids to temples on top, where their hearts were cut out and their heads impaled on skull racks; others were flayed, and their skins were worn by priests. Victims were usually war captives, although Aztecs themselves sometimes volunteered for important sacrificial rituals.

Arts and Sciences

Mesoamericans produced arts and crafts of great refinement and sophistication. Many Mesoamerican societies had full-time craftspeople and urban laborers. These workers built cities filled with monumental architecture, remarkable sculptures, and brilliantly painted murals. Mesoamerican arts also included painted scenes on pottery; carving in jade and other precious stones; feather and stone mosaics; basketry, textiles, and featherwork; and metalwork, a technology that arrived in Mesoamerica from South America sometime before ad 1000. They also fashioned elaborate painted books, or codices, that opened up as a long, continuous sheets of paper. Colorfully painted with hieroglyphs (a pictorial form of writing), human figures, and images of gods, these books were collections of religious lore and rituals for study by priests and their apprentices.

The intellectual and scientific accomplishments of Mesoamerica surpassed those of any other region in the Americas before European contact. The ancient Olmec, among other peoples of the period, devised a system of writing and a calendar based on astronomical observations. Later groups built on these accomplishments to achieve great heights, including the Maya, Zapotec, and the people of Teotihuacán. For example, during the Classic period of the Maya (about ad 300 to 900), the highest stage of Mayan civilization, Mayan philosophers and mathematicians developed a highly accurate calendric system. They recorded this system using a complex form of hieroglyphic writing, which was carved on stele, or stone slabs, up to 9 m (30 ft) high. The Maya conceived of the concept of zero, an advanced mathematical concept, centuries before the symbol for zero was used by Hindu mathematicians in India. Mayan astronomers carefully observed the heavens and worked out the movements of celestial bodies and the recurrences of eclipses.

Post-Contact History

The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in Mesoamerica, sailing from settlements in the Caribbean in the early 1500s. Rumors of a wealthy, advanced civilization in what is now Mexico soon reached the Spanish, and in 1519 the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés set sail from Cuba in search of gold and new lands to colonize. When Cortés landed near present-day Veracruz in eastern Mexico, the Aztec Empire was still intact, and its rule extended across much of Mesoamerica. Marching with indigenous allies who had been subjugated by the Aztecs, Cortés advanced on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in central Mexico. By 1521 Cortés and his small army had conquered the empire. The Spaniards seized the Aztecs’ gold and other treasures and razed Tenochtitlán, which became the foundation of Mexico City, capital of the Spanish province of New Spain.

From Mexico City other Spanish explorers and soldiers extended Spain’s power to the south. As the Spanish pushed into new areas, they exposed indigenous peoples to smallpox and other European diseases, and many perished. In the 1520s Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala, and between 1527 and 1546 Francisco de Montejo and his son conquered the declining Mayan cities in the Yucatán Peninsula. From 1540 on, the Spanish also pushed north. As Spaniards claimed military control of Mesoamerica, they leveled temples and used the stones to build Roman Catholic churches, burned indigenous books as idolatrous, and enslaved many native people to work under harsh conditions in fields and mines. As a result of starvation, overwork, occupational hazards, and disease, the indigenous population of Mesoamerica plummeted. The Spanish crown abolished the harshest forms of forced labor in the early 18th century, and the indigenous population gradually increased; most indigenous peoples survived as peasants governed by Spanish overlords.

After Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821, indigenous peoples came under Mexican rule. Forced by extreme poverty, many native inhabitants continued to work for Mexican landowners. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 set in motion reforms that eventually returned thousands of hectares of land to indigenous peoples and gave them access to schooling and medical services. Today, most of the population living within the Mesoamerican culture area is mestizo, people of mixed Spanish and Native American descent. Despite efforts of the colonizers to stamp out indigenous culture, many traditional ways of life continued, mostly in modified form. The mixing of Spanish and indigenous cultural practices—including language, food, religion, clothing, and music—have made Mexico, Guatemala, and other modern nation-states of the area the vibrant, fascinating places they are today.