CENTRAL AMERICA AND MEXICO MAIN CULTURES:

TAINOS CULTURE: Tai·nos (tìno) noun plural Taino or  Tai·nos are members of an Arawak people of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas who became extinct under Spanish colonization during the 16th century.  The language of this people is also call Taino. Although most of the historians sustain that Tainos people were exterminated by Spaniards by the 17th cent., today in Borinquen (Puerto Rico) exist a Taino reservation with natives from that area. There are also people who claim to be Tainos in the Dominican Republic. These are the people who welcomed Columbus in 1492.

CHOROTEGA CULTURE: The Chorotegas from Nicaragua, northern Costa Rica and southern Honduras were an ancient civilization that developed high skills in pottery and rock carving. The National Museum of Costa Rica contains many artifacts of this ancient culture and it is believed that Nicoya, an ancient Chorotega city was once very active on international native commerce.  This area on Central America was a meeting point of various pre-columbian cultures. The museum contains artifacts with a high Mayan and Aztec influences as other artifact with high influences coming from the Incas and other cultures from Perú and other places in South America.

OLMECS CULTURE: Olmecs settled (1500 B.C.) on the Gulf coast of Mexico and soon developed the first civilization in the western hemisphere. Temple cities and huge stone sculpture date from 1200 B.C.. A rudimentary calendar and writing system existed. Olmec religion, centering on a jaguar god, and art forms influenced all later Meso-American cultures. Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, 1998.

MAYAN CULTURE: Mayas. 1  a. A member of a Mesoamerican Indian people inhabiting southeast Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, whose civilization reached its height around A.D. 300-900. The Maya are noted for their architecture and city planning, their mathematics and calendar, and their hieroglyphic writing system. b. A modern-day descendant of this people. 2.   Any of the Mayan languages, especially Quiché and Yucatec. There are million of Mayan Indians in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, 1998.

TOLTECS CULTURE: Toltecs (Nahuatl, = master builders), was an indigenous civilization of Mexico, probably with ancient links to the Mixtec and Zapotec. The Toltec warrior aristocracy gained ascendancy in the valley of Mexico after the fall (900) of Teotihuacán, making their own capital at Tollán (Tula). Masters of architecture and the arts, they were advanced workers of stone and smelters of metals, had a calendary system, and are said to have discovered the intoxicant pulque. Their religion, centering on the god Quetzalcoatl, incorporated human sacrifice, sun worship, and a sacred ball game. The Toltec dominated the Maya (11th–13th cent.) until nomadic Chichimec peoples destroyed their empire, opening the way for the Aztec. Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, 1998.

TEOTIHUACAN CULTURE: Teotihuacán, was an ancient commercial and religious center, 30 mi (48 km) NE of Mexico City, of an influential civilization that flourished between A.D. 300 and 900. The largest and most impressive urban site of ancient America, it is laid out in a grid and dominated by the Pyramid of the Sun. Other notable buildings include the Pyramid of the Moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. The people of Teotihuacán brought sculpture, ceramics, the carving of stylized stone masks, and mural painting to a high degree of refinement. Their designs indicate a complex religious system. At its peak the city's population was over 100,000.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

MIXTECS CULTURE: Mixtecs, are indigenous people of SW Mexico who speak a language of the Otomian stock. Important from ancient times, the Mixtec seem to have had an advanced culture before the coming of the Toltec. They began spreading southward about 900 and by the 14th cent. overshadowed their rivals the Zapotec. Excelling in stonework and metalwork, wood carving, and pottery decoration, the Mixtec strongly influenced other Mexican. There are about 500,000 Mixtec-speaking people in Mexico today.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

ZAPOTECS CULTURE: Zapotecs, (zä´pe-tèk) are indigenous people of S Mexico whose language is often placed in the Macro-Otomanguean division. They had no traditions or migration legends, but believed themselves born directly from rocks, trees, and jaguars. The early Zapotec were agricultural city-dwellers whose religion involved ancestor worship and a cult of the dead. A high civilization flourished some 2,000 years ago at their religious center at Mitla and city of Monte Albán. Their arts, architecture, writing, mathematics, and calendar suggest links with the Olmec, Maya, and Toltec. About 1300 the Mixtec took their cities, but the Zapotec remained autonomous until the arrival of the Spanish by allying with the Aztec. The Zapotec number c.350,000; their culture blends native and Spanish elements.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

TOTONAC CULTURE: Totonac, Cempoala center was the first city visited by Cortéz and his party on their expedition to the Aztec Empire. Cempoala was know as Totonacapan in it was the home to perhaps as many as 100,000 residents. Cempoala was situated on a densely populated flood plain southeast of el Tajín and boasted such advance features as a highly developed flood-control and irrigation systems. By the time of Cortéz arrival, El Totonacapan had became a client state of the Aztec Empire and eagerly made common cause with the Spanish invaders.

AZTEC CULTURE: Aztecs, were indigenous people dominating central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest (16th cent.), with a Nahuatlan language of the Uto-Aztecan stock. Until the founding of their capital, Tenochtitlán (c.1325), the Aztec were a poor nomadic tribe in the valley of Mexico. In the 15th cent. they became powerful, subjugating the Huastec to the north and the Mixtec and Zapotec to the south, and achieving a composite civilization based on a Toltec and Mixteca-Puebla heritage. Engineering, architecture, art, mathematics, astronomy, sculpture, weaving, metalwork, music, and picture writing were highly developed; agriculture and trade flourished. The nobility, priesthood, military, and merchant castes predominated. War captives were sacrificed to the many Aztec gods, including the god of war, Huitzilopochti. In 1519, when Cortés arrived, many subject peoples willingly joined the Spanish against the Aztecs. Cortés captured Montezuma, who was subsequently murdered, and razed Tenochtitlán.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998. Map: Cortes and the "Conquest" 1519

HUICHOL TRIBE: The Huichols are a hearty and enduring people numbering about 18,000, most of which live in the Jalisco and Nayarit, two rugged and mountainous states in North Central Mexico. They are descendents of the Aztecs and are related to their Uto-Aztecan speaking cousin, the Hopi of Arizona. They are representatives of a pre-Columbian shamanic tradition which is still functioning according to the ceremonies of their remote past.

TARAHUMARA TRIBE: The Tarahumara Indians inhabit the Sierra Madre Mountains of the State of Chihuahua in Northwest Mexico. Their territory centers in the upper Rio Urique drainage, and covers approximately 5,000 square miles. Modern population estimates range between 40,000-50,000.

OTOMI TRIBE: Otomí, or Hña-hñu, people make up the fifth largest indigenous ethnic group in Mexico. Otomí communities can be found across Central Mexico from Michoacán in the west to Veracruz in the east. In prehispanic times, the center of Otomí culture was located at Xilotepec in what is now the State of México.

Picture Collection on Mexico and Central America (C) Clive Ruggles, UL

TIMELINE OF ANCIENT AMERICA CHART

A MAP OF CENTRAL AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURES
 

LATIN AMERICAN INDIGENOUS ORGANIZATIONS

 

HISTORY OF THE "CONQUEST" OF MEXICO (Map)
Source: From Miguel Leon­Portilla, ed., The Brohen Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), pp. 64­66, 129­131.

In 1519 Hernan Cortés sailed from Cuba, landed in Mexico and made his way to the Aztec capital. Miguel Leon­Portilla, a Mexican anthropologist, gathered accounts by the Aztecs, some of which were written shortly after the conquest.
 

Speeches of Motecuhzoma and Cortés
 

When Motecuhzoma [Montezuma] had given necklaces to each one, Cortés asked him: "Are you Motecuhzoma? Are you the king? Is it true that you are the king Motecuhzoma?"

And the king said: "Yes, I am Motecuhzoma." Then he stood up to welcome Cortés; he came forward, bowed his head low and addressed him in these words: "Our lord, you are weary. The journey has tired you, but now you have arrived on the earth. You have come to your city, Mexico. You have come here to sit on your throne, to sit under its canopy.

"The kings who have gone before, your representatives, guarded it and preserved it for your coming. The kings Itzcoatl, Motecuhzoma the Elder, Axayacatl, Tizoc and Ahuitzol ruled for you in the City of Mexico. The people were protected by their swords and sheltered by their shields.

"Do the kings know the destiny of those they left behind, their posterity? If only they are watching! If only they can see what I see!

"No, it is not a dream. I am not walking in my sleep. I am not seeing you in my dreams.... I have seen you at last! I have met you face to face! I was in agony for five days, for ten days, with my eyes fixed on the Region of the Mystery. And now you have come out of the clouds and mists to sit on your throne again.

"This was foretold by the kings who governed your city, and now it has taken place. You have come back to us; you have come down from the sky. Rest now, and take possession of your royal houses. Welcome to your land, my lords! "

When Motecuhzoma had finished, La Malinche translated his address into Spanish so that the Captain could understand it. Cortés replied in his strange and savage tongue, speaking first to La Malinche: "Tell Motecuhzoma that we are his friends. There is nothing to fear. We have wanted to see him for a long time, and now we have seen his face and heard his words. Tell him that we love him well and that our hearts are contented."

Then he said to Motecuhzoma: "We have come to your house in Mexico as friends. There is nothing to fear."

La Malinche translated this speech and the Spaniards grasped Motecuhzoma's hands and patted his back to show their affection for him....

Massacre in the Main Temple

During this time, the people asked Motecuhzoma how they should celebrate their god's fiesta. He said: "Dress him in all his finery, in all his sacred ornaments."

During this same time, The Sun commanded that Motecuhzoma and Itzcohuatzin, the military chief of Tlatelolco, be made prisoners. The Spaniards hanged a chief from Acolhuacan named Nezahualquentzin. They also murdered the king of Nauhtla, Cohualpopocatzin, by wounding him with arrows and then burning him alive.

For this reason, our warriors were on guard at the Eagle Gate. The sentries from Tenochtitlan stood at one side of the gate, and the sentries from Tlatelolco at the other. But messengers came to tell them to dress the figure of Huitzilopochtli. They left their posts and went to dress him in his sacred finery: his ornaments and his paper clothing.

When this had been done, the celebrants began to sing their songs. That is how they celebrated the first day of the fiesta. On the second day they began to sing again, but without warning they were all put to death. The dancers and singers were completely unarmed. They brought only their embroidered cloaks, their turquoises, their lip plugs, their necklaces, their clusters of heron feathers, their trinkets made of deer hooves. Those who played the drums, the old men, had brought their gourds of snuff and their timbrels.

The Spaniards attacked the musicians first, slashing at their hands and faces until they had killed all of them. The singers-and even the spectators- were also killed. This slaughter in the Sacred Patio went on for three hours. Then the Spaniards burst into the rooms of the temple to kill the others: those who were carrying water, or bringing fodder for the horses, or grinding meal, or sweeping, or standing watch over this work.

The king Motecuhzoma, who was accompanied by Itzcohuatzin and by those who had brought food for the Spaniards, protested: "Our lords, that is enough! What are you doing? These people are not carrying shields or macanas. Our lords, they are completely unarmed!"

The Sun had treacherously murdered our people on the twentieth day after the captain left for the coast. We allowed the Captain to return to the city in peace. But on the following day we attacked him with all our might, and that was the beginning of the war

Source: From Miguel Leon­Portilla, ed., The Brohen Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), pp. 64­66, 129­131.
 

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