Mesoamerican Indian
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Who are the Mesoamerican Indian people?
The Mesoamerican Indians are the indigenous population of Mexico and Central America, located roughly between 14° N and 22° N latitude. They share common cultural origins in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the region.
The three largest linguistic groups are the Mayan, Otomanguean, and Uto-Aztecan. The Mayan people mainly inhabit southeastern Mesoamerica. The Otomangueans reside in a wide area of Mesoamerica, between the Uto-Aztecan people to the north and the Mayan people to the south. Due to the expansion of the Aztec empire, Uto-Aztecan enclaves are found throughout the area.
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Which areas did the Mesoamerican Indian people live in?
The Mesoamerican Indian people lived in Mexico and Central America, roughly between latitudes 14° N and 22° N. This region extends from northwestern Mexico to El Salvador. It includes about half of Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador.
Mesoamerica consists of highlands and lowlands. The Mexican highlands include the Sierra Madre ranges and a volcanic cordillera. The lowlands are primarily coastal, including the plain along the Gulf of Mexico and the Petén-Yucatán Peninsula.
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What are some well-known Mesoamerican Indian groups, like the Maya and the Aztec?
Mesoamerican Indian cultures originated from pre-Columbian civilizations in Mexico and Central America. Some well-known groups include the Maya, famous for their advancements in astronomy, mathematics, and hieroglyphic writing. The Aztec, who rose to power in central Mexico in the 15th century, formed the last native Mesoamerican empire. The Olmec, considered the first major Mesoamerican civilization (1200–400 BCE), influenced later cultures like the Maya and Aztec. The Zapotec people attained a high level of development at Monte Albán and are credited with the first writing and written calendar in Mesoamerica.
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What kinds of houses and cities did the Mesoamerican Indians build?
The Mesoamerican Indians had diverse building traditions, constructing various types of houses and cities. Their architecture depended on the region, available resources, and cultural practices.
Mesoamerican pyramids generally consisted of earth mounds faced with stone. Typically of stepped form, they were topped by a platform or temple that only privileged community members were allowed to approach.
Other types of houses included:
* Simple pole-and-thatch dwellings built on low earthen mounds
* Traditional housing of wattle and daub, thatch, or rammed earthen walls, with thatched roofs
* Houses on stilts, walled with flattened bamboo and roofed with thatchSome of the best examples of Mesoamerican cities include:
* Tikal
* Uaxactún
* Copán
* Palenque
* Uxmal
* Teotihuacán
* Cholula
* Chichén Itzá
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What were some important parts of Mesoamerican Indian cultures, like their religions or writing systems?
Mesoamerican Indian cultures, which developed before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, had unique features such as religions and writing systems.
The religious life of Mesoamericans was geared to a calendar with a ritual cycle of 260 days that intermeshed with a 365-day year, producing a 52-year Calendar Round. Their pantheon featured a dual creator god, a royal descent and warfare god, a Sun god and Moon goddess, a rain god, and a Feathered Serpent.
Ancient Mesoamerica featured the only true pre-Columbian writing systems in the New World. The Mayan hieroglyphic writing system is the best known. The decipherment of the Epi-Olmec writing system is one of the major intellectual achievements of modern times.
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How did the arrival of Europeans affect the Mesoamerican Indian people and their civilizations?
The arrival of Europeans in Mesoamerica dramatically altered the trajectory of the Mesoamerican Indian people and their civilizations. The Spanish conquest led to the rapid collapse of the Aztec empire. Over the next three years, the conquistadores brought Mesoamerica under Spanish rule and established the colony of New Spain.
The introduction of new infectious diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, devastated the Indigenous populations, causing a decline of 50 to 95 percent by 1650. The Spanish focused on extracting wealth and increasing territory. The Indigenous people were further disadvantaged by a serious gap in technological advancement. Despite Spanish missionization, Indigenous Middle American religious practices persisted, notably syncretic, mixing remnants of earlier ritual practices with the veneration of Christian saints.
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Mesoamerican Indian, member of any of the indigenous peoples inhabiting Mexico and Central America (roughly between latitudes 14° N and 22° N).
Mesoamerican Indian cultures have a common origin in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the area. The three largest linguistic groups are the Mayan, the Otomanguean, and the Uto-Aztecan. Mayan peoples, with the exception of a northeastern enclave, the Huastecs, live in southeastern Mesoamerica. Otomangueans are to be found in a wide area of Mesoamerica between Uto-Aztecan peoples to the north and east and Mayan and other peoples to the south. Some Otomanguean languages (now extinct) were spoken south of the Mayan area along the Pacific coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua, and Chichimeco and North Pame (once spoken in the central desert of highland Mexico) are outside Mesoamerica to the north. The main branches of Otomanguean languages are Oto-Pamean, Chinantecan, Tlapanec-Subtiaba, and Manguean, which constitute the Western group, and Popolocan, Zapotecan, Amuzgo, and Mixtecan, which constitute the Eastern group. As a result of the expansion of the Aztec empire centred in the Valley of Mexico, Uto-Aztecan enclaves are found throughout the area. Tarascan, a language isolate (i.e., a language having no known relatives), is spoken in the highlands of Michoacán, Mexico. (See also Mesoamerican Indian languages.)
Traditional culture patterns
Settlement patterns
The territorial unit that has prime importance for most Mesoamerican peoples is the municipio, a unit roughly corresponding to a county in Great Britain or the United States. Each municipio has a municipal centre where most civic, religious, and marketing activities take place. In the modern pattern, this centre is the largest settlement in the area. The usual elements, which vary according to the size and importance of the community, are laid out according to the standard pattern imposed by early Spanish administrators throughout New Spain: a public plaza surrounded by public edifices (church or chapel, curacy, jail, perhaps a school, and a meeting place for civil authorities). Houses situated nearest the plaza are those of the community leaders. Larger communities are often divided into sociopolitical enclaves called barrios.
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An older pattern, still found in a few areas (as among some Maya peoples of the south and among the Huichol of the north), was for the municipio centre to be an empty town, occupied continuously only by civil and religious authorities and perhaps a few merchants. The bulk of the population resided in hamlets or on individual farms most of the year, moving to town residences only for short periods either to transact business or to participate in religious festivals.
Social, political, and religious institutions
The basic social and economic unit of Mesoamerica is the extended family of two to four generations. There is a strong tendency for the extended family to fragment into individual nuclear families, each consisting of one couple and their children. Kinship is usually reckoned bilaterally, with no distinction being made between kin related through males and those related through females. Such distinctions are made in a few Mayan and Zoque communities, and they are common immediately north of Mesoamerica. Those and other facts have led some anthropologists to suggest that small preconquest communities were patrilineal clans or lineages. Named clans and lineages have actually been reported in a few present-day Tzeltal Mayan communities.
Throughout Mesoamerica generally, newly married couples tend to locate near the groom’s family in a slight majority of cases. Inheritance also generally favours the male line, including family names, which are almost invariably inherited from males. Inherited names are now most commonly of Spanish origin, but native surnames are known among some Mayan groups. In certain Mixtec (Otomanguean) communities, a man’s first name becomes the surname of his offspring.
Marriage, traditionally an alliance between two families, is initiated by the groom’s parents and arranged by them directly or through the services of a go-between. A period of bride service by the groom, often involving at least temporary residence with the bride’s family, is not uncommon. Polygyny is known and socially acceptable but is not common.
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Political and religious institutions are traditionally bound together into a complex of hierarchically arranged yearlong offices through which adult males may attain status and power in the community. All males must serve in the lower-ranked offices at one time or another, but only the most successful attain the highest positions. Progress through the ranks typically involves an alternation between civil and religious offices. Successful passage to the highest ranks results in election to the position of elder. The elders form a more or less informal group of senior men to whom the community looks for experienced guidance in policy matters and in times of crisis.
Mesoamerican religion is a complex syncretism of indigenous beliefs and the Christianity of early Roman Catholic missionaries. A hierarchy of indigenous supernatural beings (some benign, others not) have been reinterpreted as Christian deities and saints. Mountain and water spirits are appeased at special altars in sacred places by gift or animal sacrifice. Individuals have companion spirits in the form of animals or natural phenomena, such as lightning or shooting stars. Disease is associated with witchcraft or failure to appease malevolent spirits.