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- Us history to 1877
- Us history to 1877
- Ch. 1 pre-colombian era
Development of farming
People settled down in ecologically diverse regions such as being surrounded by a lake in what is today the center of Mexico City, or in the desert such as the Anasazi of the Four Corner area of what became the American Southwest, or the woodlands of what became New England. Ecology tended to present challenges to farming. For example, Aztecs settled down on an island, surrounded by a huge lake, in what is today Mexico City. Land on an island is extremely limited and so with a growing population, the Aztecs needed to invent a new way of farming, hence the chinampas or bog-farming. Aztecs would create floating patches of land (bogs) near the shores of the lake that surrounded their island. Over time the bogs fanned out, eventually filling in the lake with usable farm land. Likewise, the Anzsazi people lived in a desert so they faced particular challenges to farming. There are very few places in a desert where water comes to the surface, and those places are called oases. An oasis is, simply put, a place in the desert where the water table comes to the surface of the land. Now, an oasis is a relatively small chunk of land, just like the bog famrers of central Mexico, thus their crops they grew had to be carefully selected for their caloric punch, ease of growth, and ease of storage. Finally, Indians such as the Seneca in what became New England also had to deal with ecological issues. For example, trees. Lots of trees. The Seneca lived in the woodlands. Thus in order to farm they had to remove trees, but they did so in a time before electric saws. They did not even have iron tools nor oxen to assist them. The result was the creation of small patches of farmable land. Interestingly enough, the Aztecs, Anasazi, and Seneca farmed similar crops. Wherever you go in pre-Colombian America, you tend to discover that Indians grew the same holy trinity of crops: Corn, Beans, and Squash. They grew corn because of the caloric value. Corn is full of sugars (carbs) and can easily be ground into a flour, baked, boiled, or mashed. Corn tended to be the basis of Indian cooking. Now for those of you who are not farmers, or have not visited Iowa, corn grows erect. Straight up, however its roots are very shallow and can easily be baked by an unrelenting hot summer sun, this Indians also planted squash to shield the corn's roots. You see, squash (from Acorn squash to zucchini) tends to grow low and close to the ground and all squash have large, umbrellic-like leaves that if planted around corn, could act as a shield to the rays of the sun. Finally, also keeping in mind Indians' need to grwo crops in a very patch of land, Indians would grow beans. Now beans grow up and out, however in order to produce the bean, the plant must climb off the ground and so in their pursuit of saving spaces, Indians planted beans right next to corn, so that the bean plant would use the corn plant as its trellis.
Mesoamerican indians (south)
OLMECS. Again, our evidence is limited and we have no written record of these ancient Amerindians, nonetheless one of the oldest Indians in the Americas were a group that lived in present-day Mexico, called the Olmecs. We believe that Olmecs had a government, believed in many gods (pantheism), and held elaborate religious ceremonies through the oral traditions passed down. Nonethelss, the Olmecs did leave some record behind: giant heads. They carved giant heads out of basalt. Eight, nine, ten feet high weighing several tons. In other words, carving these heads was a purposeful act. Thus there must have been meaning in Olmec society for these heads. There are two parts of the carved heads -the face and the headgear. The facees are carved in a way that suggests the heads were carved in the likeness of babies because the face is flat, the nose is wide and broad, the lips are engorged, and the eyes are protruding. These feature are present in newborns who experienced vaginal births. SO one theory is that the heads were carved to honor babies. But, you would not carve a ten-foot-tall head for every baby born, which leads theorists to examine the headgear. These heads are definitely wearing something on their heads, resembling a half-helmet for a motorcyclist, but these have ear flaps. And, the headgear is ornate with carvings, thus suggesting that the wearer was special. All of this evidence had led people to conclude that maybe the heads were carved in respect for the babies of powerful men who died in child birth. Another theory, which I find particularly interesting, involves migration. Besides babies, who else sports broad noses, thick lips, and sometime protrusions of the eyes? People of African descent, that's who. Thus another theory is that these heads are the representations of Africans who migrated to the Americans. Now, Africans certainly had the technology and the wherewithal to sail from Africa to Mesoamerica. If Africans did arrive on the shores of present-day Mexico, they did not leave any evidence of their adventure, or at least we have not discovered any evidence of their trips, except for maybe in the skulls. Again, the Olmec did not have a written language those you will not be able to read Johnny Olmec's diary as to why he carved a ten-foot-tall basalt head.
MAYAS. Again, the Mayas did not leave a written record, per se. They left behind a calendar and hieroglyphics. They also left behind their oral tradition passed down from the Olmecs to the Aztecs, and then intercepted by the Spanish in the early sixteenth century. What we know about the Mayans is that they developed very elaborate social and political systems, with numerous religious and temporal leaders, daily observances, and they were dependent on controlling the cacao trade out of present-day Guatemala. They also developed huge cities, around a half a million people which rivaled anything in Europe at that time. One interesting fact about these people was that they had a teeth fetish. Long before rappers such as Chamillionaire sported gold and silver throughout their teeth, the Mayans were drilling holes in teeth and inserting precious and semi precious stones. They would also carve the teeth. We believe the focus on the teeth had something to do with Mayan status in society.AZTECS. The Aztecs were not indigenous to Mexico. Rather they migrated there from the American Southwest in the early twelfth century. They fought their way to what is today Mexico City, establishing an elaborate system of bog-farming. They were brutal and conquered all. They demanded tribute (in both riches and people) for their daily human sacrifices. The Aztecs expanded on the collection of old Mayan deities and most of the Aztec gods demanded daily tribute, usually in the form of a human sacrifice. For example, Aztecs believed that the god who brought the sun up each morning demanded the sacrifice of 100 virgins, daily. SO they did. And you know what? The sun always rose after the sacrifices! Finally, the Aztecs developed a ball game. Played in huge courts, the object of the game was for one player to kick or knock a ball through a hoop ten feet off the ground without using their hands. Games would last for days. Sometimes the winners would be sacrificed to the gods. Sometimes the losers were sacrificed. And sometimes everyone would be sacrificed. One reason why the Spanish were able to so quickly conquer Mexico was because the Aztecs terrorized every other tribe and thus the other tribes thew their lot in with the Spanish. Disease was another reason why the Spanish so quickly conquered Mexico. I'll save that story for the next chapter.
Source:
OpenStax, Us history to 1877. OpenStax CNX. Jan 20, 2013 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11483/1.1
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