The Inca, like all other pre-Columbian societies, did not use axle-mounted wheels for transportation. Its road system, kept free of debris and repaired by workers stationed at varying intervals, rivaled that of the Romans and efficiently connected the sprawling empire. It stretched from modern-day Colombia in the north to Chile in the south and included cities built at an altitude of 14,000 feet above sea level. At its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Inca Empire, located on the Pacific coast and straddling the Andes Mountains, extended some 2,500 miles. In South America, the most highly developed and complex society was that of the Inca, which means “lord” or “ruler” in the Andean language called Quechua. Each of these knots and strings possessed a distinct meaning intelligible to those educated in their significance. Instead, they communicated and kept records by means of a system of knots and colored strings called the quipu. They do, however, give us insight into the importance placed upon signs and omens in the pre-Columbian world.įigure 5. These foretellings were recorded after the Aztecs’ destruction. A fiery object appeared in the night sky, a spontaneous fire broke out in a religious temple and could not be extinguished with water, a water spout appeared in Lake Texcoco, and a woman could be heard wailing, “O my children we are about to go forever.” Moctezuma also had dreams and premonitions of impending disaster. Ten years before the arrival of the Spanish, Moctezuma received several omens which at the time he could not interpret. They were to be white, bearded men, dressed in different colors, and on their heads they would wear round coverings. On the surface of this house they would cook their food, walk, and play as if they were on firm land. ![]() This structure was to lodge many men, serving them as a home within they would eat and sleep. Said Quzatli to the sovereign, “Oh mighty lord, if because I tell you the truth I am to die, nevertheless I am here in your presence and you may do what you wish to me!” He narrated that mounted men would come to this land in a great wooden house. The sacrificial ceremony included cutting open the chest of a criminal or captured warrior with an obsidian knife and removing the still-beating heart. A ruling class of warrior nobles and priests performed ritual human sacrifice daily to sustain the sun on its long journey across the sky, to appease or feed the gods, and to stimulate agricultural production. The Aztec people possessed a complex religious belief system. Each god in their pantheon represented and ruled an aspect of the natural world, such as the heavens, farming, rain, fertility, sacrifice, and combat. Lake water constantly irrigated these chinampas, or “floating gardens,” which are still in use and can be seen today in Xochimilco, a district of Mexico City. ![]() To farm, the Aztec constructed barges made of reeds and filled them with fertile soil. A labor force of enslaved people from subjugated neighboring tribes had built the fabulous city and the three causeways that connected it to the mainland. Unlike the Spanish, Aztecs bathed daily, and wealthy homes might even contain a steam bath. The city had neighborhoods for specific occupations, a trash collection system, markets, two aqueducts bringing in fresh water, and public buildings and temples. Unlike the dirty, fetid cities of Europe at the time, Tenochtitlán was well planned, clean, and orderly. I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about.” And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream?. on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. One of Cortés’s soldiers, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, recorded his impressions upon first seeing it: “When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land we were amazed and said it was like the enchantments. By 1519, when Cortés arrived, this settlement contained upwards of 200,000 inhabitants and was certainly the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at that time and probably larger than any European city. In 1325, they began construction of Tenochtitlán on an island in Lake Texcoco. Aztec belief centered on supplying the gods with human blood-the ultimate sacrifice-to keep them strong and well.Īccording to legend, a warlike people called the Aztec (also known as the Mexica) had left a city called Aztlán and traveled south to the site of present-day Mexico City. In this illustration, an Aztec priest cuts out the beating heart of a sacrificial victim before throwing the body down from the temple.
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