University of California, Irvine History Department
California Content Standards: 7.7 Students compare and contrast the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the Meso-American and Andean civilizations. Study the locations, landforms, and climates of Mexico, Central America, and South America and their effects on Mayan, Aztec, and Incan economies, trade, and development of urban societies. Study the roles of people in each society, including class structures, family life, war-fare, religious beliefs and practices, and slavery. Explain how and where each empire arose and how the Aztec and Incan empires were defeated by the Spanish. Describe the artistic and oral traditions and architecture in the three civilizations. Describe the Meso-American achievements in astronomy and mathematics, including the development of the calendar and the Meso-American knowledge of seasonal changes to the civilizations' agricultural systems.
Inca, Aztec, Maya, and Spanish: Powerful Empires and their Intermediaries
CONTINGENT ACCOMMODATION Inca
◄ Inca Empire (1430s – 1580s)
Andean altitudes Cross-section of the Andes
coast puno altiplano yunga valley
don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1590s? early 1600s?) May Harvesting maize
Martin Chambi (Peruvian, 1930s) Picking coca
altiplano Making chuno
altiplano quinoa
Inca terraces, Sacred Valley (outside of Cuzco), 1998
Pre-1530s Inca tunics
Colonial (post- 1530s) Inca tunics From: Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America
Colonial (post-1530s) Inca tunics (Brooklyn Museum)
Corpus Christi (1680s) Cuzco
MALINTZIN: TRANSLATOR & FLASHPOINT Aztec
Aztec Empire (1420s – 1520s)
Florentine Codex (1560s) Malintzin, Marina, Malinche
José Clemente Orozco Cortes and Malinche (1926)
MERCHANTS & MARKETS Maya
Pochteca Aztec long- distance trader
Maya (500 A.D – 1690s)
Colonial tribute goods from 16 th - century MesoAmerican codex
Maya (post-classic, 10 th to early 16 th century) Diving Deity with a bird headdress carrying a cacao pod. From Tulum (eastern Yucatan)
MYTHS OF SPANISH CONQUEST Spanish
◄ macana: Inca battle club Ollantaytambo: Inca fortress ▼
don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1590s? early 1600s?) “Is this the gold that you eat?” (in Quechua) “Yes, this is the gold that we eat.” In Cuzco.
Andean Catholic Church 18- century