Upon arrival in the Americas, Europeans set out to make wheat the standard grain in the lands they had discovered; the establishment of wheat was both functional, as it was a staple of the European diet, as well as an attempt to institutionalize European control. While wheat did gain some ground in the Americas, especially among the upper classes, it failed to surmount maize as the “the foundation of indigenous livelihood.” The persistence of maize as a staple of the indigenous way of life is not shocking, as J. Eric Thompson writes: “Maize was a great deal more than the economic basis of Maya civilization: it was the focal point of worship, and to it every Maya who worked the soil built a shrine in his own heart.” The Americas were not
In the article "Sacred Sustenance: Maize, Storytelling, and a Mayan Sense of Place," the author, Leah Alexandra Huff, is arguing that Ethnographers should pay more attention to stories because they allow for a deeper understanding of cultures. To support her argument, she uses the example of the significance of maize in the Mayan civilization as well as their sense of place. Huff first describes the importance of place in building and maintaining a community and developing it identity. She explains that place was important for indigenous communities such as the Mayans because land was part of their cultural and spiritual systems. Huff then goes on to detail the importance of storytelling. She argues that storytelling helps create identity,
The sale of food products in the market of Tlatelolco with its various colors, shapes, smells, and sounds “unified Native American cuisines while preserving rich regional variations; [epitomized] the social relationships that depended on the feeding of gods and people; and [preserved] the cultural significance of taste for pre-Columbian cooking and eating” (9-10). Cuisine played an important part in the constructing of social hierarchies in Mesoamerica, and to this day continues to shape individuality not only in Mexico, but also for every country. Traditional forms of Mesoamerican cooking mainly belonged to women, and three simple utensils including a cazuela, a metate, and a comal, allowed them to frugally make delicious tortillas. But they “derived much of their self-worth from skill at the metate, the ability to grind maize so they could feed tortillas and tamales to their husbands and children,” (14-15). This single crop has permitted for these lower-class women to preserve and refine the pre-Columbian cuisine of tortillas and tamales. Mexicans have always been and still are a people of corn, in spite of numerous attempts to change this, partly in thanks to the female
The Aztecs were a tribe that relied on corn a lot. Well, it wasn’t necessarily corn, it was actually a thing called maize. Maize is a corn like substance that they use for many things like tortillas that they could use to make other things with and put them with the tortillas. Some of this includes tomatoes, beans, squash, deer and other things. While the Aztecs relied on maize for many things, the Incas did not use at much corn as the Aztecs did. Instead their main diet was the food that there was when they traveled. The Incas had a very large spread of land that they traveled on. Instead of staying in one place the incas would get all the food from one place then they would go to another place and get all the food from there. After that they would go back to the original spot that they had been because all the food had grown
The Popol Vuh doesn’t fall short in referencing and glorifying maize. One such reference in the Popol Vuh categorizes maize as a way to determine fate; if an ear of maize is planted and dries up, it indicates death. The article, “The Flowering of the Dead” concludes, “In Atiteco religion, ‘Flowering Mountain Earth’ is a place at the world’s centre whose primary manifestation is a maize plant or tree.” (Carlsen 27). A “Flowering Mountain Earth” is the center of the world that represents life, beauty, and the gods. Among this place, maize is an important object that animates and projects the qualities of a Flowering Mountain Earth. Maize is axis mundi, the center of the world. It is a staple crop in the Maya people; it is essential to the people and heavily relied on. The Maya saw maize as a fetish that truly gave them everything. Without it, everything that ties the Maya together falls apart. Successful growth of maize represents the life and well-being of the Maya, while a dying maize plant all but points to death and the failure of civilization. It is with the importance of maize in Maya culture, that it is omnipresent throughout the Popol
Mayan, Inca, and Aztec Civilizations. The Mayan, Inca, and Aztec civilizations each originated in Latin America. The Mayans lived in southern and central Mexico, other Mayans lived in Central America in the present day countries of Belize, Guatemala, and ancient Honduras. The Incas lived along the long coastal strip, and in the high peaks and deep fertile valleys of the Andes Mountains, and along the edges of the tropical forest to the east; this would be the country of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina in present days.
Forgotten and lost, this city laid wrapped in vegetation, covered with forest it once commanded. Its temples as side trees, webbed with vines, and walls of ferns. Tropical rain lashing at the crumbling surfaces of stone architecture built by armies of workers. The darkness of the night guided by owls and the day by parrot shrieks. Statues of gods lay along the remaining stone hedges. It was not till 1839 the American lawyer John Lloyd Stephens and English artist Fredrick Caterwood, rediscovered the magnificence of the Tikal Mayan civilization. Development in the Mayan society began with hunters and gatherers leading to sedentary life and agriculture. Then early Maya civic then the highest point of the Tikal at middle Maya civilization.
... into society also came with a new social responsibility to make sure that the crops would never fail. For once a society had made this unique and vital bond with the crop, with deep meaning. For a modern mind, the Mayan methodology of working with maize, and how it became to dominate life far beyond a means of food, becoming the backbone of their religion, it is truly amazing and great, the Mayans for one were not simple folk their attitude towards maize was clearly one of great spirituality. The Mayan mind believed or realized that not only had the gods given them maize, the gods would continually need to be thanked for giving them a great crop and they cultivated it and through it thanked and worshiped the gods for feeding them, and allowing them to grow and excel. In the end, the relationship between Man and maize was a contract between the gods and the earth.
The Early Preclassic Era is the time period when the beginnings of agriculture emerge in Maya culture. The earliest evidence of agricultural field burning and cultivation of maize along with other crops dates well before the beginning of the Early Preclassic period. Agriculture was already being practiced in some areas of Guatemala that were settled by distinctively Maya groups.
Near 1800 B.C, the Maya people found settlement within Teotihuacan territory and quickly became known as one of the most dominant indigenous societies within Mesoamerica. Best known for their agricultural skills, pottery work, hieroglyphic writing, mathematics and of course calender making this civilization. However, the Maya were the regional groups of Olmec heritage who were the first major Mesoamerican civilization.(Grahm, Liz. 2014) In 1500 B.C, the Olmecs began the effective cultivation of the crops of corn, beans, chili peppers and cotton, along which they established fine arts and the use of symbols to record history. Due to the Olmecs innovative talents at the time, they were also able to branch off and establish other cities.
In the fertile valleys or high plateaus the Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs built communities and villages practicing sedentary lifestyles. They had for the most part “permanent, intensive agriculture.” (Lane and Restall 2012) This allowed them to produce complex foods that benefitted the villages because it made them possible but it also resulted in social stratification. “Agricultural activities of the majority allowed a minority to live and work as artisans, merchants, warriors, nobles and royalty – permitting the development of writing, metallurgy, bureaucracy, and other features of high civilization.” More specifically, the Mayans were able to create the most complete of the three Mesoamerican writing systems, “one that was still used in the early sixteenth century.” (Lane and Restall 2012) They were also able to expand, but their expansion would also be their demise. Because they were so large -- filled with regional kingdoms and empires -- the Spanish were easily able to conquer
The Mayan civilization was located in southeastern Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula. One of the first American civilizations, it lasted from about 1000 B.C.-1542 A.D. Their civilization flourished during the Sixth Century. They built many temples and over forty cities. The Mayan population consisted of almost fifteen million people who were all living in one of the many cities. The Mayan people were extremely religious and believed in multiple gods which meant they were polytheistic. Their most commonly worshiped god was the Maize God, or god of corn, as corn was the most grown and most relied on crop. The Mayans grew all of their own food so they needed to have useful farming methods. The one they used most often was the slash and burn method, which involved cutting down trees and burning them to make the soil fertil which was necessary to grow crops. This method worked for many years, but soon started to backfire. The Mayans were ahead of their time, but that did not prevent their mysterious decline which occurred between the years 800 A.D.-900 A.D. Although it is not known exactly why the powerful empire fell, but there are various probable theories. The mysterious decline of the Mayans may have been caused by
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This quote from Arthur C. Clarke nicely represents the admiration that studying the Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations can inspire. In the current age of technology it is very hard to imagine these ancient civilizations accomplishing their many deeds without any modern tools or computers. The Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations of Central and South America made major advancements in engineering, math, astronomy, writing agriculture, and trading.
The Dark Ages were a time of great loss in regards to the lack of any grand achievement being made in Europe. After the fall of Rome, it was as if European society paused, and resumed during the Renaissance. This was not true for the Mayans, however. While the Europeans were squandering trying to subsist through the fall of the Roman Empire, the Mayans were building great pyramids, making substantial discoveries in astronomy and mathematics, their culture was rich. The Maya stood out for its sophisticated culture and society, which is eventually overshadowed by Europe’s monumental resurgence during the Renaissance period. It’s salient that the Maya never had a time period in which their culture was lost, despite the mysterious abandonment of
The story of maize domestication is not only an interesting topic to us today, but an impressive realization on how hard it was for people living thousands of years ago to find food for themselves. The people living in modern day Mexico eight thousand, seven hundred years ago found a crop that was not much more than a stick with small pods that could be pried off for a small reward of nutrients. However, with that plant they created one of the most useful foods today because of thousands of years of artificial breeding and domestication. Maize is an extremely useful crop that is easy to grow, and gives giant harvests thanks to the experimentation and instinct of our ancestors, and the act of artificial selection over the passage of time.
Maya civilization was based mainly on agriculture and religion. Maya every day life revolved around an innumerable number of earth Gods. The most important God was chief, ruler of all Gods. The Mayans prayed to these God’s particularly about their crops. For example, they prayed to the Rain God to nourish their crops. They practiced their religion during ceremonies conducted by priests. They also practiced confession and even fasted before important ceremonies (Gann and Thompson 1931 118-138). The Mayans also b...