Worlds Apart:

The Americas and Oceania

chapter20
States and Empires in Mesoamerica States and Empires in South America

and North America The Coming of the Incas

The Toltecs and the Mexica Inca Society and Religion
Mexica Society The Societies of Oceania
Mexica Religion The Nomadic Foragers of Australia
Peoples and Societies of the North The Development of Pacific Island Societies

EYEWITNESS:

First Impressions of the Aztec Capital

n November 1519 a small Spanish army entered Tenochtitlan, capital city of the
Aztec
Porcre The Spanish forces came in search of gold, and they had heard many reports
about
the wealth of the Aztec empire. Yet none of those reports prepared them adequately
for
what they saw.

Years after the conquest of the Aztec empire, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier
in the
Spanish army, described Tenochtitlan at its high point. The city itself sat in the
water of Lake
Texcoco, connected to the surrounding land by three broad causeways, and as in
Venice,
canals allowed canoes to navigate to all parts of the city. The imperial palace
included many
large rooms and apartments. Its armory, well stocked with swords, lances, knives,
bows,
arrows, slings, armor, and shields, attracted Bernal Diaz’s professional attention.
The aviary of
Tenochtitlan included eagles, hawks, parrots, and smaller birds in its collection,
while jaguars,
mountain lions, wolves, foxes, and rattlesnakes were noteworthy residents of the
zoo.

To Bernal Diaz the two most impressive sights were the markets and the temples of
Tenochtitlan. The markets astonished him because of their size, the variety of
goods they
offered, and the order that prevailed there. In the principal market at Tlatelolco,
a district
of Tenochtitlan, Bernal Diaz found gold and silver jewelry, gems, feathers,
embroidery,
slaves, cotton, cacao, animal skins, maize, beans, vegetables, fruits, poultry,
meat, fish, salt,
paper, and tools. It would take more than two days, he said, to walk around the
market and
investigate all the goods offered for sale. His well-traveled companions-in-arms
compared
the market of Tlatelolco favorably to those of Rome and Constantinople.

The temples also struck Bernal Diaz, though in a different way. Aztec temples were
the
principal sites of rituals involving human sacrifice. Bernal Diaz described his
ascent to the
top of the main pyramida! temple in Tenochtitlan, where fresh blood lay pooled
around
the stone that served as a sacrificial altar. He described priests with hair
entangled and
matted with blood. Interior rooms of the temple were so encrusted with blood,
Bernal

Tenochtitlan (teh-NOCH-tee-tlahn)

415
Diaz reported, that their walls and floors had turned black, and the stench
overcame even professional
Spanish soldiers. Some of the interior rooms held the dismembered limbs of
sacriticial victims, and others
were resting places for thousands of human skulls and bones.

The contrast between Tenochtitlan’s markets and its temples challenged Bernal Diaz
and his fellow
soldiers. In the markets they witnessed peaceful and orderly exchange of the kind
that took place all over
the world. In the temples, however, they saw signs of human sacrifice on a scale
rarely matched, if ever,
anywhere in the world. Yet by the cultural standards of the Aztec empire, there was
no difficulty reconciling
the commercial activity of the marketplaces with the human sacrifice of the
temples. Both had a place in the
maintenance of the world: trade enabled a complex society to function, while
sacrificial rituals pleased the
gods and persuaded them to keep the world going.

Although the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Europe interacted regularly before modern
times, the indigenous
peoples of the Americas had only sporadic dealings with their contemporaries across
the oceans. Scandinavian
seafarers established a short-lived colony in Newfoundland, and occasional ships
from Europe and west Africa
may have made their way to the western hemisphere. Before 1492, however,
interaction between peoples
of the eastern and western hemispheres was fleeting and random rather than a
sustained and regular
affair. During the period from 1000 to 1500 c.c., however, the peoples of North and
South America, like
their counterparts in the eastern hemisphere, organized large empires with
distinctive cultural and religious
traditions, and they created elaborate trade networks touching most regions of the
American continents.

The indigenous peoples of Australia and the Pacific islands had irregular and
sporadic dealings with
peoples outside Oceania. Asian trade networks extended to the Philippines, the
islands of Indonesia, and New
Guinea. They even touched a few regions of northern Australia and the Mariana
Islands, including Guam, but
they did not extend to the more distant island societies of the Pacific Ocean.
Pacific islanders themselves often
sailed over the open ocean, creating and sustaining links between the societies of
various island groups. They
also had some dealings with the inhabitants of Asian and American lands bordering
the Pacific Ocean. Like
their counterparts in the western hemisphere, however, the indigenous peoples of
Australia and the Pacific
islands built self-sufficient societies that tended to their own needs. Even though
they had extremely limited
amounts of land and other natural resources to work with, by the thirteenth century
c.c. they had established
well-organized agricultural societies and chiefly states throughout the Pacific
islands.

STATES AND EMPIRES IN MESOAMERICA

AND NORTH AMERICA

Mesoamerica entered an era of war and conquest in the

eighth century c.£. Great stores of wealth had accumulated
in Teotihuacan, the largest early city in Mesoamerica. When
Teotihuacan declined, it became a target for less-prosperous
but well-organized forces from the countryside and northern
Mexico. Attacks on Teotihuacan opened a long era of milita-
rization and empire building in Mesoamerica that lasted until
Spanish forces conquered the region in the sixteenth century.
Most prominent of the peoples contesting for power in Meso-
america were the Mexica, the architects of the Aztec empire.

The Toltecs and the Mexica

During the ninth and early tenth centuries, after the collapse
of Teotihuacan, several regional states dominated portions
of the high central valley of Mexico, the area surrounding
Mexico City where agricultural societies had flourished since
the late centuries B.c.z, Although these successor states and

416

their societies shared the religious and cultural traditions

of Teotihuacan, they fought relentlessly among themselves.
Their capital cities all stood on well-defended hill sites, and
warriors figured prominently in their works of art.

Toltecs With the emergence of the Toltecs and later the

Mexica, much of central Mexico again came under unified
tule. The Toltecs began to migrate into the area about the
eighth century. They came from the arid land of northwest-
ern Mexico, and they settled mostly at Tula, about 50 kilo-
meters (31 miles) northwest of modern Mexico City. Though

thin soil and receives little rainfall, the Toltecs tapped the
waters of the nearby River Tula to irrigate crops of maize,
beans, peppers, tomatoes, chiles, and cotton. At its high
point, from about 950 to 1150 c.£., Tula supported an urban
population that might have reached sixty thousand people.
Another sixty thousand lived in the surrounding region.
The Toltecs maintained a large and powerful army that
campaigned periodically throughout central Mexico. They
built a compact regional empire and maintained fortresses
far to the northwest to protect their state from invasion by
nomadic peoples. From the mid-tenth through the mid-
twelfth century, they exacted tribute’ from subject peoples
and transformed their capital into a wealthy city. Residents
lived in spacious houses made of stone, adobe, or mud and
sometimes covered their packed-earth floors with plaster.

Tula The city of Tula became an important center of weav-

ing, pottery, and obsidian work, and residents imported
large quantities of jade, turquoise, animal skins, exotic bird
feathers, and other luxury goods from elsewhere in Meso-
america. The Toltecs maintained close relations with socie-
ties on the Gulf coast as well as with the Maya of Yucatan.
Indeed, Tula shared numerous architectural designs and art
motifs with the Maya city of Chichén Itz4 some 1,500 kilo-
meters (932 miles) to the east.

Beginning about 1125 cx. the Toltec empire faced se-

rious difficulties as conflicts between the different ethnic
groups living at Tula led to civil strife. By the mid-twelfth
century, large numbers of migrants—mostly nomadic peo-
ples from northwestern Mexico—had entered Tula and
settled in the surrounding area. By 1175 the combination
of civil conflict and nomadic incursion had destroyed the
Toltec state. Archaeological evidence suggests that fire de-
stroyed much of Tula about the same time Large numbers

TS Se f= a ere “

A Sut Gulf of
& (ot f Mexico

=-YUCATA 44
(PENI NSULA
NM '

MAP 20.1
The Toltec and Aztec empires, 950-1520 ce.
The Aztec empire stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

How were Aztec rulers able to control these diverse territories?

Chapter 20 ™ Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 417

of people continued to inhabit the region around Tula, but

by the end of the twelfth century the Toltecs no longer dom-
inated Mesoamerica.

The Mexica Among the migrants drawn to central Mex-

ico from northwestern regions was a people who called
themselves the Mexica, often referred to as Aztecs because
they dominated the alliance that built the Aztec empire in
the fifteenth century. (The term Aztec derives from Azilén,
“the place of the seven legendary caves,” which the Mexica
remembered as the home of their ancestors.) The Mexica
arrived in central Mexico about the middle of the thirteenth
century. They had a reputation for making trouble by kid-
napping women from nearby communities and seizing land
already cultivated by others. On several occasions their
neighbors became tired of their disorderly behavior and
forced them to move. For a century they migrated around
central Mexico, jostling and fighting with other peoples and
sometimes surviving only by eating fly eggs and snakes.

Tenochtitlan About 1345 the Mexica settled on an island

in a marshy region of Lake Texcoco and founded the city that
would become their capital—Tenochtitlan, on top of which
Spanish conquerors later built Mexico City. Though incon-
venient at first, the site offered several advantages. The lake
harbored plentiful supplies of fish, frogs, and waterfowl.

Ne) pax ATLANTIC OCEAN

Pi

| .
* ‘ = Aztec empire
ol Sy = Toltec empire
“| a
fe Maya empire
418 Part4 ® The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, 1000 to 1500 c.e.

Moreover, the lake enabled the

Mexica to develop the chinampa
system of agriculture. The Mex-
ica dredged a rich and fertile
muck from the lake’s bottom
and built it up into small plots
of land known as chinampas.
During the dry season, cultiva-
tors tapped water from canals
leading from the lake to their
plots, and in the temperate cli-
mate they grew crops of maize,
beans, squashes, tomatoes, pep-
pers, and chiles year-round.
Chinampas were so fertile and
productive that cultivators were
sometimes able to harvest seven
crops per year from their gar-
dens. Finally, the lake served
as a natural defense: waters
protected Tenochtitlan on all sides, and Mexica warriors pa-
trolled the three causeways that eventually linked their capi-
tal to the surrounding mainland.

The Aztec Empire By the early fifteenth century, the

Mexica were powerful enough to overcome their immedi-
ate neighbors and demand tribute from their new subjects.
During the middle decades of the century, prodded by the
military elite that ruled Tenochtitlan, the Mexica launched
ambitious campaigns of imperial expansion. Under the rule
of “the Obsidian Serpent” Itzcéatl (1428-1440) and Motecu-
zoma I (1440-1469), also known as Moctezuma or Monte-
zuma, they advanced first against Oaxaca in southwestern
Mexico. After conquering the city and slaying many of its
inhabitants, they populated Oaxaca with colonists, and the
city became a bulwark for the emerging Mexica empire.

The Mexica next turned their attention to the Gulf

coast, whose tropical products made welcome tribute items
in Tenochtitlan. Finally, they conquered the cities of the
high plateaus between Tenochtitlan and the Gulf coast.
About the mid-fifteenth century, the Mexica joined forces
with two neighboring cities, Texcoco and Tlacopan (modern
Tacuba), to create a triple alliance that guided the Aztec em-
pire. Dominated by the Mexica and Tenochtitlan, the allies
imposed their rule on about twelve million people and most
of Mesoamerica, excluding only the arid northern and west-
em regions and a few small pockets where independent
states resisted the expanding empire.

Tribute and Trade The main objective of the triple alli-

ance was to exact tribute from subject peoples. From nearby
peoples the Mexica and their allies received food crops and
manufactured items such as textiles, rabbit-fur blankets,
embroidered clothes, jewelry, and obsidian knives. Trib-
ute obligations were sometimes very oppressive for subject
Although the lakes of central Mexico have largely disap-
peared, a few chinampas survive, such as this one in Xochi-
milco, near modern Mexico City,

peoples. The annual tribute

owed by the state of Tochtepec
on the Gulf coast, for example,
included 9,600 cloaks, 1,600
women’s garments, 200 loads
of cacao, and 16,000 rubber
balls, among other items. Rul-
ing elites entrusted some of
these tribute items to officially
recognized merchants, who
took them to distant lands and
exchanged them for local prod-
ucts. These included luxury
items such as translucent jade,
emeralds, tortoise shells, jaguar
skins, parrot feathers, seashells,
and game animals. The tropical
lowlands also supplied vanilla
beans and cacao—the source
of cocoa and chocolate—from
which Mexica elites prepared tasty beverages.

Unlike imperial states in the eastern hemisphere, the Az-

tec empire had no elaborate bureaucracy or administration.
The Mexica and their allies simply conquered their subjects
and assessed tribute, leaving local governance and the col-
lection of tribute in the hands of the conquered peoples. The
allies did not even maintain military garrisons throughout
their empire. Nor did they keep a permanent, standing army.
They simply assembled forces as needed when they launched
campaigns of expansion or mounted punitive expeditions
against insubordinate subjects. Nevertheless, the Mexica in
particular had a reputation for military prowess, and fear of
reprisal kept most subject peoples in line.

At the high point of the Aztec empire in the early six-

teenth century, tribute from 489 subject territories flowed
into Tenochtitlan, which was an enormously wealthy city.
The Mexica capital had a population of about two hundred
thousand people, and three hundred thousand others lived
in nearby towns and suburban areas. The principal market
had separate sections for merchants dealing in gold, silver,
slaves, henequen and cotton cloth, shoes, animal skins, tur-
keys, dogs, wild game, maize, beans, peppers, cacao, and
fruits.

The Spanish soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo marveled at

the sight before him when he first laid eyes on Tenochtitlan:

And when we saw so many cities and villages built

in the water and other great towns on dry land
and that straight and level causeway going to-
wards Mexico [Tenochtitlan], we were amazed...
on account of the great towers and [temples] and
buildings rising from the water, and all built of
masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked
whether the things that we saw were not a dream?
It is not to be wondered at that I here write it
down in this manner, for there is so much to think
over that 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.

Mexica Society

More information survives about the Mexica and their sub-

jects than about any other people of the pre-Columbian
Americas. A few Mexica books survived the Spanish con-
quest of the Aztec empire, and they offer direct testimony
about the Mexica way of life. Moreover, a great deal of in-
formation survives from lengthy interviews conducted by
Spanish missionaries with priests, elders, and other leaders
of the Mexica during the mid-sixteenth century. Their re-
ports fill many thick volumes and shed considerable light
on Mexica society.

Social Structure Mexica society was rigidly hierarchi-

cal, with public honors and rewards going mostly to the
military elite. The Mexica looked upon ali males as poten-
tial warriors, and individuals of common birth could dis-
tinguish themselves on the battlefield and thereby improve
their social standing. For the most part, however, the mili-
tary elite came from the Mexica aristocracy. Men of noble
birth received the most careful instruction and intense
training in military affairs, and they enjoyed the best oppor-
tunities to display their talents on the battlefield.

Warriors The Mexica showered wealth and honors on the

military elite. Accomplished warriors received extensive land
grants as well as tribute from commoners for their support.
The most successful warriors formed a council whose mem-
bers selected the ruler, discussed public issues, and filled
government positions. They ate the best foods—turkey,
pheasant, duck, deer, boar, and rabbit—and they consumed
most of the luxury items such as vanilla and cacao that came
into Mexica society by way of trade or tribute. Even dress
reflected social status in Mexica society. Sumptuary laws
required commoners to wear coarse, burlaplike garments
made of henequen but permitted aristocrats to drape them-
selves in cotton. Warriors enjoyed the right to don brightly
colored capes and adorn themselves with lip plugs and ea-
gle feathers after they captured enemies on the battlefield
and brought them back to Tenochtitlan.

Mexica Women Women played almost no role in the

political affairs of a society so dominated by military values,
but they wielded influence within their familics and enjoyed
high honor as mothers of warriors. Mexica women did not
inherit property or hold official positions, and the law sub-
jected them to the strict authority of their fathers and their
husbands. Women were prominent in the marketplaces,
as well as in crafts involving embroidery and needlework.
Yet Mexica society prodded them toward motherhood and
homemaking.

Chapter 20 ™ Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 419

joc Searmas Seah

Soret Gonsela Seat lrratt

ss

A Spanish copy of a Mexica list records tribute owed by six north-

western towns to the ruler Motecuzoma II. Each two years the towns
delivered, among other items, women’s skirts and blouses, men's
shirts, warriors’ armor and shields, an eagle, and various quantities of
maize, beans, and other foods.

With the exception of a few who dedicated themselves

to the service of a temple, all Mexica women married. Mex-
ica values taught that their principal function was to bear
children, especially males who might become distinguished
warriors, and society recognized the bearing of children
as equal to a warrior’s capture of enemy in battle. Indeed,
women who died in childbirth won the same fame as war-
riors who died valiantly on the battlefield. Even among the
elite classes, Mexica women had the responsibilities of rais-
ing young children and preparing food for their families.

Priests In addition to the military aristocracy, a priestly

class also ranked among the Mexica elite. Priests received a
special education in calendrical and ritual lore, and they pre-
sided over religious ceremonies that the Mexica viewed as
crucial to the continuation of the world. Priests read omens
and explained the forces that drove the world, thereby
420

sources fromthe

Mexica Expectations of Boys and Girls

Bernardino de Sahagun was a Franciscan missionary who

worked to convert the native peoples of Mesoamerica to
Christianity in the mid-sixteenth century. He interviewed
Mexica elders and assembled a vast amount of informa-
tion about their society before the arrival of Europeans. His
records include the speeches made by midwives as they de-
livered infants to aristocratic families. The speeches indicate
clearly the roles men and women were expected to play in
Mexica society.

[To a newborn boy the midwife said:] “Heed, hearken: thy

home is not here, for thou art an eagle, thou art an ocelot;
thou art a roseate spoonbill, thou art a troupial. Thou art the
serpent, the bird of the lord of the near, of the nigh. Here
is only the place of thy nest. Thou hast only been hatched
here; thou hast only come, arrived. Thou art only come forth
on earth here. Here dost thou bud, blossom, germinate.
Here thou becomest the chip, the fragment [of thy mother].
Here are only the cradle, thy cradle blanket, the resting
place of thy head: only thy place of arrival. Thou belongest
out there; out there thou hast been consecrated. Thou hast
been sent into warfare. War is thy desert, thy task. Thou
shalt give drink, nourishment, food to the sun, the lord of
the earth. Thy real home, thy property, thy lot is the home
of the sun there in the heavens. ... Perhaps thou wilt receive
the gift, perhaps thou wilt merit death [in battle] by the ob-
sidian knife, the flowered death by the obsidian knife. ...”
And if it were a female, the midwife said to her when
she cut her umbilical cord: "My beloved maiden, my beloved

wielding considerable influence as advisors to Mexica rulers.

On a few occasions, priests even became supreme rulers of
the Aztec empire: the ill-fated Motecuzoma II (reigned 1502—
1520), ruler of the Aztec empire when Spanish invaders ap-
peared in 1519, was a priest of the most popular Mexica cult.

Cultivators and Slaves The bulk of the Mexica popu-

lation consisted of commoners who lived in hamlets culti-
vating chinampas and fields allocated to their families by
community groups known as calpulli. Originally, calpulli
were clans or groups of families claiming descent from com-
mon ancestors. With the passage of time, ancestry became
less important to the nature of the ca/pulii than the fact that
groups of families lived together in communities, organized
their own affairs, and allocated community property to in-
dividual families. Apart from cultivating plots assigned by
their calpuili, Mexica commoners worked on lands awarded
to aristocrats or prominent warriors and contributed labor

Part4 @ The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, 1000 to 1500 c.e,

past
noblewoman, thou has endured fatigue! Our lord, the lord
of the near, of the nigh, hath sent thee. Thou hast come to
arrive at a place of weariness, a place of anguish, a place of
fatigue where there is cold, there is wind... . Thou wilt be
in the heart of the home, thou wilt go nowhere, thou wilt
nowhere become a wanderer, thou becomest the banked
fire, the hearth stones. Here our lord planteth thee, buri-
eth thee. And thou wilt become fatigued, thou wilt become
tired; thou art to provide water, to grind maize, to drudge;
thou art to sweat by the ashes, by the hearth.”

Then the midwife buried the umbilical card of the noble-

woman by the hearth. It was said that by this she signified
that the little woman would nowhere wander. Her dwelling
place was only within the house; her home was only within
the house; it was not necessary for her to go anywhere. And
it meant that her very duty was drink, food. She was to pre-
pare drink, to prepare food, to grind, to spin, to weave.

For Further Reflection

m How did gender roles and expectations of Mexica society

compare with those of other settled, agricultural socie-
ties, such as China, India, the Islamic world, sub-Saharan
Africa, and Europe?

Source: Bernardino de Sahagun. Florentine Codex: General History

of the Things of New Spain, 13 vols. Trans. by Charles E. Dibble
and Arthur J. O. Anderson. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,
1950-82, 7:171-73 (book 6, chapter 31).

services to public works projects involving the construction

of palaces, temples, roads, and irrigation systems. Cultivators
delivered periodic tribute payments to state agents, who dis-
tributed a portion of what they collected to the elite classes
and stored the remainder in state granaries and warehouses.
In addition to these cultivators of common birth, Mexica so-
ciety included a large number of slaves, who usually worked
as domestic servants. Most slaves were not foreigners, but
Mexica. Families sometimes sold younger members into ser-
vitude out of financial distress, and other Mexica were forced
into slavery because of criminal behavior.

Artisans and Merchants Skilled artisans, particularly

those who worked with gold, silver, cotton textiles, tropi-
cal bird feathers, and other items destined for consump-
tion by the elite, enjoyed considerable prestige in Mexica
soctety. Merchants specializing in long-distance trade oc-
cupied an important but somewhat more tenuous position
in Mexica society. Merchants
supplied the exotic products
such as gems, animal skins, and
tropical bird feathers consumed
by the elites and provided po-
litical and military intelligence
about the lands they visited. Yet
they often fell under suspicion
as greedy profiteers, and aris-
tocratic warriors frequently ex-
torted wealth and goods from
merchants who lacked powerful
patrons or protectors.

at |e

SRR

|
'
i

Mexica Religion

When they migrated to central

Mexico, the Mexica already
spoke the Nahuatl language,
which had been the prevalent
tongue in the region since the
time of the Toltecs. The Mexica
soon adopted other cultural
and religious traditions, some
of which dated from the time
of the Olmecs, shared by all the
peoples of Mesoamerica. Most
Mesoametican peoples played a ball game in formal courts,
for example, and maintained a complicated calendar based
on a solar year of 365 days and a ritual year of 260 days.
The Mexica enthusiastically adopted the ball game, and
they kept a sophisticated calendar, although it was not as
elaborate as the Maya calendar. :

as the god of death.

Mexica Gods The Mexica also absorbed the religious be-

liefs common to Mesoamerica. Two of their principal gods—
Tezcatlipoca, “the Smoking Mirror,” and Quetzalcoéatl, “the
Feathered Serpent”—had figured in Mesoamerican panthe-
ons at least since the time of Teotihuacan, although differ-
ent peoples knew them by various names. Tezcatlipoca was
a powerful figure, the giver and taker of life and the patron
deity of warriors, whereas Quetzalcéatl had a reputation

‘thinking about TRADITIONS

The Mexica and Mesoamerican Bloodletting Rituals

The Mexica practiced bloodletting rituals much like those ob-
served in Maya, Teotihuacan, Toltec, and other earlier Meso-

american societies. Yet the Mexica shed human blood much

more copiously than their predecessors. Why might the Mex-
ica have emphasized this particular cultural tradition so much

more strongly than earlier Mesoamerican peoples?

SOSBEOS

A Mexica manuscript known as the Codex Borgia depicts

Quetzalcdat! (left) as the lord of life and Tezcatlipoca (right)

Chapter 20 @ Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 421

for supporting arts, crafts, and

agriculture.

e @e@'o"

Ritual Bloodletting Like

their predecessors, the Mexica
believed that their gods had set
the world in motion through
acts of individual sacrifice. By
letting their blood flow, the
gods had given the earth the
moisture it needed to bear
maize and other crops. To pro-
pitiate the gods and ensure the
continuation of the world, the
Mexica honored their deities
through - sacrificial bloodlet-
ting. Mexica priests regularly
performed acts of self-sacrifice,
piercing their earlobes or pe-
nises with cactus spines in
honor of the primeval acts of
their gods. The religious beliefs
and bloodletting rituals clearly
reflected the desire of the Mex-
ica to keep their agricultural
society going.

oy

ri wa Tal vee Sam | an] Se Bra A |

aS

Huitzilopochtli Mexica priests also presided over the

sacrificial killing of human victims. From the time of the Ol-
mecs, and possibly even earlier, Mesoamerican peoples had
regarded the ritual sacrifice of human beings as essential
to the world’s survival. The Mexica, however, placed much
more emphasis on human sacrifice than their predecessors
had. To a large extent the Mexica enthusiasm for human
sacrifice followed from their devotion to the god Huitzilo-
pochtli. Mexica warriors took Huitzilopochtli as their patron
deity in the early years of the fourteenth century as they
subjected neighboring peoples to their rule. Military success
persuaded them that Huitzilopochtli especially favored the
Mexica, and as military successes mounted, the priests of
Huitzilopochtli’s cult demanded sacrificial victims to keep
the war god appeased.

Some of the victims were Mexica criminals,

but others came as tribute from neighboring
peoples or from the ranks of warriors captured
on the battlefield during the many conflicts be-
tween the Mexica and their neighbors. In all
cases, the Mexica viewed human sacrifice not as
a grucsome form of entertainment but, rather,
as a ritual essential to the world’s survival. They
believed that the blood of sacrificial victims sus-
tained the sun and secured a continuing sup-
ply of moisture for the earth, thus ensuring that
human communities would be able to cultivate
their crops and perpetuate their societies.
422

="
ir

Ur Oy

Part 4 & The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, LOCO to 1500 c.e.

In this manuscript illustra-

tion an aide stretches a

: victim over a sacrificial

n altar while a priest opens

i his chest, removes the
still-beating heart, and
offers it to Huitzilo-
pochtli. At the bottom of
the structure, attendants
remove the body of an
earlier victim.

eal i

Peoples and Societies

of the North

Beyond Mexico the peoples of North America developed a

rich variety of political, social, and cultural traditions. Many
North American peoples depended on hunting, fishing, and
collecting edible plants. In the arctic and subarctic regions,
for example, diets included sea mammals such as whale,
seal, and walrus supplemented by land mammals such as
moose and caribou. Peoples in coastal regions consumed
fish, but in interior regions (the North American plains, for
example), they hunted large animals such as bison and deer.
Throughout the continent nuts, berries, roots, and grasses
such as wild rice supplemented the meat provided by hunt-
ers and fishers. Like their counterparts elsewhere, hunting,
fishing, and foraging peoples of North America built socie-
ties on a relatively small scale, since food resources in the
wild would not support dense populations.

Pueblo and Navajo Societies In several regions of

North America, agricultural economies enabled peoples to
maintain settled societies with large populations. In what is
now the American southwest, for example, Pueblo and Navajo

Iroquois (EAR-uh-kwoi)

peoples tapped river waters to irrigate crops of maize, which

constituted as much as 80 percent of their diets. They also
cultivated beans, squashes, and sunflowers, and they supple-
mented their crops with wild plants and small game such
as rabbit. The hot and dry environment periodically brought
drought and famine. Nevertheless, by about 700 c.z. the
Pueblo and the Navajo began to construct permanent stone
and adobe buildings. Archaeologists have discovered about
125 sites where agricultural peoples built such communities.

Iroquois Peoples Large-scale agricultural societies

emerged also in the woodlands east of the Mississippi River.
Woodlands peoples began to cultivate maize and beans dur-
ing the early centuries c.z., and after about 800 these cul-
tivated foods made up the bulk of their diets. They lived
in settled communities, and they often surrounded their
larger settlements with wooden palisades, which served as
defensive walls. By 1000, for example, the Owasco people
had established a distinct society in what is now upstate
New York, and by about 1400 the five Iroquois nations
(Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) had
emerged from Owasco society. Women were in charge of
Iroquois villages and longhouses, in which several related
families lived together, and supervised cultivation of fields
surrounding their settlements. Men took responsibility for
affairs beyond the village—hunting, fishing, and war.
Mound-Building Peoples The most impressive struc-
tures of the woodlands were the enormous earthen mounds
that dotted the countryside throughout the eastern half of
North America. Woodlands peoples used those mounds
sometimes as stages for ceremonies and rituals, often as
platforms for dwellings, and occasionally as burial sites.
Modern agriculture, road building, and real estate develop-
ment have destroyed most of the mounds, but several sur-
viving examples demonstrate that they sometimes reached
gigantic proportions.

Cahokia The largest surviving structure is a mound at

Cahokia near East St. Louis, Illinois. More than 30 meters
(100 feet) high, 300 meters (1,000 feet) long, and 200 me-
ters (650 feet) wide, it was the third-largest structure in the
western hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. Only
the temple of the sun in Teotihuacan and the temple of
Quetzalcéatl in Cholula were larger. When the Cahokia so-
ciety was at its height, from approximately 900 to 1250 c.z.,
more than one hundred smaller mounds stood within a few
kilometers of the highest and most massive mound. Schol-
ars have estimated that during the twelfth century, fifteen
thousand to thirty-eight thousand people lived in the vicin-
ity of the Cahokia mounds.

Trade Because peoples north of Mexico had no writing,

information about their societies comes almost exclusively
from archaeological discoveries. Burial sites reveal that
mound-building peoples recognized various social classes,

Chapter 20 H@ Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 423

since they bestowed grave goods of differing quality and

quantities on their departed kin. Archaeologists have shown,
too, that trade linked widely separated regions and peoples
of North America. An elaborate network of rivers—notably
the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers, along
with their many tributaries—facilitated travel and trade by
canoe in the eastern half of North America. Throughout the
eastern woodlands, archaeologists have turned up stones
with sharp cutting edges from the Rocky Mountains, copper
from the Great Lakes region, seashells from Florida, min-
erals from the upper reaches of the Mississippi River, and
mica from the southern Appalachian mountains. Indeed,
the community at Cahokia probably owed its size and prom-
inence to its location at the hub of North American trade
networks. Situated near the confluence of the Mississippi,
Missouri, and Ohio rivers, Cahokia was most likely the cen-
ter of trade and communication networks linking the east-
ern woodlands of North America with the lower Mississippi
valley and lands bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

STATES AND EMPIRES

IN SOUTH AMERICA

South American peoples had no script and no tradition of

writing before the arrival of Spanish invaders in the early
sixteenth century. As a result, the experiences of early South
American societies are much more difficult to recover than
those of Mesoamerica, where writing had been in use since
the fifth century 5.c.z. Yet, from archaeological evidence and

Originally constructed
about 1000 c.e., the
Great Serpent Mound sits
atop a ridge in modern
Ohio. The serpent's coiled
tail is visible at the left,
while its open mouth
holds an egg on the
tight. What uses might 4
tidgetap mound like this
have served?
424

3 Caribbean Sea ; | J Inca empire

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MAP 20.2
The Inca empire, 1471-1532 c.e.
The Incas built the fargest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas.

How were they able to maintain control over their extensive realm?

information recorded by Spanish conquerors, it is possible

to reconstruct much of the historical experience of Andean
South America, which had been the site of complex societies
since the first millennium 3.c.z. As in Mesoamerica, cities
and secular government in South America began to over-
shadow ceremonial centers and priestly regimes during the
centuries from 1000 to 1500 c.z. Toward the end of the pe-
riod, like the Mexica in Mesoamerica, the Incas built a pow-
erful state, extended their authority over a vast region, and
established the largest empire South America had ever seen.

The Coming of the Incas

After the disappearance of the Chavin and Moche societies, a

series of autonomous regional states organized public affairs

Part 4 @ The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, 1000 to 1500 c.e.

in Andean South America. The states frequently clashed, but

rarely did one of them gain a long-term advantage over the
others. For the most part they controlled areas either in the
mountainous highlands or in the valleys and coastal plains.

Chucuito After the twelfth century, for example, the king-

dom of Chucuito dominated the highlands region around
Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between modern
Peru and Bolivia at about 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) of el-
evation. Chucuito depended on the cultivation of potatoes
and the herding of llamas and alpacas—camel-like beasts
that were the only large domesticated animals anywhere in
the Americas before the sixteenth century. In elaborately
terraced fields built with stone retaining walls, cultivators
harvested potatoes of many colors, sizes, and tastes. Like
maize in Mesoamerica, potatoes served as the staple of the
highlanders’ diet, which revolved around a potato-based
stew enlivened by maize, tomatoes, green vegetables, pep-
pers, chiles, and meat from Ilamas, alpacas, or tender, do-
mesticated guinea pigs.

Apart from meat, llamas and alpacas provided the high-

landers with wool, hides, and dung, widely used as fuel in
a land with few trees. In exchange for potatoes and woolen
textiles, the highlanders obtained maize and coca leaves
from societies in lower valleys. They used maize to enhance
their diet and to brew a beerlike beverage, and they chewed
the caca leaves, which worked as a mild stimulant and en-
hanced stamina in the thin air of the high Andes. (When
processed, coca leaves yield a much more powerful stimu-
lant with addictive properties—cocaine.)

Chimu In the lowlands the powerful kingdom of Chimu

(sometimes referred to as Chimor) emerged in the tenth
century and expanded to dominate some 900 kilometers
(560 miles) of the Peruvian coast for about a century be-
fore the arrival of the Incas in the mid-fifteenth century.
Chimu governed a large and thriving society. Irrigation net-
works tapped the rivers and streams flowing from the An-
des mountains, watered fields in the lowlands, and helped
to generate abundant yields of maize and sweet potatoes.
Judging from goods excavated at grave sites, Chimu society
enjoyed considerable wealth and recognized clear distinc-
tions between social classes.

Chimu’s capital city, Chanchan, whose ruins lie close to

the modern city of Trujillo, had a population that exceeded
fifty thousand and may have approached one hundred thou-
sand. Chanchan featured massive brick buildings, which in-
dicated a capacity for mobilizing large numbers of people
and resources for public purposes. The city’s geography re-
flected a well-defined social order: each block belonged to
an individual clan that supervised the affairs of its members
and coordinated their efforts with those of other clans.

For several centuries, regional states such as Chucuito

and Chimu maintained order in Andean South America.
Yet, within a period of about thirty years, these and other
regional states fell under the
domination of the dynamic and
expansive society of the Incas.
The word Inca originally was
the title of the rulers of a small
kingdom in the valley of Cuzco, Lig
but in modern usage the term
refers more broadly to those fy
who spoke the Incas’ Quechua ;
language, or even to all subjects
of the Inca empire.

The Inca Empire After a

long period of migration in the
highlands, the Incas settled in
the region around Lake Titicaca
about the mid-thirteenth cen-
tury. At first, they lived as one
among many peoples inhabiting
the region. About 1438, how-
ever, the Inca ruler Pachacuti
(reigned 1438-1471) launched
a series of military campaigns
that vastly expanded the In-
cas’ authority. Pachacuti (‘Earthshaker”) was a fierce war-
rior. According to Inca legends, he fought so furiously in
one carly battle that he inspired the stones in the field to
stand up and combat his enemies. The campaigns of the
Earthshaker were long and brutal. Pachacuti first extended
Inca control over the southern and northern highlands and
then turned his forces on the coastal kingdom of Chimu.
Though well defended, Chimu had to submit to the Incas
when Pachacuti gained control of the waters that supplied
Chimu’s irrigation system.

By the late fifteenth century, the Incas had built a huge

empire stretching more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles)
from modern Quito to Santiago. It embraced almost all of
modern Peru, most of Ecuador, much of Bolivia, and parts
of Chile and Argentina as well. Only the tropical rain for-
ests of the Amazon and other river valleys set a limit to
Inca expansion to the cast, and the Pacific Ocean defined its
western boundary. With a population of about 11.5 million,
the Inca empire easily ranked as the largest state ever built
in South America.

The Incas ruled as a military and administrative elite.

They led armies composed mostly of conquered peoples,
and they staffed the bureaucracy that managed the empire’s
political affairs. But the Incas were not numerous enough
to overwhelin their subjects. They routinely sought to en-
courage obedience among subject peoples by taking hos-
tages from their ruling classes and forcing them to live at
the Inca capital. When conquered peoples became restive
or uncooperative, the Incas sent loyal subjects as colonists,
provided them with choice land and economic benefits, and
established them in garrisons to maintain order. When con-

information by quipu.
MIN
ball

i"
AN

The different colors of quipu threads designated the different

items recorded: population, animals, textiles, weapons,

and perhaps even rulers and notable events of their reigns,

People needed an advanced education to record and “read”

Chapter 20 ® Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 425

quered peoples rebelled, Inca

Ss armies forced them to leave
their homes and resettle in dis-
tant parts of the empire.

Inca Administration The

vast Inca realm presented a se-
rious administrative challenge
to its rulers. The Inca adminis-
trative system was the invention

of Pachacuti himself—the same

\ Earthshaker who conquered the
\ territories that made up the Inca
empire. Toward the end of his
reign, about 1463, Pachacuti en-
trusted. military affairs to his
son and settled in the highland
village of Cuzco, where he de-
signed a system of government
to consolidate his conquests.
He implemented taxes to sup-
port Inca rulers and administra-
tors, and he organized a system
of state-owned storchouses to
stock agricultural surpluses and craft products such as tex-
tiles. He also began construction on an extensive network
of roads that enabled Inca military forces and administra-
tors to travel quickly to all parts of the empire.

\
‘\\

Quipu In the absence of any script or system of writing,

Inca bureaucrats and administrators relied on a mnemonic
aid known as quipu to keep track of their responsibilities.
Quipu consisted of an array of small cords of various colors
and lengths, all suspended from one large, thick cord. Ex-
perts tied a series of knots in the small cords, which some-
times numbered a hundred or more, to help them remember
certain kinds of information. Most quipu recorded statistical
information having to do with population, state property,
taxes, and labor services that communities owed to the cen-
tral government. Occasionally, though, quipu also helped ex-
perts to remember historical information having to do with
the establishment of the Inca empire, the Inca rulers, and
their deeds. Although much more unwieldy and less flexible
than writing, quipu enabled Inca bureaucrats to keep track
of information well enough to run an orderly empire.

Cuzco Cuzco served as the administrative, religious, and

ceremonial center of the Inca empire. When Pachacuti re-
tired there, Cuzco was a modest village, but the conqueror
soon transformed it into a magnificent capital that Incas
considered “the navel of the universe.” At the center was
a huge plaza filled with glistening white sand transported
from Pacific beaches to the high Andean city. Surrounding

quipu (KEE-poo)
A426 Part 4 @ The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, LOOO to 1500 c.e.

the plaza were handsome buildings constructed of red stone

cut so precisely by expert masons that no mortar was neces-
sary to hold them together. The most important buildings
sported gold facings, which threw off dazzling reflections
when rays of the Andean sun fell on them.

Since Cuzco was primarily a capital and a ceremonial

center, the city’s permanent population was sizable but not
enormous—perhaps forty thousand—but some two hun-
dred thousand Inca subjects lived in the immediate vicinity.
Apart from high-ranking imperial administrators, the most
prominent permanent residents of Cuzco proper included
the Inca rulers and high nobility, the high priests of the vari-
ous religious cults, and the hostages of conquered peoples
who lived with their families under the watchful eyes of
Inca guardians.

inca Roads A magnificent and extensive road system en-

abled the central government at Cuzco to communicate with
all parts of the far-flung Inca empire and to dispatch large
military forces rapidly to distant trouble spots. Two roads
linked the Inca realm from north to south—one passing
through the mountains, the other running along the coast.
Scholars have estimated the combined length of those trunk
routes at 16,000 kilometers (almost 10,000 miles). The com-
bined length of the entire network of all Inca roads, including
lesser thoroughfares as well as the major trunk routes, may
have amounted to 40,000 kilometers (almost 25,000 miles).

Inca roads were among the best

ever constructed before modern times.
During the early sixteenth century,
Spanish conquerors marveled at the
roads—paved with stone, shaded by
trees, and wide enough to accommo-
date eight horsemen riding abreast. A
corps of official runners carried mes-
sages along the roads so that news
and information could travel between
Cuzco and the most distant parts of the
empire within a few days. When the
Inca rulers desired a meal of fresh fish,
they dispatched runners from Cuzco
to the coast, more than 320 kilometers
(200 miles) away, and had their catch
within two days. Like roads in empires
in other parts of the world, the Incas’
roads favored their efforts at central-
ization. Their roads even facilitated
the spread of the Quechua language
and their religious cult focusing on the
sun, both of which became established
throughout their empire.

Descendants prepare a ritual meal for

a mummified Inca ruler (depicted in the
background),
Inca Society and Religion

Trade Despite those splendid roads,

Inca society did not generate large

classes of merchants and skilled artisans. On the local

level the Incas and their subjects bartered surplus agricul-
tural production and handcrafted goods among themselves.
Long-distance trade, however, fell under the supervision
of the central government. Administrators organized ex-
changes of agricultural products, textiles, pottery, jewelry,
and craft goods, but the Inca state did not permit individu-
als to become independent merchants. In the absence of a
market economy, there was no opportunity for a large class
of professional, skilled artisans to emerge. Many individuals
produced pottery, textiles, and tools for local consumption,
and a few produced especially fine goods for the ruling,
priestly, and aristocratic classes. But skilled crafts workers
were much less prominent among the Incas than among the
Mexica and the peoples of the eastern hemisphere.

Ruling Elites The main classes in Inca society were the

rulers, the aristocrats, the priests, and the peasant cultivators
of common birth. The Incas considered their chief ruler a de-
ity descended from the sun. In theory, this god-king owned
all land, livestock, and property in the Inca realm, which
he governed as an absolute and infallible ruler. Inca rulers
retained their prestige even after death. Their descendants
mummified the royal remains and regarded departed kings
as intermediaries with the gods. Succeeding rulers often de-
liberated state policy in the presence of royal mummies so
as to benefit from their counsel. Indeed, on the occasion of
certain festivals, rulers brought out the
mummified remains of their ancestors,
dressed them in fine clothes, adorned
them with gold and silver jewelry, hon-
ored them, and presented them with
offerings of food and drink to main-
tain cordial relations with former rul-
ers. Meanwhile, by way of tending to
the needs of their living subjects, the
Inca god-kings supervised a class of
bureaucrats, mostly aristocrats, who al-
located plots of land for commoners to
cultivate on behalf of the state.

Aristocrats and Priests Like

the ruling elites, Inca aristocrats and
priests led privileged lives. Aristocrats
consumed fine foods and dressed in
embroidered clothes provided by com-
mon subjects. Aristocrats also had the
right to wear large car spools that dis-
tended their lobes so much that Span-
ish conquerors referred to them as “big
ears.” Priests often came from royal
and aristocratic families. They led celi-
bate and ascetic lives, but they deeply
influenced Inca society because of
their education and their responsibil-
ity for overseeing religious rituals. The
major temples supported hundreds
of priests, along with attendants and
virgin women devoted to divine ser-
vice who prepared ceremonial meals
and wove fine ritual garments for the
priestly staff.

Peasants The cultivators were

mostly peasants of common birth who
lived in communities known as ayllu,
similar to the Mexicas’ calpulli, which
were the basic units of rural society.
Ranging in size from small villages to
larger towns, ayllus consisted of sev-
eral families who lived together, shar-
ing land, tools, animals, crops, and
work. Peasants supported themselves
by working on lands allocated to indi-
vidual families by their ayllu. Instead
of paying taxes or tribute, peasants
also worked on state lands adminis-
tered by aristocrats. Much of the pro-
duction from these state lands went to
support the ruling, aristocratic, and
priestly classes. The rest went into
state storehouses for public relief in
times of famine and for the support of
widows, orphans, and others unable to
cultivate land for themselves. Apart from agricultural work,
peasants also owed compulsory labor services to the Inca
state. Men provided the heavy labor required for the con-
struction, maintenance, and repair of roads, buildings, and
irrigation systems. Women delivered tribute in the form of
textiles, pottery, and jewelry. With the aid of quipu, Inca
bureaucrats kept track of the labor service and tribute owed
by local communities,

Inca Gods: Inti and Viracocha Members of the Inca

ruling class venerated the sun as a god and as their ma-
jor deity, whom they called Inti. They also recognized the
moon, stars, planets, rain, and other natural forces as di-
vine. Some Incas, including the energetic ruler Pachacuti,
also showed special favor to the god Viracocha, creator of
the world, humankind, and all clse in the universe. The cult
of the sun, however, outshone all the others. In Cuzco alone
some four thousand priests, attendants, and virgin devotees
served Inti, whose temple attracted pilgrims from all parts
of the Inca empire. The first Spanish visitors to Cuzco re-
ported that it took four hundred paces for them to walk
around the temple complex, and they expressed amazement
at its lavish decoration, including a golden sculpture of the
sun encrusted with gems. Particularly astonishing to the
visitors was an imitation garden in which grains of gold
represented a field, which was planted with stalks of maize

Fulfilling her tribute duty to the Inca state,

an Inca woman weaves woolen fabric on a
loom attached to a tree.
Chapter 20 ® Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 427

fabricated from gold and surrounded

by twenty golden Ilamas with their at-
tendants, also sculpted in gold. Priests
of Inti and those serving other cults
honored their deities with sacrifices,
which in Inca society usually took the
form of agricultural produce or ani-
mals such as llamas and guinea pigs
rather than humans.

Moral Thought In addition to sac-

rifices and ritual ceremonies, Inca re-
ligion had a strong moral dimension.
The Incas taught a concept of sin as
a violation of the established social or
natural order, and they believed in a
life beyond death, during which indi-
viduals would receive rewards or pun-
ishments based on the quality of their
earthly lives. Sin, they believed, would
bring divine disaster both for individu-
als and for their larger communities.
The Incas also observed rituals of con-
fession and penance by which priests
absolved individuals of their sins and
returned them to the good graces of
the gods.

THE SOCIETIES OF OCEANIA

Inhabitants of Oceania did not interact with peoples of dif-

ferent societies as frequently or systematically as did their
counterparts in the eastern hemisphere, but they built
and maintained flourishing societies of their own. The ab-
original peoples of Australia ventured over vast stretches
of their continent and created networks of trade and ex-
change between hunting and gathering societies. Only in
the far north, however, did they deal with peoples beyond
Australia as they traded sporadically with merchants from
New Guinea and the islands of southeast Asia. Meanwhile,
throughout the Pacific Ocean, islanders built complex ag-
ricultural societies. By the time European mariners sailed
into the Pacific Ocean in the sixteenth century, the larger
island groups had sizable populations, hierarchical social
orders, and hereditary chiefly rulers. In the central and
western Pacific, mariners sailed regularly between island
groups and established elaborate trade networks. Island-
ers living toward the eastern and western edges of the Pa-
cific Ocean also had occasional dealings with American and
Asian peoples, sometimes with significant consequences for
the Pacific island societies.

The Nomadic Foragers of Australia

After the aboriginal peoples of Australia learned how to ex-

ploit the resources of the continent's varied regions, they led
428

Part 4 ™& The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, 1000 to 1500 c.e.

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MAP 20.3 :

The societies of Oceania.

Islands are much more numer-
ous and much closer together in
the western Pacific than in the
eastern Pacific.

lives that in some ways

changed little over the
centuries. Unlike their
neighbors to the north,
they did not turn to agri-
culture. The inhabitants
of New Guinea began to
herd swine and cultivate
root crops about 5000
B.c.E., and the inhabi-
tants of islands in the Torres Strait (which separates Aus-
tralia from New Guinea) took up gardening soon thereafter.
Although aboriginal peoples of northern Australia must
have known about foods cultivated in neighboring lands,
they maintained nomadic, foraging societies until European
peoples migrated to Australia in large numbers during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In what ways did proximity to or

distance from other islands influ-
ence the development of Pacific
island societies?

Trade As a result of their mobile and nomadic way of life,

aboriginal Australians frequently met and interacted with
peoples of neighboring societies. Because Australia is a
continent of enormous climatic and ecological diversity, dif-

ferent peoples enjoyed access to food and other resources

unknown to others they encountered during their seasonal
migrations. Even though as nomads they did not accumu-
late large quantities of material goods, groups regularly ex-
changed surplus food and small items when they met.

That sort of small-scale exchange eventually enabled

trade goods to spread throughout most of Australia. Individ-
uals did not travel along all the trade routes. Instead, trade
goods passed from one aboriginal community to another
until they came to rest in regions often distant from their
origins. Pearly oyster shells were among the most popular
trade items. Archaeologists have turned up many of these
shells fashioned into jewelry more than 1,600 kilometers
(1,000 miles) from the waters where the oysters bred. From
interior regions came stone axe heads, spears, boomerangs,
furs, skins, and fibers.

Aboriginal peoples occasionally traded foodstuffs, but

with the exception of some root vegetables, those items
were generally too perishable for exchange. Peoples on
the north coast also engaged in a limited amount of trade
with mariners from New Guinea and the islands of south-
east Asia. Australian spears and highly prized pearly shells
went north in exchange for exotic items such as the striking
flowers of the bird-of-paradise plant, stone clubs, decorative
trinkets—and occasionally iron axes, much coveted by ab-
original peoples who had no tradition of metallurgy.

Cultural and Religious Traditions In spite of sea-

sonal migrations, frequent encounters with peoples from
other aboriginal societies, and trade over long distances,
the cultural traditions of Australian peoples mostly did not
diffuse much beyond the regions inhabited by individual
societies. Aboriginal peoples paid close attention to the
prominent geographic features of the lands around them.
Rocks, mountains, forests, mineral deposits, and bodies of
water were crucial for their survival, and they related stories
and myths about those and other geographic features. Of-
ten, they conducted religious observances designed to en-
sure continuing supplies of animals, plant life, and water.
Given the intense concern of aboriginal peoples with their
immediate environments, their cultural and religious tradi-
tions focused on local matters and did not appeal to peoples
from other regions.

The Development of
Pacific Island Societies

By the early centuries c.z., human migrants had established

agricultural societies in almost all the island groups of the
Pacific Ocean, About the middle of the first millennium c.z.,
they ventured to the large islands of New Zealand—the last
large, habitable region of the earth to receive members of

Chapter 20 @ Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 429

the human species. After 1000 c.z., Polynesians inhabiting

the larger Pacific islands grew especially numerous, and
their surging population prompted remarkable social and
political development.

Trade between Island Groups In the central and

western regions of the Pacific, where several clusters of is-
lands are relatively close to one another, mariners linked is-
land societies. Regional trade networks facilitated exchanges
of useful goods such as axes and pottery, exotic items such
as shells and decorative ornaments, and sometimes even
foodstuffs such as yams. Regional trade within individual is-
land groups served social and political as well as economic
functions, since it helped ruling elites establish and main-
tain harmonious relations with one another. In some cases,
trade crossed longer distances and linked different island
groups. Inhabitants of the Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji islands
traded mats and canoes, for example, and also intermarried,
thus creating political and social relationships.

Long-Distance Voyaging Elsewhere in Polynesia, vast

stretches of deep blue water made it much more compli-
cated to travel between different island groups and socie-
ties. As a result, regular trade networks did not emerge in
the eastern Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, mariners undertook
lengthy voyages on an intermittent basis, sometimes with
momentous results. After the original settlement of Easter
Island about 300 c.e., for example, Polynesian mariners
probably ventured to the western coast of South America,

A painting from 1825

shows several fishponds
in active use near Hono-
lulu in Hawai‘i. How did
ponds like these enable
Hawaiians to catch more
fish?
430 Part4 @ The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, LOOO to 1500 c.e.

Maritime Encounters and Their Effects

Polynesian peoples inhabited tiny islands scattered throughout

a vast ocean, and they necessarily relied on local resources to
meet most of their needs. Yet they also sailed thousands of
kilometers over open oceans to establish cultural contacts and

trading relationships with inhabitants of other islands. What

were the most important results of the encounters between
residents of distant islands?

where they learned about the cultivation of sweet potatoes.

Between about 400 and 700 c.£., mariners spread sweet po-
tatoes throughout Polynesia and beyond to New Caledonia
and Vanuatu. The new crop quickly became a prominent
source of food in all the islands it reached. Sweet potatoes
were especially important for the Maori population of New
Zealand because the staple crops of the tropical Pacific did
not flourish in the temperate climes of New Zealand. Thus
long-distance voyages were responsible for the dissemina-
tion of sweet potatoes to remote islands situated thousands
of kilometers from the nearest inhabited lands.

Another case of long-distance voyaging prompted so-

cial changes in the Hawaiian Islands. For centuries after the
voyages that brought the original settlers to the islands in
the early centuries c.£., there was little travel or communica-
tion between Hawaii and other Polynesian societies. Dur-
ing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, a series
of two-way voyages linked Hawai*i with Tahiti and the Mar-
quesas Islands. Memories of those voyages survive in oral
traditions that relate the introduction into Hawai'i of new
chiefly and priestly lines from ‘Tahiti. Evidence for the voy-
ages comes also from Hawaiian adoption of fishhook styles
from Tahiti and words from the Tahitian language.

Population Growth While undertaking regular or in-

termittent voyages over long distances, islanders through-
out the Pacific Ocean also built productive agricultural and
fishing societies. They cultivated taro, yams, sweet potatoes,
bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts, and they kept domesti-
cated chickens, pigs, and dogs. They also fed on abundant
supplies of fish, which they caught by spear, net, and hook.
After about the fourteenth century, as their population in-
creased, the inhabitants of Hawai*i built ingenious fishponds
that allowed small fry to swim from the ocean through nar-
row gates into rock-enclosed spaces but prevented larger
fish from escaping. Fishponds enabled Hawaiians to har-
vest large quantities of mature fish with relative ease and
thus contributed to the islanders’ food supplies. The estab-
lishment of agricultural and fishing societies led to rapid

Maori (MAU-ree)

thinking about ENCOUNTERS |

population growth in all the larger Pacific is-

land groups—Samoa, Tonga, the Society Islands
| ncluding Tahiti), and Hawai*i. In Hawaii, the
| most heavily populated of the Polynesian island
groups, the human population may have ex-
ceeded five hundred thousand when European
mariners arrived in the late eighteenth century.

Dense populations sometimes led to envi-

ronmental degradation and social strife on small
islands with limited resources. Easter Island in
particular was the site of dramatic problems aris-
ing from overpopulation. Polynesian migrants
originally settled Easter Island in the early cen-
turies c.z., and during the era from about 1100
to 1500, their descendants numbered about ten thousand.
This population placed tremendous pressure on the island’s
resources and also competed fiercely among themselves for
those resources. By 1500, having divided into hostile camps,
islanders fought one another ferociously, engaging in brutal
massacres of their enemies and the desecration of their bod-
ies. As their society disintegrated, they sometimes resorted
to cannibalism for lack of sufficient food.

Nan Madol In other lands, dense populations promoted

social organization on a scale never before seen in Ocea-
nia. On Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands, for example, the
Sandeleur dynasty built a powerful state and organized con-
struction of a massive stone palace and administrative center
at Nan Madol. Built mostly during the period from 1200 to
1600, the complex included ninety-three artificial islets pro-
tected by seawalls and breakwaters on three sides.

Development of Social Classes Indeed, begin-

ning about the thirteenth century, expanding populations
prompted residents of many Pacific islands to develop

A massive wall constructed of basalt rock protects a burial site at Nan

Madol in Pohnpei.
Chapter 20 ® Worlds Apart: The Americas and Oceania 431

sources fromthe past

Mo ikeha’s Migration from Tahiti to Hawai ‘i

A group of Polynesian oral traditions preserve memories of

numerous two-way voyages between Tahiti and Hawaii

in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One of them has

to do with Mo‘ikeha, a high chief who left Tahiti because
of domestic difficulties and migrated to Hawaii, where he
founded a new chiefly line. The legend recounts several
voyages between Tahiti and Hawaii. The following excerpts
deal with Mo'ikeha’s establishment as a chief in Hawai’i
and the later arrival of his Tahitian son La'amaikahiki, who
is credited with the introduction of Tahitian religious and
cultural traditions to Hawai'i.

It was dark by the time they arrived [at the Hawaiian island

of Kaua'i], so they did not land, instead, mooring their ca-

noe offshore. Early the next morning the people saw this
double-hulled canoe floating offshore with the kapu sticks
of a chief aboard. The canoe was brought ashore and the
travellers got off. Meanwhile the locals were gathering in
a crowd to go surf-riding. ... Among them were the two
daughters of the alii nui [chief] of Kaua'i, Ho cipoikamalanai
and Hinauu.

Moikeha and his companions saw the crowd and fol-

lowed along to take part in the morning exercise. Mo'ikeha
was a handsome man with dark reddish hair and a tall, com-
manding figure.

When Ho oipoikamalanai and her sister saw Mo'ikeha,

they immediately fell in love with him, and they decided
to take him for their husband. Mo‘ikeha in the meantime

was also struck with the beauty and grace of the two sis-
ters, and he, too, fell in love with them and decided to take

one of them to be his wife. After enjoying the surf for a

time, Hooipoikamalanai and her sister returned home and
told their father about the new arrival and said: “We wish

to take that young chief as a husband for one of us.” The

father approved.
Orders were issued that Moikeha be brought to the

house of the two alii women. Mo'ikeha and his company

were sent for and brought in the presence of the king [the

alii nui of Kauai]. The love of these young people being

mutual, Ho oipoikamalanai and Hinauu took Ma ikeha to be
their husband. Moikeha became alii nui of Kauai after the
death of his father-in-law. ...
increasingly complex social and political structures. Espe-
cially on the larger islands, workers became more special-
ized: some concentrated on cultivating certain crops, and
others devoted their efforts to fishing, producing axes,
or constructing large, seagoing canoes. Distinct classes
emerged as aristocratic and ruling elites decided the course

Moikeha worked to make his two wives and five children

happy, giving his undivided attention to the bringing up of
his boys. He thought no more of Lu'ukia [his lover in Tahiti],
but after a while, he began to feel a yearning desire to see
his son La’amaikahiki, his child by his first wife Kapo. So he
called his five sons together and said to them: "I'm thinking
of sending one of you boys to bring your elder brother to
Hawai'i.” ...

[After Mo‘ikeha’s son Kila sailed to Tahiti and found his

elder half-brother] Laamaikahiki immediately prepared
to accompany his brother to Hawai‘i, as Mo'ikeha wished.
Laamaikahiki took his priests and his god Lonoikaouali‘i,
and set sail for Hawaii with the men who had come with
Kila. When they were approaching Kaua'i, Laamaikahiki be-
gan beating his drum. Mo’ikeha heard his drum and ordered
everything, the land as well as the house, to be made ready
for the reception of the chief Laamaikahiki. Upon the arrival
of La'amaikahiki and Kila, the high priest of Kauai, Poloa-
hilani, took Latamaikahiki and his god Lonoila ouali’i (“Lono
at the Chiefly Supremacy”) to the heiau [temple]. It is said
that La‘amaikahiki was the first person to bring a god (akua)
to Hawai'i... .

{After returning to Tahiti, then sailing again to Hawai‘i,

La'amaikahiki] set sail again, going up the Kona coast [of
Hawai’i Island]. . . . It was on this visit that La‘amaikahiki
introduced hula dancing, accompanied by the drum, to
Hawari....

La’amaikahiki stayed a long time on Kaua‘i teaching the

people the art of dancing. From Kaua‘i Laamaikahiki visited
all the other islands of this group and thus the drum dance
(hula ka’eke) spread to the other islands.

For Further Reflection

m How would you characterize the political, social, and

cultural significance of two-way voyaging between Tahiti
and Hawai'i?

Source: Teuira Henry and others. Voyaging Chiefs of Havai’i. Ed. by

Dennis Kawaharada. Honolulu: Kalamaku Press, 1995, pp. 138-39,
144-46,

of public affairs in their societies and extracted surplus ag-

ricultural production from those of common birth. The is-
lands of Tonga, Tahiti, and Hawai*i had especially stratified
societies with sharp distinctions between various classes of
high chiefs, lesser chiefs, and commoners. Hawaiian soci-
ety also recognized distinct classes of priests and skilled
432 Part4 @& The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural Interaction, 1000 to 1500 c.g.

artisans, such as adze makers and canoe builders, ranking

between the chiefly and common classes.

The Formation of Chiefly States In addition to

distinct social classes, island societies generated strong
political leadership. Ruling chiefs generally oversaw pub-
lic affairs in portions of an island, sometimes in an entire
island, and occasionally in several islands situated close to
one another. In Tonga and Hawai'i, high chiefs frequently
launched campaigns to bring additional islands under their
control and create large centralized states. Rarely, however,
were these militant chiefs able to overcome geographic and
logistic difficulties and realize their expansionist ambitions
before the nineteenth century.

Nevertheless, high chiefs guided the affairs of complex

societies throughout Polynesia. They allocated lands to fami-
lies, mobilized labor for construction projects, and orga-
nized men into military forces. They commanded enormous
respect within their societies. In Hawai'i, for example, the
classes of high chiefs known as alii nui intermarried, ate
the best fish and other foods that were kapu C‘taboo”) to
commoners, and had the right to wear magnificent cloaks
adorned with thousands of bright red and yellow bird feath-
ers. Indeed, a kapu forbade commoners to approach or even
cast a shadow on the ali*i nui.

Polynesian Religion High chiefs worked closely with

priests, who served as intermediaries between human com-
munities and the gods. Gods of war and agriculture were
common throughout the Pacific islands, but individual is-
Jands and island groups recognized deities particular to
their own regions and interests. The most distinctive archi-
tecture of early Pacific societies was the ceremonial precinct
and temple structure known as marae (or beiau in Hawai-
ian). Marae often had several terraced floors with a rock or
coral wall designating the boundaries of the sacred space.
In Tonga and Samoa, temples made of timber and thatched
roofs served as places of worship, sacrifice, and communi-
cation between priests and the gods, whereas in eastern
Polynesia religious ceremonies took place on platforms in
open-air courtyards. The largest of those structures, the
marae Mahaiatea on Tahiti, took the form of a step pyramid
about 15 meters (49 feet) high with a base measuring 81 by
22 meters (266 by 72 feet).

Pacific island societies did not enjoy access to the range

of technologies developed by continental peoples until the

sixteenth and later centuries. Yet Pacific islanders cleverly

exploited their environments, established productive agri-
cultural economies, built elaborate, well-organized socie-
ties, and reached out when possible to engage in trade with
their neighbors. Their achievements testify anew to the hu-
man impulses toward densely populated communities and
interaction with other societies.
inperspective

The original inhabitants of the Americas and Oceania lived

in societies that were considerably smaller than those of the
eastern hemisphere. They did not possess the metallurgical
technologies that enabled their counterparts to exploit the
natural environment, nor did they possess the transporta-
tion technologies based on wheeled vehicles and domes-
ticated animals that facilitated trade and communication
among peoples of the eastern hemisphere. Nevertheless,
long before they entered into sustained interaction with Eu-
ropean and other peoples, they built complex societies and
developed sophisticated cultural and religious traditions.
Indigenous peoples established foraging, fishing, and agri-
cultural societies throughout the Americas, and they fash-
ioned tools from wood, stone, and bone that enabled them
to produce enough food to support sizable communities. In
Mesoamerica and Andean South America, they also built im-
perial states that organized public affairs on a large scale.
The cultural and religious traditions of these imperial socie-
ties reflected their concern for agricultural production and
the maintenance of complex social structures.

The original inhabitants of Australia and the Pacific is-

lands built societies on a smaller scale than did the peoples
of the Americas, but they too devised effective means of ex-
ploiting the natural environment and organizing flourishing
communities. Australia was a continent of foraging nomadic
peoples, whereas the Pacific islands supported densely
populated agricultural societies. Although they had limited
communication with peoples of the Americas or the eastern
hemisphere, the peoples of Oceania traded and interacted
regularly with their neighbors, and inhabitants of the Pacific
islands sometimes undertook lengthy voyages to trade with
distant island groups. @