Chapter 8 - AP World History - Quiz notes

Mesoamerica entered an era of war and conquest in the eighth century CE. Great stores of wealth had accumulated in Teotihuacan, the largest early city in Mesoamerica (discussed in the Prelude) 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 militarization 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 Mesoamerica were the Toltecs and 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 BCE. Although these successor states and 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 rule. The Toltecs began to migrate into the area about the eighth century. They came from the arid land of northwestern Mexico, and they settled mostly at Tulaj about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of modern Mexico City. Though situated in a comer of the valley of Mexico that possesses thin soil and receives little rainfall, the Toltecs tapped the waters of the nearby River Tula to imgate crops of maize, beans, peppers, tomatoes, chiles, and cotton. At its high point, from about 950 to 1150 cr 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 weaving, pottery, and obsidian work, and residents imported large quantities of jade, turquoise, animal skins, exotic bird feathers, and other luxury goods from elsewhere in Mesoamenca. The Toltecs maintained close relations with societies 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 Chichen Itzá some 1500 kilometers (932 miles) to the east

Beginning about 1125 c. the Toltec empire faced serious difficulties as conflicts between different ethnic groups living et Tula led to civil strife By the mid-twelfth century, large numbers of migrants- mostly nomadic peoples from northwestern Mexico-had entered Tula and settled in the surrounding area. By 1175 conflicts between the vanous groups, old and new, had destroyed the Toltec state Archaeological evidence suggests that fire destroyed much of Tula about the same time Large numbers of of people continued to inhabit the region around Tula, but by the end of the bwelfth century the Toltecs no longer dominated Mesoamerica

The Mexica

Among the migrants drawn to central Mexico from northwestern regions were 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 denives from Artion, the place of the seven legendary caves" which the Mexica remembered as the home of their ancestors) The Mexica arrived in c central Mexico about the middle of the thirteenth century. They had a reputation for causing conflicts by kidnapping women from nearby communities and seizing land already cultivated by others. They were often expelled by the communities they encountered. For a century they migrated around central Mexica, jostling and fighting with other peoples and sometimes surviving only by eating tly 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 inconvenient at first, the site offered several advantages. The lake harbored plentiful supplies of fish, frogs, and waterfowl. Moreover, the lake enabled the Mexica to develop the chinampa system of agriculture. The Mexica 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, cultivators tapped water from canals leading from the lake to their plots, and in the temperate climate they grew crops of maize, beans, squashes, tomatoes, peppers, and chiles year-round. Chinampas were so fertile and productive that cultivators were sometimes able to harvest seven crops per year from their gardens. Finally, the lake served as a natural defense: waters protected Tenochtitlan on all sides, and Mexica warriors patrolled the three causeways that eventually linked their capital to the surrounding mainland.

[5:22 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: The Aztec Empire

By the early fifteenth century, the Mexica were powerful enough to overcome their immediate 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 Itzcoati (1428-1440) and Motecuzoma) (1440-1469), also known as Moctezuma or Montezuma, 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 tems in Tenochtition 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 Tacubaj, to create a triple alliance that guided the Aztec Empire. Dominated by the Mexica and Tenochtitian, the allies imposed their rule on about twelve million people and most of Mesoamerica, excluding only the arid northem and western regions and a few small pockets where independent states resisted the expanding empire.

Tribute and Trade

The main objective of the triple alliance was to exact tibute 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. Tribute obligations were sometimes very oppressive for subject peoples. The annual tribute owed by the state of fochtepec on the Gulf coast, for example, included 9.600 cloaks 1,600 women's garments, 200 loads of cacao, and 16.000 rubber bails, among other items. Ruling elites entrusted some of these tribute items to officially recognized merchants who took them to distant lands and exchanged them for local products. These included luxury items such as translucent jade, emeralds, tortoise shells, jaguar skins, parrot feathers, seashells, and game animals. The bropical lowlands ands also supplied vanilla bears and cacao-the source of cocoa and chocolate-from which Mexica elites prepered tasty beverages. Unlike impenal states in the eastern hemisphere, the Aztec Empire nad no elaborate bureaucracy y or administration. The Mexica and their allies simply conquered their subjects and assessed tribute, leaving local governance and the collection 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 tended to keep most subject peoples in line

At the high point of the Aztec Empire in the early sixteenth century, tribute from 489 subject territories flowed into Tenochtitlan, which as a result 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 even had separate sections for merchants dealing in gold, silver, slaves, henequen and cotton cloth, shoes, animal skins

turkeys, dogs, wild game, maize, beans, peppers, cacao, and fruits

[5:23 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Mexica Society

Mexica society was rigidly hierarchical and stratified between nobles and non-nobles. The Mexica looked upon all males as potential warriors, and public honors and rewardswere reserved mostly for the military elite. Although individuals of common birth could distinguish themselves on the battlefield and thereby improve their social standing, for the most part, the military 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 opportunities to display their talents on the battlefield

Warriors

The Mexica showered wealth and privileges 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 members 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 (laws that regulate consumption and dress) required commoners to wear coarse, burlaplike garments made of henequen (fibers made from the agave plant) but permitted aristocrats to drape themselves in cotton. Warriors enjoyed the right to don brightly colored capes and adorn themselves with lip plugs and eagle 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 families and enjoyed high honor as mothers of warriors. Mexica women did not inherit property or hold official positions, and the law subjected them to the strict authority of their fathers or 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.

With the exception of a few who dedicated themselves to the service of a temple, nearly all Mexica women married. Mexica traditions taught that the principal function of women was to bear children, especially males who might become distinguished warriors. In fact, society recognized the bearing of children as equal to a warrior's capture of enemy in battle, and women who died in childbirth won the same fame as warriors who died valiantly on the battlefield. Even among the elite classes, Mexica women had the responsibilities of raising 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 presided 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 wielding considerable influence as advisers 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 appeared in 1519, was a priest of the most popular Mexica cult.

[5:23 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Cultivators and Slaves

The vast majority of the Mexica population consisted of commoners who lived in hamlets cultivating chinampas and fields allocated to their families by community groups known as calpulli. Originally, calpulli were clans or groups of families claiming descent from common ancestors. With the passage of time, ancestry became less important to the nature of the calpulli than the fact that groups of families lived together in communities, organized their own affairs, and allocated community property to individual families. Apart from cultivating plots assigned by their calpulli, Mexica commoners worked on lands awarded to aristocrats or prominent warriors and contributed labor services to public works projects involving the construction of palaces, temples, roads, and irrigation systems. Cultivators delivered periodic tribute payments to state agents, who distributed 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 society included slaves, who usually worked as domestic servants. Most enslaved people were not foreigners, but Mexica. Families sometimes sold younger members into servitude out of financial distress, and other Mexica were forced into slavery because of criminal behavior.

[5:24 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Artisans and Merchants

Skilled artisans, particularly those who worked with gold, silver, cotton textiles, tropical bird feathers. and other items destined for consumption by the elite, enjoyed considerable prestige in Mexica society. Merchants specializing in long-distance trade occupied an important but somewhat insecure position in Mexica society. Merchants supplied the exotic products such as gems, animal skins, and tropical bird feathers consumed by the elites and provided political and military intelligence about the lands they visited. Yet they often fell under suspicion as greedy profiteers, and aristocratic warriors sometimes blatantly seized their wealth and goods because they knew most merchants did not have powerful protectors.

Mexica Culture

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 (discussed in chapter 6), shared by all the peoples of Mesoamerica. Most Mesoamerican 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.

Mexica Gods

The Mexica also absorbed the religious beliefs common to Mesoamerica. Two of their principal gods -Tezcatlipoca, "the Smoking Mirror, and Quetzalcoatl, "the Feathered Serpent"-had figured in Mesoamerican pantheons at least since the time of Teotihuacan, although different peoples knew them by various names. Tezcatlipoca was a powerful figure, the giver and taker of life and the patron deity of warriors, whereas Quetzalcoatl had a reputation for supporting arts, crafts, and agriculture.

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 propitiate the gods and ensure the continuation of the world, the Mexica honored their deities through sacrificial bloodletting. Mexica priests regularly performed acts of self-sacrifice, piercing their earlobes or penises with cactus spines in honor of the primeval acts of their gods. The religious beliefs and bloodletting rituals clearly reflected the desire of the Mexica to keep their agricultural society going.

Huitzilopochtli

Mexica priests also presided over the sacrificial killing of human victims. From the time of the Olmecs, and possibly even earlier, Mesoamerican peoples had regarded the ritual sacritice 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 Hultzilopochtli 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 warmors captured on the battlefield during the many conflicts between the Mexica and their neighbors. In all cases, the Mexica viewed human sacrifice not as a gruesome form of entertainment but, rather, as a ritual essential to the world's survival. They believed that the blood of sacrificial victims sustained the sun and secured a continuing supply of moisture for the earth, thus ensuring that human communities would be able to cultivate their crops and perpetuate their societies

Peoples and Socletles of North America

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 examples, 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 hunters and fishers, Like their

counterparts elsewhere, hunting, fishing, and foraging peoples of North America built societies on a

relatively small scale because 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 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 supplemented 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 ce. the Pueblo and the Navajo began to construct permanent stone and adobe buildings. Archaeologists have discovered about 125 sites where agricultural peoples built village 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 during the early centuries CE, and after about 800 these cultivated 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 froquois 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 structures 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 development have destroyed most of the mounds, but several surviving 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 meters (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 Quetzalcoatl in Cholula were larger. When the Cahokia society was at its height, from approximately 900 to 1250 CE, more than one hundred smaller mounds stood within a few kilometers of the highest and most massive mound. Scholars have estimated that during the twelfth century, fifteen thousand to thirty-eight thousand people lived in the vicinity 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 because 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 encounters 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, minerals 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 prominence 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 center of trade and communication networks linking the eastern woodlands of North America with the lower Mississippi Valley and lands bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

[5:25 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: STATES AND EMPIRES IN SOUTH AMERICA

South American peoples hao 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 B.C.E. Yet, from archaeological evidence and 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 B.C.E. As in Mesoamerica, cities and secular government in South America began to overshadow ceremonial centers and priestly regimes during the centuries from 1000 to 1500 C.E. Toward the end of the period, like the Mexica in Mesoamerica, the Incas built a powerful 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 (discussed in the Prelude), a series of autonomous regional states organized public affairs 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 kingdom 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 elevation. 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, peppers, chiles, and meat from ilamas, alpacas, or tender, domesticated guinea pigs.

Apart from meat, llamas and alpacas provided the highlanders 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 marze 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 coca leaves, which worked as a mild stimulant and enhanced stamina in the thin air of the high Andes. (When processed, coca leaves

yield a much more powerful stimulant with addictive properties-cocaine)

Chimu

In the lowlands the powerful kingdom of Chimi (sometimes referred to as Chimon emerged in the tenth century and expanded to dominate some 900 kilometers (560 miles) of the Peruvian coast for about a century before the arrival of the Incas in the mid-fifteenth century. Chimu governed a large and thriving society. Irrigation networks tapped the rivers and streams flowing from the Andes 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 distinctions between social classes

[5:26 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: How were they able to maintain control over their extensive realm?

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 thousand. Chanchan featured massive brick buildings, which indicated a capacity for mobilizing large numbers of people and resources for public purposes. The city's geography reflected 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.

[5:26 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: 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 Inco onginally was the title of the rulers of a small kingdom in the valley of Cuzco, but in modern usage the term refers more broadly to those 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 century. At first, they lived as one among many peoples inhabiting the region. About 1438, however, the Inca ruler Pachacuti (reigned 1438-1471) launched a series of military campaigns that vastly expanded the Incas' authority. Pachacuti ("Earthshaker") was a fierce warrior. According to Inca legends, he fought so furiously in one early 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.

[5:26 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: of Ecuador, much of Bolivia, and parts of Chile and Argentins as well. Only the tropical rain forests of the Amazon and other river valleys set a limit to ince expansion to the east, and the Pacific Ocean defined its westem boundary. With a population of about 11.5 millon, the Inca Empire easily ranked as the largest state ever bullt in South America.

[5:26 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: The incas ruled as a military and administrative elite. They led armies composed mostly of conquered peoples, and staffed the bureaucracy that managed the empire's political affairs. But the Incas were not numerous enough to averwhelm their subjects. They routinely sought to encourage obedience among subject peoples by taking hostages from their ruling classes and forcing them to live at the inca capital. When conquered peoples became restive or uncooperative, the incas sent loyni subjects as colonists, provided them with choice land and economic benefits, and established them in germsons to maintain order. When conquered peoples repelled, Ince armies forced them to leave their homes and resettle in distant parts of the empire

Inca Administration

The vast inca resim presented a serious administrative challenge to its rulers. The Inca sdministrative system was the invention of Pachacut himself-the Earthshaker who conquered the territories that made up the Inca Empire. Toward the end of his reign, about 1463 Pachacuti entrusted military affairs to his son and settled in the highland villege of Cuzcs, where he designed a system of government to consolidate his conquests. He implemented taxes to support Inch rulers and administrators, and he organized a system of state-owned storehouses to stock agricultural surpluses and craft products such as textiles. He saiso segen construction on an extensive network of roads that enabled Inca miitary forces and administrators to travel quickly to all parts of the empire

Quipu

In the absence of any script or system of writting, ince bureaucrets and administrators relied on in mnemonic eld (memory device) known as u to keep track of their responsibilities. Quipu consisted of an array of small conds of various colors and lengths, al suspended from one large thick cord. Experts tied a series or more series of knots in the smal cords, which sometimes numbered a hundred to help them reme remember certain kinds of information. Most quipu recorded statistical Information having to do with population, state property, trees, and labor services that communittes owed to the central government. Occasionally, though, qulpu also helped experts to remember nistorical information having to do with the establishment of the ince Empire, the inch rulers, and their deeds. Although much more unwieldy and s less Dexible tmas witing, cugu enabled inca bureaucrats to keep track of information well enough to run an ordeny empire,

Cuzco

Cuace served as the administrative, religious, and ceremonial center of the ince Empire, when Pachacuti retred there Cuzco was a modest village, but the conqueror soon transformed into magrificent coltel that incas considered the navel of the universe. At the center was a huge ulaze fied with gistering white sand transported from Pacific beaches to the high Andean сту Sumaunding the pleze were handsome buildings dings constructed of red stone cut so precisely by expert masons that no mortar was necessary to ho hold them together. The most importent buldings sportes goid facings, which threw off dazzling reflections when rays of the Andean sun fell on them

[5:27 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Cuzco

Cuzco served as the administrative, religious, and ceremonial center of the Inca Empire. When Pachacuti retired 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 the plaza were handsome buildings constructed of red stone cut so precisely by expert masons that no mortar was necessary 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 hundred 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 various 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 enabled 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 combined 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 accommodate eight horsemen riding abreast. A corps of official runners carried messages 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 centralization. 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.

[5:27 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Inca Society

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 agricultural production and handcrafted goods among themselves. Long-distance trade, however, fell under the supervision of the central government. Administrators organized exchanges of agricultural products, textiles, pottery, jewelry, and craft goods, but the Inca state did not permit individuals 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 god 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 nulers retained their prestige even after death. Their descendants mummified the royal remains and regarded departed kings as intermediaries with the gods. Succeeding rulers often deliberated 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, honored them, and presented them with offerings of food and drink to maintain cordial relations with former rulers. Meanwhile, by way of tending to the needs of their living subjects, the Inca god-kings supervised a class of bureaucrats, mostly anstocrats, who allocated plots of land for commoners to cultivate on behalf of the state.

Aristocrats and Priests

Like the ruling elites, Inca aristocrats and prests led privileged lives. Aristocrats consumed fine foods and dressed in embroidered clothes provided by common subjects. Aristocrats also had the right to wear large ear spools that distended their lobes so much that Spanish conquerors referred to them as "big ears" Priests often came from royal and aristocratic families. They led celibate and ascetic lives, but they deeply influenced Inca society because of their education and their responsibility for overseeing religious rituals. The major temples supported hundreds of priests, along with attendants and virgin women devoted to divine service 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 colpulli, which were the basic units of rural society. Ranging in size from small

villages to larger towns, ayllus consisted of several families who lived together, sharing land, tools,

animals, crops, and work Peasants supported themselves by working on lands allocated to

individual familie's by their gyflu instead of paying taxes or tribute, peasants also worked on state

lands administered by aristocrats. Much of the production 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 construction, maintenance, and repair of roads,

buildings, and imigation 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

[5:27 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Inca Religion

Members of the Inca ruling class venerated the sun as a god and as their major deity, whom they called Inti. They also recognized the moon, stars, planets, rain, and other natural forces as divine. Some Incas, including the energetic ruler Pachacuti, also showed special favor to the god Viracocha, creator of the world, humankind, and all else 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 reported 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 fabricated from gold and surrounded by twenty golden llamas with their attendants, 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 animals such as llamas and guinea pigs rather than humans.

Moral Thought

In addition to sacrifices and ritual ceremonies, Inca religion 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 individuals would receive rewards or punishments based on the quality of their earthly lives. Sin, they believed, would bring divine disaster both for individuals and for their larger communities. The Incas also observed rituals of confession and penance by which priests absolved individuals of their sins and returned them to the good graces of the gods.

[5:28 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Inhabitants of Oceania did not interact with peoples of different societies as frequently or systematically as did their counterparts in the eastern hemisphere, but they built and maintained flourishing traditions and societies of their own. The aboriginal peoples of Australia ventured over vast stretches of their continent and created networks of trade and exchange between hunting and gathering societies. Only in the far north, however, did they encounter 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 agricultural 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. Islanders living toward the eastern and western edges of the Pacific Ocean also had occasional dealings with American and Asian peoples, sometimes with significant consequences for the Pacific island societies.

The Nomadic Foragers of Australla

After the aboriginal peoples of Australia learned how to exploit the resources of the continent's varied regions, they led lives that in some ways changed little over the centuries. Unlike their neighbors to the north, they did not turn to agriculture. The inhabitants of New Guinea began to herd swine and cultivate root crops about 5000 B.C.E., and the inhabitants of islands in the Torres Strait (which separates Australia 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.

[5:28 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Trade

As a result of their mobile and nomadic way of life, aboriginal Australians frequently encountered people from neighboring societies. Because Australia is a continent of enormous climatic and ecological diversity, different peoples enjoyed access to food and othe resources unknown to others they encountered during their seasonal migrations. Even though as nomads they did not accumulate large quantities of material goods, groups regularly exchanged surplus food and small items when they met.

That sort of small-scale exchange eventually enabled trade goods to spread throughout most of Australia. Individuals 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. Baler and oyster pearl shells were among the most popular trade items. Archaeologists have turned up many of these shells fashioned into jewelry more than 1,500 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 southeast 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 aboriginal peoples who had no tradition of metallurgy.

Cultural and Religious Traditions

In spite of seasonal 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. Often, they conducted religious observances designed to ensure continuing supplies of animals, plant life, and water. Given the intense concern of aboriginal peoples with their immediate environments, their cultural and religious traditions focused on local matters and did not appeal to peoples from other regions

The Development of Pacific Island Societies

By the early centuries CE, humans had established agricultural societies in almost all the island

groups of the Pacific Ocean. About the middle of the first millennium CE, they ventured to the large

islands of New Zealand-the last large, habitable region of the earth to receive members of the human species After 1000 cr... 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 islands are relatively

close to one another, mariners jinked island 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 island groups served

social and political as well as economic functions because it helped ruling elites establish and

maintain 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

[5:28 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Long-Distance Voyaging

Elsewhere in Polynesia, vast stretches of deep blue water made it much more complicated to travel between different island groups and societies. 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 CE, for example, Polynesian mariners probably ventured to the western coast of South America, where they learned about the cultivation of sweet potatoes. Between about 400 and 700 CE. mariners spread sweet potatoes 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 flounsh in the temperate climes of New Zealand. Thus long- distance voyages were responsible for the dissemination of sweet potatoes to remote islands situated thousands of kilometers from the nearest inhabited lands.

Another case of long-distance voyaging prompted social changes in the Hawaiian Islands. For centuries after the voyages that brought the original settlers to the islands in the early centuries CE, there was little travel or communication between Hawai'i and other Polynesian societies. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, a series of two-way voyages linked Hawaii with Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. Memories of those voyages survive in oral traditions that relate the introduction into Hawaii of new chiefly and priestly lines from Tahiti Evidence for the voyages comes also from Hawaiian adoption of fishhook styles from Tahiti and words from the Tahitian language

Population Growth

While undertaking regular or intermittent voyages over long distances, islanders throughout the Pacific Ocean also built productive agricultural and fishing societies. They cultivated taro, yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts, and they kept domesticated 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 increased, the inhabitants of Hawai'i built Ingenious fishponds that allowed small fry to swim from the ocean through narrow gates into rock- enclosed spaces but prevented larger fish from escaping Fishponds enabled Hawaiians to harvest large quantities of mature fish with relative ease and thus contributed to the islanders food supplies. The establishment of agricultural and fishing societies led to rapid population growth in all the larger Pacific island groups-Samoa, Tonga, the Society Islands (including Tahiti), and Hawai'i in Hawan, the most heavily populated of the Polynesian island groups, the human population may

have exceeded tive hundred thousand when European mariners arrived in the late eighteenth

century

Nan Madol

In other lands, dense populations promoted social organization on a scale never before seen in

Oceania. On Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands, for example, the Sandeleur dynasty built a powerful

state and organized construction 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

protected by seawalls and breakwaters on three sides

[5:29 PM, 10/9/2024] Abhinav: Development of Social Classes

Beginning about the thirteenth century, expanding populations prompted residents of many Pacific islands to develop increasingly complex social and political structures. Especially on the larger islands, workers became more specialized 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 of public affairs in their societies and extracted surplus agricultural production from those of common birth. The islands of Tonga, Tahiti, and Hawai'i had especially stratified societies with sharp distinctions between various classes of high chiefs, lesser chiefs, and commoners. Hawaiian society also recognized distinct classes of priests and skilled artisans, such as adze (a cutting tool similar to an axe) 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 public affairs in portions of an island, sometimes in an entire island, and occasionally in several islands situated close to one another. In Tonga and Hawail, 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 families, mobilized labor for construction projects, and organized men into military forces. They commanded enormous respect within their societies in Hawail, for example, the classes of high chiets known as all'i nul intermarried, ate the best fish and other foods that were Kapi (taboo") to commoners, and had the right to wear magnificent cloaks adomed with thousands of bright red and yellow bird feathers. Indeed, a kopu forbade commoners to approach or even cast a shadow on the alli nul

Polynesian Religion

High chiefs often claimed that their power descended directly from the gods. They also worked closely with priests, who served as intermediaries between human communities and the gods. Gods of war and agriculture were common throughout the Pacific islands, but individual islands and island groups recognized deities particular to their own regions and interests. The most distinctive architecture of early Pacific societies was the ceremonial precinct and temple structure known as marse for helou in Hawaiiang Morge 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, sacntice, and communication 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 morce Mahalaten on Tahiti, took the form of a step pyramid about 15 meters (49 feet) high with a base measunng 81 by 22 meters (266 by 72 feet.

Pacific island societies did not have 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 agricultural economies, built elaborate, well-organized traditions and societies, and reached out when possible to engage in trade with their neighbors Their achievements testify anew to the human impulses toward densely populated communities and interaction with other societies