SPAN 44 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Latin America, Guatemala, Mexico
SPAN 44
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
WEEK 1: 10/03/17: PreColumbian society, culture, civilizaztion
● Nawal=spirit animal everyone is assigned at birth depending on birth date
● Latin America on the eve of the European “discovery”
○ Variety of cultures, civilizations, and languages when the Spaniards landed in Americas
■ Mayas, Aztecs, Incas
■ Tainos, tupi, caribs, arawaks,
■ Guarani, apuches, otomi, pueblo
○ Ethnic and cultural heterogeneity
○ Social complexity
○ Dense and rich history
○ Demography
■ Between 35 and 55 million inhabitants, not evenly distributed
■ Age of explorations and incomplete picture of the continent
■ Known territory vs. terra incognita (unknown, unexplored territory)
● The problem of representation
○ Cannot take all we know about these civiliations at face value
■ Always consider from what source/perspective our information is from; does the info tell more
about the source than the demographic and geography?
■ Upon arriving at the Americas, there was both a sense of wonder and calculation
● Both “wow, this is new and fascinating” but also “what should we do with all this new land
and people”
■ Recounts from formerly captive europeans who lived among the new world people that were
awesome, marvelous, curiosity invoking
■ Observing an engraving:
● Tupi natives of coastal brazil
● Presence of long houses, naked people
○ Naked goes on to signify primitivity
● Ethnic markings: tattoos/scars?
● Common narrative of “i was captive, i lived among these people, they are so primiitive”
● Very negative stereotypes created and reinforced about the native peoples of Latin
America’
● The problem of knowledge
○ What do we know and how can we know it?
■ Archaeology and material culture (ex: utensils, weapons, buildings)
■ Linguistics and epigraphy
■ (historical) anthropology
● Different social sciences have given us some kind of information of what life was like in
pre-columbian latin america
○ Surviving texts and codices (many of the 16th c.)
■ codex=pre-columbian “books”, wrtten by mayans/aztects, existing prior to spanish arrival
● Mayan texts, glyphs, illustrations carved into stone, with skins, wood, etc.
■ 4 Maya codices (Dresden Codex, etc.)
■ Several aztec codices (florentice C. Mendoza…)
○ Cultural memory and cultural resistance (practices)
■ Weaving patterns, oral traditions
■ Rituals, sacred places/spacews, and cosmovisions
■ Festivals and performances
● The tragedy of the Death of the Inca Atahualpa
● Intl Raymi
■ Over time, the culture has survived, evolved with time, and are very different today, but have a
link to certain precolumbian culture
● The three “high civilizations”: Mayans, Aztecs, Incas
○ Problems using the term “civilization”
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
■ Implies that these civilizations were more noteworthy or advanced than other existing latin
american cultures at the time
■ Who is to decide a culture’s worth? Very eurocentral perception
○ Mayans situated in what is considered modern-day Yucatan Penninsula and Guatemala
○ Aztecs situated around present-day Mexico City, the central valley of Mexico with certain territories
occupying Southern Mexico
○ Incans’ center was located in Cuzco in present-day Peru, stretches into ecuador, columbia, bolivia, and
mid-chile
■ Largest empire, occupied large portion of South America
● Comparing and Contrasting
○ Common traits
■ Hiearchical societies organized around ruling lineages
■ Polytheistic
■ Importance of religion and ritual in public life
■ Complex cosmologies
● Complex stories that exlained origin of world and humanity
■ Importance of warfare
■ Centrality of agriculture and importance of long-distance trade
■ Lacked iron, hard metal tools, the wheel,, and big domestic animals
○ Differences:
■ Geogaphical areas
■ Period of development
■ Forms of state organization
■ Forms of literacy
● Incas didn’t have a system or writing
● Mesoamerica and the mayans
○ Heirs of rich olmec culture
○ Similar cultural traitts and high levels of linguistic heterogeneity
■ Very diverse among themselves
○ Periods of maya civilization
■ Pre-classic (circa 1000 a.D.)
■ Classic (240-900a.D.)
● Tikal
■ Post-classic
● Chichen-itza
● The Mayans in the Classic period
○ When archeologists believed the mayan civilization was at its epitome
○ Growth of big cities=->control of surrounding rural areas (milpas)
■ Corn-growing field (corn=main product of nutrition and sustenance)
○ Expansion of agriculture “de roza” (slash-and-burn)
○ Organization in autonomous city-states
■ each with their own royal governming families
● City state=basic politcal unit
● ununified
○ Development of asronomy and mathematics
■ Pyramids for sacred activities, sports places (ballcourt), civil buildings
○ Urban monumental architecture
○ Expansion and control of new land by warfare
○ Increasing long-distance trade
● A decaying society?
○ By 1524 (spaniard arrival), Mayan society shows signs of exhaustion
○ Abandonment of urban centers
○ More scattered rural settlements
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Nawal=spirit animal everyone is assigned at birth depending on birth date. Latin america on the eve of the european discovery . Variety of cultures, civilizations, and languages when the spaniards landed in americas. Between 35 and 55 million inhabitants, not evenly distributed. Age of explorations and incomplete picture of the continent. Known territory vs. terra incognita (unknown, unexplored territory) Cannot take all we know about these civiliations at face value. Over time, the culture has survived, evolved with time, and are very different today, but have a link to certain precolumbian culture. The three high civilizations : mayans, aztecs, incas. Upon arriving at the americas, there was both a sense of wonder and calculation. Both wow, this is new and fascinating but also what should we do with all this new land and people . Recounts from formerly captive europeans who lived among the new world people that were awesome, marvelous, curiosity invoking.
