Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Stelae
2. **Quetzalcoatl
This was a religious god who possessed a clan; the followers accepted an exile to the land of the rising
sun. This Mesoamerican god is the god of intelligence and self reflection. His name means
Feathered serpent preferred animal sacrifice to human sacrifice. Compared to Jesus.
3. **Chinampas
Raised fields constructed along lakeshores in Mesoamerica to increase agricultural yields.
4. **Tribute system
A system in which defeated peoples were to pay a tax in the form of goods and labor. This forced transfer
of food, cloth, and other goods subsidized the development of large cities. An important component of the
Aztec and Inca economies.
5. **Huitzilopochtli
Huitzilopochtli was the chief god of Mexica. He was also known as the southern hummingbird. He was
originally associated with war, but later shifted to being associated with the Sun. Sacrifices were made in
honor of Huitzilopochtli because the people who worshiped him believed that he required a diet of human
hearts.
6. **Maize
Maize is corn.
7. Chiefdom
8. Mounds
9. Khipus
10. Ayllu
11. **Mita
Andean labor system based on shared obligations to help kinsmen and work on behalf of the ruler and
religious organizations.
12. Llamas and alpaca
13. Verticality (vertical integration)
14. **Waru waru agricultural techniques
Waru waru agricultural teqniquies were raised beds and iggigation systems that lead to the increase of crop
yield.
Places
15. Mesoamerica
16. **Tenochtitlan
Capital of the Aztec Empire, located on an island in Lake Texcoco. Its population was about 150,000 on
the eve of Spanish conquest. Mexico City was constructed on its ruins.
17. Cahokia
18. **Cuzco
Conquests magnified the authority of the Incan ruler and led to the creation of an imperial
bureaucracy drawn from among his kinsmen.
The lives of the ruler and members of the royal family were dominated by political and religious
rituals that helped them legitimize their authority.
Each new ruler began his reign with conquest among many of the obligations associated with
kinship was the requirement to extend imperial boundaries by warfare.
mita laborers made the Inca imperial bureaucracy possible- Cuzco (capital), provincial cities,
royal court, imperial armies, and the states religious cults all rested on this foundation.
7. Develop a chart comparing the Aztec and Inca empires, emphasizing agriculture, politics, and the military.
Aztec Empire
Inca Empire
Agriculture
Politics
Military