Portal:Mesoamerica
the Mesoamerica Portal 
_trim.png){kind=small}
Mesoamerica (Spanish: Mesoamérica) is a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.
As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. Beginning as early as 7000 BC the domestication of maize, beans, squash and chili, as well as the turkey and dog, caused a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal grouping to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages. In the subsequent formative period, agriculture and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition, a vigesimal numeric system, and a complex calendric system, a tradition of ball playing, and a distinct architectural style, were diffused through the area. Also in this period villages began to become socially stratified and develop into chiefdoms with the development of large ceremonial centers, interconnected by a network of trade routes for the exchange of luxury goods such as obsidian, jade, cacao, cinnabar, Spondylus shells, hematite, and ceramics. While Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important.
Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture which inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico. In the Preclassic period, complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya and the Zapotecs. During this period the first true Mesoamerican writing systems were developed in the Epi-Olmec and the Zapotec cultures, and the Mesoamerican writing tradition reached its height in the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic script. Mesoamerica is one of only five regions of the world where writing was independently developed. In Central Mexico, the height of the Classic period saw the ascendancy of the city of Teotihuacan, which formed a military and commercial empire whose political influence stretched south into the Maya area and northward. During the Epi-Classic period the Nahua peoples began moving south into Mesoamerica from the North. During the early post-Classic period Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec, and the lowland Maya area had important centers at Chichén Itzá and Mayapán. Towards the end of the post-Classic period the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica.
Selected article
Santa Muerte (Spanish for Saint Death), is a female folk saint venerated primarily in Mexico and the United States. A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. Not sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, her cult arose from popular Mexican folk belief, a syncretism between indigenous Mesoamerican and Spanish Catholic beliefs and practices. Since the pre-Columbian era Mexican culture has maintained a certain reverence towards death, which can be seen in the widespread commemoration of the syncretic Day of the Dead. Elements of that celebration include the use of skeletons to remind people of their mortality. The worship is condemned by the Catholic Church in Mexico as invalid, but it is firmly entrenched among Mexico's lower working classes and various elements of society deemed as "outcasts".
Santa Muerte generally appears as a female skeletal figure, clad in a long robe and holding one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe. Her robe can be of any color, as more specific images of the figure vary widely from devotee to devotee and according to the rite being performed or the petition being made. As the worship of Santa Muerte was clandestine until the 20th century, most prayers and other rites have been traditionally performed privately in the home. However, for the past ten years or so, worship has become more public, especially in Mexico City after Enriqueta Romero initiated her famous Mexico City shrine in 2001. The number of believers in Santa Muerte has grown over the past ten to twenty years, to several million followers in Mexico, the United States, and parts of Central America. Santa Muerte has similar male counterparts in the Americas, such as the skeletal folk saints San La Muerte of Argentina and Rey Pascual of Guatemala.
Selected biography
Juan de Torquemada (c. 1562 – 1624) was a Franciscan friar, missionary and historian in Spanish colonial Mexico, and is considered the "leading Franciscan chronicler of his generation." He is most famous for his monumental history of the indigenous peoples entitled Los veinte y un libros rituales y Monarquía indiana, commonly known as Monarquía indiana ("Indian Monarchy"), published initially in Spain in 1615 with a license obtained by Torquemada. Monarquia Indiana was the "prime text of Mexican history, and was destined to influence all subsequent chronicles until the twentieth century." The fact that it was republished a century later in 1723, in what has been considered the standard edition, is an indication of its importance. It was used by later historians, the Franciscan Augustin de Vetancurt and most importantly by eighteenth-century Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero.
Juan de Torquemada was born at Torquemada, Palencia, sometime between 1557 and 1565, with few firm data on his life, with much coming from his own work. He arrived in New Spain as a child and grew up in Mexico City. He studied philosophy and Nahuatl at the convent Grande de San Francisco in Mexico City, studying under Fray Juan Bautista and Antonio de Valeriano, an indigenous graduate of the colegio who taught him Nahuatl. He was ordained sometime between 1579 and 1583. In 1582 he moved to the convent of Santiago Tlatelolco, and he was made guardian of that convent in 1600. He also took over the administration of the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco.
Did you know?
- ... that the Mam Maya capital city of Zaculeu (pictured) fell to Spanish conquistador Gonzalo de Alvarado y Chávez after a siege that lasted several months?
- ... that in ancient Mesoamerica, mirrors were fashioned from stone and were regarded as portals to a supernatural realm?
Subcategories
Related portals
Selected image
 |
The goals and motives of Maya warfare are not thoroughly understood. Evidence of warfare includes fortified defenses around structure complexes, artistic and epigraphical depictions of war, and weapons such as obsidian blades and projectile points. Some scholars have suggested that the capture of sacrificial victims was a driving force behind warfare.
Featured articles
Good Topics
Good articles
Gómez de Alvarado- Aztecs
- La Blanca, Peten
- Calakmul
- Bartolomé de las Casas
- Copán
- El Chal
- Haʼ Kʼin Xook
- Itzam Kʼan Ahk II
- Iximche
- Kʼinich Yat Ahk II
- Kʼinich Yoʼnal Ahk I
- Macuahuitl
- Maize
- Manche Chʼol
- Mixco Viejo
- Motul de San José
- Mundo Perdido, Tikal
- North Acropolis, Tikal
- Potbelly sculpture
- William H. Prescott
- Qʼumarkaj
- Resplendent quetzal
- Seibal
- Serpent labret with articulated tongue
- Spanish conquest of Yucatán
- Spanish conquest of Chiapas
- Spanish conquest of El Salvador
- Spanish conquest of Honduras
- Spanish conquest of the Maya
- Tikal
- Toniná
- Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition
- Benjamin Lee Whorf
- Yoʼnal Ahk III
- Zaculeu
Topics
WikiProjects
Things to do
 |
Here are some tasks awaiting attention:
|
New articles
Rules | Match log | Results page (for watching) | Last updated: 2024-05-06 21:05 (UTC)
Note: The list display can now be customized by each user. See List display personalization for details.
- Results of the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election in the foreign electoral district (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Lastjourneyman. (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2024-05-05, score: 24
- The Stag and the Vine (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Sweetpool50 (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2024-05-05, score: 24
- Cardamine occulta (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Abductive (talk · contribs · new pages (31)) started on 2024-05-05, score: 32
- Rotundanthus (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Tom Radulovich (talk · contribs · new pages (161)) started on 2024-05-04, score: 60
- Rosa Elena Curruchich (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Netherzone (talk · contribs · new pages (9)) started on 2024-05-01, score: 28
- Caritas Mexico (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Bdx (talk · contribs · new pages (43)) started on 2024-05-01, score: 54
- Emil’ Keme (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Lvarelamejia (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2024-04-30, score: 70
- List of African American poets (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Omnis Scientia (talk · contribs · new pages (8)) started on 2024-04-30, score: 28
- Timeline of the 1993 Atlantic hurricane season (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Dylan620 (talk · contribs · new pages (3)) started on 2024-04-30, score: 42
- Landy Párraga (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Lmpesantezt (talk · contribs · new pages (3)) started on 2024-04-29, score: 28
- Battle of San Salvador (1823) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Larissæ (talk · contribs · new pages (5)) started on 2024-04-27, score: 26
- Exponi nobis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Moriwen (talk · contribs · new pages (357)) started on 2024-04-27, score: 28
- Raclin Murphy Museum of Art (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Odecalchi (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2024-04-27, score: 58
- Anacleto's rebellion (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Larissæ (talk · contribs · new pages (5)) started on 2024-04-25, score: 24
- Battle of San Salvador (1822) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Larissæ (talk · contribs · new pages (5)) started on 2024-04-25, score: 40
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
