Pre-Columbian Art

1655 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ancient civilizations of Central and South America

Pre-Columbian Art The South American Andes was a harsh environment to live in thousands of years ago going from its dry coastal desert to its long steep mountains and billon acres of Amazonian jungle. The people living there must have had and expanse knowledge of agriculture, scavenging, trade, and will power in order to have lived in such harsh conditions for so long. With no written language to tell us what they thought or did we turn to the Andean artwork that is found as our insight into the past. The art found came in the forms of mostly textiles and ceramics. Among all the pieces found made from the different cultures living in the Andes, there seemed to be a common theme. It seems ritual sacrifice was a wide spread practice, from textiles depicting figures with detached heads, ceramics showing mythical beings having their own trophy heads, to other paintings displaying prisoners being sacrificed. The Paracas, Nazca, and Moche people had some form of sacrifice depicted in their artwork, but each culture had its own way of showing their rituals in either various art forms or use of imagery. Why is this common theme among these cultures? Was it for worship or was for wishes of prosperity? I will go through each culture and explore this theme. The first culture spanning between 600-175 BC is the Paracas (Stone 56). Their name came from the place they inhabited, the Paracas Peninsula. “ ‘Paracas’ in Quechua means ‘sand falling like rain…’” as Stone quotes (57). Just the name itself shows how dry and arid the area they lived in was. They relied on fishing, farming in the Pisco Valley, and trading in order to make their life prosperous. As their numbers grew they began to bury their dead in “mummy bundles” due to the sandy a... ... middle of paper ... ...nd Nazca, the Moche used ritual sacrifice as what appears to be a way to ask for prosperity and well-being. The Moche also indicate that they used warrior captives as their sacrifices where as in the Paracas and Nazca it is unclear who they sacrificed. Blood sacrifice was regarded as one of the highest offerings because of its direct link to life itself. Life is the most precious gift given to us, so the Andean cultures must have believed that in the process in “giving” it back, they would be blessed by the gods they worshipped. All of the cultures showed some form of anthropomorphic being in their textiles and ceramics, meaning they believed in a higher power. And in appeasing this higher power they could live comfortably. Works Cited Stone, Rebecca. Art of the Andes From Chavin to Inca. 3rd ed. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 1995. 1-248. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Maria Martinez and Her Pueblo Pottery

    1496 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the most well known figures of the twentieth century pottery world is Maria Martinez. Maria Martinez is a Pueblo Indian part of the San Ildefondo tribe. Pueblo pottery from the American Southwest holds a unique place in ceramic art forms of American art. It is full of age-old tradition and culture handed down form family members and potters of the past. The old Pueblo ways of creating it still hold true today and have not been changed or influenced like so many other styles in modern times.

    Read More

  • Broken Spears by Miguel Leon-Portilla

    1495 Words  | 3 Pages

    The religion and culture of the Aztecs played a role in the way the way they thought and fought. They worshiped the war-god Huitzilopochtli. He was identified with the sun and was called "the Giver of life" and "the Preserver of Life" (xxxix). The religion carried some ridiculous rituals such as human sacrifice along with using magicians and wizards to cast spells. In war conditions, human sacrifice played a big role because the Aztecs would not fight to kill,...

    Read More

  • Dbq Essay On The Aztecs

    1731 Words  | 4 Pages

    Read those last few words again. As said in the popular children’s show Sesame Street, “one of these things is not like the other”. The integration of human sacrifice into Aztec culture was not nearly as subtle as written above, though: The most important Aztec deity in their whole religion, Huitzilopochtli, was the sun god. According to Aztec creation myths, Huitzilopochtli required a great deal of power to raise the sun every morning and keep the night from overpowering for too long. This strength was drawn from regular consumption of human blood and heart.

    Read More

  • Hernan Cortes - Reasons for Success

    1842 Words  | 4 Pages

    To begin with, the Aztec's cruel tribute system allowed Cortes to act as a liberator. The process of human sacrifice was extremely common and was feared by the majority of the common people. The Aztecs as a nourishment for the Sun and all other gods needed human sacrifice. The Aztecs sacrificed between 10,000 and 50,000 victims per year. As the majority of those who were sacrificed were war captives who opposed the Aztecs, they obviously greatly feared the brutal tribute system. However not only war captives were sacrifices, common adults and children were also sacrificed at times. Cortes himself was disgusted at the thought of human sacrifice, this allowed him to gain Indian allies as well as gain respect among Mexican tribes that feared and opposed the Aztecs. The majority of the population feared the process therefore making Cortes, whom despised the process, an appealing alternative. Many followed Cortes as they shared the same views on the 'human sacrifice' topic.

    Read More

  • Comparison of The Aztecs and The Incas

    1543 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Aztec’s and the Inca’s have many similarities, such as religious beliefs, and views about gods. Inca’s views about training for war are different, and the Aztec’s artifacts are somewhat different. The farm land compared to the Inca’s differs also, because where the Aztec’s lived the land was elevated about ten thousand feet. The religious beliefs of the Aztec’s were bloody; they believed they had to make many sacrifices to appease the gods. The sacrifices were an important aspect of the Aztec religion.

    Read More

  • Secrets of the Alpaca Mummies

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    This article explores the alpaca mummies and the rare, luxurious fabric that can be produced from the alpaca’s wool and Jane Wheeler’s study of the alpaca and llamas. The alpaca is a small, slender member of the camel family. The woolen fabric from the alpaca’s fleece was highly prized. In 1533, Francisco Pizarro laid plunder to Cuzco. He and his soldiers robbed the city of all the gold and silver that was available. The alpaca’s wool was important to the Inca empire. The alpaca’s wool had many purposes. It served as currency, gifts, and had sacrificial religious uses. The Inca were cloth makers who used cloth to produce a variety of objects in their society. They used the cloth to produce roofs and bridges. The cloth was also used as an aid in counting.

    Read More

  • The Role of Religion in "The Conquest of New Spain"

    613 Words  | 2 Pages

    A major element of Aztec life was religion, as often is in the case in ancient civilizations. The Aztecs were a polytheistic people, and they often made use of human sacrifice to please their gods. Diaz often makes reference to the blood-stained walls of the Aztec temples in his account of the conquest. In reference to the success of Cortes and his soldiers, an anci...

    Read More

  • Aztec Women in Society

    1531 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...es (kneeling) and daily rituals of weaving and cooking symbolized the power of Aztec women. Moreover, the power of a god was bestowed upon them only when they were depicted with armor. The women would spend long days on their knees performing their duties. The ritual of kneeling before the gods, were sought as being in a higher state. For example, I found it very interesting how these women were associated with religion while performing their daily tasks but had to replace their skilled tools with military instruments.

    Read More

  • Native Americans - Aztecs and Indians

    1089 Words  | 3 Pages

    To get the sacrifices the Aztec went to war with other tribes in Mexico to get these human sacrifices (Conrad & Demmest 47-49) . With each conquest more sacrifices and more land was added to the Aztec kingdom. The Aztec were a strong civilization who were familiar with organized large scale war, had specialized war chiefs, and a well organized system of territorial levy in which large armies could be amassed in a short time (Age of Reconnaissance 124-125). They may have been well organized for war, but they were not prepared for internal changes in there civilization. When expansion was no longer an option there system crumbled.

    Read More

  • The Aztec Human Sacrifices

    1181 Words  | 3 Pages

    .... Even though human sacrifices were a common occurrence at the time, the Aztecs ritual and persistence to please the god made the civilization to be known as Central America’s bloodiest civilization in the fourteenth century.

    Read More

  • Meso America

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    Carrasco shows that sacrificing was key to the Mesoamericans. Their entire belief is through world renewing, world making, and world centering. Both Aztecs and Mayans revolved their society around structures that they thought was centered around the universe. Each one believed that their society revolved around the universe. Sacrifices such as autosacrifice, removing the heart while the person was still alive was a daily ritual with the Aztecs, and Mayans. The purpose for public sacrificing was to feed the gods and make the them happy with their people. The type of people sacrificed was the beautiful and the captured warriors after a war. The beautiful was sacrificed because the gods didn't give any distinct quality to be remembered for such as a disfigured face.

    Read More

  • Religious Reflections: Spanish and Aztec Cultural Confrontation

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    When the Spaniards massacred the Cholultecas, the Cholultecas called on Quetzacoatl to destroy them; the Spaniards, in return, called on St. James. (Portilla, 44-5) When the Spanish defeated them, they began to question the strength of their gods. This is especially concerning because the Aztec gods were warriors – if the warrior gods the Aztecs had been worshipping for so long could fall so easily to this Saint they had never heard of, what did that mean for the Aztecs? The rituals the Aztecs had practiced in the past were based on taking captives, not lives. (Clendinnen, 86) The Spaniards did not care about keeping enemy soldiers alive for sacrifice. Since the entire Aztec religion (and thus society) is centered on human sacrifice, this was extremely strange for the Aztecs. Not only did these newcomers easily take over the Aztec’s territory, their gods did not require sacrifices. The initial encounter with the Spaniards pressured the Aztecs to reconsider their religious beliefs.

    Read More

  • Mesoamerican Empires

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    Around 1200 B. C. The Olmecs originated as a primitive people living and farming on the shores of Mexico (Stanton 91). Soon, however, they began to build cities such as San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Monte Alban. These “cities” were religious centers where people gathered to worship, and were not populated (Stanton 91). The first of these centers, San Lorenzo, was built c. 1150 B.C., on a flat topped, man-made mountain. It was mysteriously abandoned 200 years later (Stanton 92-93).

    Read More

  • Mesoamerica Essay

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lets start in the Formative period, the beginning. Between 1800 BCE and 200 BCE the Olmec empire was one of the leading powers of Mesoamerica. The Olmecs believed that humans transformed or evolved from Jaguars (Carrasco, 32). They believed there was a strong connection between all animals and people. Many of their temples and rituals were designed to praise or show acknowledgement of different animals. That is how they viewed the make up of their society, or how it came to be. The Olmecs also had a very big concern for burying their dead near their sacred areas. According to Carrasco, “this combination of human and temple at the heart of a settlement indicates the early pattern of what we have called world centering” (Carrasco, 34). This shows they believed there was a strong connection between sacred spaces, ceremonial structures, the earth, the dead, and the underworld. Their calendar system called the long count, was a huge part of organizing rituals and social life in Mesoamerica. They also had a sacred ball game that was very influential to their culture. It was more of a ritual than a game, being that, in some cases, the losing team would be sacrificed to the gods (Carrasco, 36). They believed that using these things would maintain order in their

    Read More

  • The Ancient Druids

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    they did have human sacrifices, it was an offering to nature by the person being

    Read More

More about Pre-Columbian Art

Open Document