Ceremonious Civilizations

Do you like to have hot chocolate on cold days? On September 9th we started a history unit on the Aztec, Quechua, and Mayan civilizations. During class we watched movies about the three groups. Later in the unit, we were given a project to find lots of facts about one of the groups, and these are the facts we found.

The Quechua [Inca] lived in three parts of South America, Peru, Chile, and the Andes Mountains. From 1200-1532 A.D., the Sapa Inca controlled everything; he owned all the land, he made all the rules, and he had a well trained army. The Quechua worshiped many gods, they prayed daily in Temples, they worshiped nature, and believed in life after death. The Quechua did not believe in the use of slaves. They believed that every one should be treated fairly; have a home, own land etc. Quechua sacrificed everything that had blood to a fire because the blood would rise and keep the gods happy. The Quechua sacrificed more animals than humans. We think the Quechua believed that humans were better than animals because they also did not believe in the use of slaves. In 1532, a man named Francisco Pizarro led his Spanish army to the Quechua villages stealing gold and killing almost everybody. Pizzaro destroyed one of our three civilizations.

Another group are the Maya, they lived in southern Mexico and Central America. They were living in about 2000 B.C to 1532 A.D. The Mayan empire had many cities and each city had its own king. The Mayans believed in many gods and goddesses. The chief god was Itzamna, he created writing. The Mayans made many sacrifices, of humans and animals. Blood made the gods happy. The rich Mayans had slaves, like prisoners of war and children sold by their family. During hard times usually slaves were sacrificed to the gods. The slaves were killed when their masters died.  The Spanish wanted gold, slaves, and land. The downfall of the Maya was in 1520, when Hernando Cortez and the Spanish destroyed the Maya, and stole all the gold in the Mayan city.

One of the most common groups we studied were the Aztecs. They lived in Mexico and Central America between 1200 AD and 1520 AD. The emperor was the leader of all Aztecs. The emperor was the leader of all war.  Montezuma II was the most famous emperor of them all. The Aztecs had many slaves. Slaves were usually children that sold themselves to slave masters when their families were in hard times. They did this so they could eat and get clothing. Many Aztecs had slaves and workers. Aztec slaves were not always slaves for life. In 1521 the Spanish conquistadors went to Mexico. The leader Hernando Cortez and his expedition of Spanish soldiers visited the temple of Montezuma II. The Spanish brutally attacked the Aztec people because they wanted gold, land, and slaves. Many Aztecs that didn’t die in war died of a deadly disease called Smallpox. That was the end of a great civilization.

If we didn’t have the Aztecs we would not have hot chocolate or turkey. They were brought to Europe instead of directly to America. A lot of other things of the Aztec, Inca, and Maya have made many things that we have today, such as, according to the Mayan calendar, the world may be ending in 2012. Our calendars that we use today are based on the Mayan calendar.

Reported by
Brian & Jack

One thought on “Ceremonious Civilizations

  1. Dear Brian and Jack,
    We really enjoyed reading your post because we think you put lots of detail about the Maya, Inca and Aztec.
    We think that you should have put more pictures, one of the pictures you should have put are pictures of where they lived.
    We liked the music you chose for the video because it suits your blog and pictures.
    ~Ellie and K.B.

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