IncaAztec Essay Research Paper Like the Athenians

Inca-Aztec Essay, Research Paper

Like the Athenians and Spartans of ancient Greece, the Inca and the Aztec bear resemblance to the two other ancient cultures. The Athenians and Incas were both more interested in developing their Arts as well as their military, but both the Spartans and the Aztecs were highly interested more so in warfare than religion. Although the Aztec and Inca never had to face each other, it is interesting to compare them because of their dominant positions of extremely large and powerful tribes. I am going to compare and contrast religion and the social system along with their system of government, which can be put together.

The Inca and Aztec were both extremely religious. Their entire lives revolved around religion. They both also had different ways of interpreting their faith. They both believed in gods, festivals, and afterlife. The Aztec had many gods that they believed in, for example, Huitzilopotchli, the war god, and Tlaloc, the rain god. This showed significance in the dualism of belief because one deals with war and the other is with agriculture, two major occupations of the Aztec. Their worshipping is also similar to modern day North American Indians. They worship corn because it was food and was associated with fertility. Similar to the Inca, the Aztec believed in a god that controlled from the heavens. It was a god which beared the characteristics of both males and females and was called Omelecuhtli. His temple was the universe and he sat alone. In his hands, he held a drop of water that contained a green seed and the seed was actually the Earth submerged into the ocean. There were no temples for him because he was so important; he was in the hearth of every family’s home.

The Inca had a different interpretation of faith. Like the Aztec, they worshipped gods and deities but unlike the Aztec, they worshipped many sacred places. They believed in good and evil things and saw omens in many things such as rainbows, falling stars, and the hoot of an owl.

They believed that Viracocha was the most important god of all. He was similar to Omelecuhtli, the Aztec god. He was the creator of the Sun, Moon, and Stars that were all seen as gods. The Sun was the life giver and was the most important server of Viracocha. He watched over the crops and was the father of the Emperor. His image was a human face surrounded by rays of flowing hair.

The Moon was the wife of the Sun. It was believed that an eclipse was the result a great serpent or mountain lion trying to eat her. To frighten off the creatures, they would point their weapons at the moon and start screaming and shouting at it.

The constellations, or Stars, all had duties assigned to them by Viracocha. For example, Pleiades had the job of looking over the seeds in the fields, and Lyra, which looked like a llama, looked after the herds.

They also worshipped some other gods such as Thunder, the god of weather, who was an important deity. He was pictured as a man with a war club and a sling in the other hand. Thunder and lightning came from the sling and he drew rain from the Milky Way. Farmers worshipped the Earth Mother and fishermen worshipped that Mother Sea.

The Aztec and Inca both had very different beliefs for the afterlife.

The Aztec, like most Indians, believed that the four directions of the world were extremely important. One important thing to remember about the Aztecs is that they used a language that was very symbolic and used many allusions. They perceived the North (where the Sun was never visible), South (where the sun was highest in the sky), East (where the sun rose), and West (where the sun set), were key to understanding magical and religious thinking. The sequence of the Sun also represented the sequence of life. They believed that the body rises, becomes stronger, weakens, and finally dies. The east was the home of the morning star, the west was the home of the Lord of the Jewels, the south was the home of mother Earth, and the north was the land of the dead and maize seed.

The afterlife only came to those who died of natural causes. Unlike the Incas, the Aztec went into the Earth. The body was dressed in his best finery and was accompanied by a slaughtered, red dog, and a package of food. On the third day after death, the body was cremated and began the journey to the afterlife. The soul had first to travel on a road that goes west into the Earth but on the way; there were several horrible obstacles that the soul must have had to survive. One of them was the Clashing Rocks which, now and then, would crash together. If the soul were caught between them, that would be the end of the journey. If the soul survived that, it then had to negotiate a narrow mountain-ledge and if not, it would fall off and die. Finally, if the soul was successful in it’s three year journey, it went through the final “Wind of Knives”, which was just flint, and would reduce the body into a skeleton. After that final ordeal, they spent the rest of their lives with the death gods and enjoy their good company. There were several different divisions of the underworld for different states of being. There was one for babies that contained trees with fruit that was shaped as breasts and nursed the babies until it was time for them to return to Earth. There was also the Tlalocan heaven that was for people who died of water-related causes