The Ancients: Remembering the Past (Continued)
MESOAMERICAN CONTACT
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Long before the large-scale migration of Mexican workers to the United States --long before there was a United States -- Native Americans traveled widely, embarked on far-flung commercial ventures, and engaged in extensive cross-cultural exchange. |
| Through well-established trading networks the civilizations of ancient Mexico came to share basic customs and beliefs. In time, Mesoamerican products and ideas spread to the cultures of North America. |
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| For a thousand years, Mesoamerican merchants traded ritual objects like macaw feathers and copper bells for precious turquoise mined by the Anasazi and Hohokam of the American Southwest. |
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| Turquoise mosaic mirrors adorned with the Feathered Serpent were crafted by artisans in Mexico and the Southwest. This exquisite example served as a royal emblem for the Maya kings of Chichen Itza, in the Yucatan Peninsula. The turquoise was probably imported from New Mexico. | This scraper used for tanning hides, found at Spiro Mound, Oklahoma, (1300-1400 A.D.), was carved of black obsidian from Pachuca, in central Mexico. |
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Along with commerce, the First Americans shared a tremendous enthusiasm for a ballgame that was played like soccer. Ballcourts were a focal point of ceremonial centers, from the Maya city-state of Copan, Honduras, to the Hohokam site of Snaketown, in Phoenix, Arizona. |
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| Social and religious ideas from Mesoamerica eventually reached Native American cultures east of the Mississippi River. |
| By 900 A.D., trade relations, and perhaps migrations, contributed to the rise of the Mississippian Culture. Ancestors of the eastern Woodland and Cherokee tribes, they adopted corn agriculture, developed a stratified society, and began building ceremonial centers dominated by huge pyramid-like mounds. |
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This complex culture flourished in Cahokia, Illinois, the Virginias, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana until the 15th century.
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According to an early Spanish chronicler, a Wichita Indian of Kansas, in 1544, knew some Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. |
| Current archaeological work suggests that the ancient peoples of Mexico and North America were in contact over great distances for a long period of time. |
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