The Seated Deity With Glyph C Headdress

Throughout the humanities course, I have been intrigued by a vast amount of information on different cultures. However, there was a particular section that truly caught my attention, and has piqued an interest in me that has caused me to do my own research aside from this paper. The culture of the Mayas, and the Aztecs has been extremely fundamental in understanding my ancestry, being that I am Mexican American. I took an interest in their beautiful architecture, their ritualistic and sacrificial religious practices, as well as their history and how they began. Throughout this paper I will outline the similarities and differences of these two cultures, as well as articulate an understanding of the humanity disciplines outlined above.

The Huichol Indians are an indigenous group that lives “in the Sierra Madre Mountains of northwestern Mexico” (Woolcott). The Huichol religion is an animistic religion. According to Dr. Pamela Lindell, animistic religions are “religions that believe that all of nature – humans, animals, plants, rocks, the ocean, etc. - is animated by spirits and souls” (“Professor’s Notes 2” 3). To better understand the Huichol Indians and their religion, this paper examines Huichol myth, symbolism, rituals, religious specialists, and deities from various anthropological perspectives.

Starting the comparisons of Teotihuacan and Chaco Canyon, we can say that both being an important civilization centers in their respective region, with Teotihuacan being the major center in Mesoamerica, while the Chaco Canyon was the major center of the Ancestral Puebloan civilization. Another common factor were that they both shared the fact the sites were considered holy areas, which were considered important enough to warrant pilgrimages. Both had religious practices preformed in the centers with rituals in Teotihuacan being performed at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, while in the Chaco Canyon religious ceremonies were conducted at one of the 32 kivas located within the great houses. Then finally, both sites were later abandon by

     In the Olmec art forms there is evidence of ritual importance of the natural landscape. Mountains symbolize an entrance to the upper world. Caves symbolize and entrance to the under world. “Water symbolizes the precious essence of life” (Evans 2004:135). These theological themes may have been precursors to following cultural belief systems; the Aztecs also shared similar beliefs about their environment.

The Olmec’s lived along muddy riverbanks and the Gulf of Mexico around 1500 B.C. Rigorous agricultural practices characterized the Olmec civilization, enabling them to provide food and resources for their families and generate income by selling their food to others around them. They also used the land to their advantage, using the mud to create elaborate earthen pyramids. Along with the cultivation of land, trade contributed to the success of the Olmec’s. They had many widespread trade routes extending into the surrounding areas. Their trade routes further helped to expand agriculture and grow the economy within this society due to the selling of agricultural products along these routes. To grow spiritually, the Olmec’s created religious rituals and a system of hieroglyphics that allowed the peoples to communicate effectively while also uniting the Olmec people as a whole. The Olmec’s’ use of their surrounding geography, combined with the economic growth brought about from extended trade routes and the societal unity brought about from the implementation of religious rituals allowed the Olmec’s to thrive during their time.

The artworks of Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, the Aegean cultures, and Ancient Greece have similarities that not only reflect objects and images, but also the media, style and representation. These countries were not always wealthy, clever, creative and powerful enough to gain supplies, but they all find a way to create art with what they had. They have all influenced on each other’s cultures and belief through their artistic values and ways, ranging from the materials and tools they use, position and representation of their monuments and their religious intent.

Religion played a very important role in the Aztec and Inca culture. Religious rituals consisted of human sacrifice and polytheism. Their deities were inspired by nature and the earth’s physical makeup. Both appear to be similar but peel back the onion and notable differences reveal themselves. It is difficult for modern day society to understand how human sacrifice can exist in such advanced civilizations.

‘’Have you ever known about the Mayan religious and the American religious, like how they are similar and different like the sacrifices,home's,beauty,and the numbering system.

Carrasco defines religion in three categories worldmaking, worldcentering, and worldrenewing. Carrasco’s idea of worldcentering is similar to the idea of cosmos in Eliade’s work. In Carrasco’s work worldcentering is the notion in which individuals look to their surroundings to account for their existence and the way their world functions. Carrasco provides an explanation as to how communities would “center” their world; using symbols as well as rituals would be used to explain how their world operated. Likewise Read and Gonzalez suggest that cosmic topography was used to structure the Mesoamerican life, cosmic topography helped explain that “Mesoamericans live in worlds shaped by mythological visions” (Read and Gonzalez 20). They used features that were defined as a town landscapes to form a vision of their world and “own unique cosmology” (Read and Gonzalez 20), these visions differed by community but essentially they all shared one vision. Similarly Eliade incorporates the idea of cosmos and chaos in his model of the sacred and the profane. Eliade explains that cosmos existed among the religious to maintain them away from the chaos. The cosmos is the idea of a world created by the gods and what remained outside of their world was considered the chaos. In order to keep a connection with their gods and the heavens they would use symbols such as pillars to center their world and have an existing connection the

Michel Graulich is a researcher in art history and religions of Pre-Columbian America and particularly Mesoamerica. He has a degree in History (University of Ghent, 1966) graduated in art history (University of Brussels, 1970) and a doctorate in art history (University of Brussels, 1979), he made his career at the Free University Brussels, where he was professor at CIERL (Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Religions and secularism) of the Free University of Brussels. He was also director of studies at the Fifth Section of Religious Sciences at the EPHE. Graulich “suggests that the Aztecs had a complex theology in which sacrifice had one basic and what some might deem more exalted purpose: atonement.” Those of the casualties, almost

Like most societies there are similarities and differences in religion and art; I will be discussing about three different regions. The three regions are The Eskimos, Olmec, and West Mexico. The Eskimos are well known for commonly using walrus ivory to make things out of mainly because wood is scarce at their location. The Olmec are known for creating mounds out of soil and adorned with colored clays to copy the mountains and volcanoes. Then we know have the West Mexico, which has a rich tradition of all sorts of clay sculptures that are commonly found by tombs.

     Mexica rulers flooded their lands with propaganda that promoted their imperialistic religion. Most of the Aztec’s art and literature was made up of this propaganda, which created this religious fervor among the people that grew beyond the control of the ruling elites. “Oral literature, monumental art, written codices, and public and private ceremonies instilled and continually reinforced belief in the divine struggle and the unceasing need for sacrificial victims” (Conrad, 51). Furthermore, religious zeal was strengthened by the guarantee that immortality would be granted to warriors who died in the divine quest and increased social standing awaited those who faired well in wars (Conrad, 52).

In this article, De la Fuenta addresses Olmec art, its themes, and the style variations in Olmec art. Olmec traits appear in several regions and vary in themes. The themes varied from the expression of religion, politics, society, technology or the economy of a certain group. Cosmogony, myths, and human/ animal combinations, were some of the themes that were present in Olmec art. One common theme that is present in many myths fin different cultures is that of the twins. The Olmec not only had different themes but also had different styles that varied depending on the region. Different styles pertained to different regions. The region that certain Olmec art pertained

The ancient world of Mesoamerica entered a long period of change that soon led to the development a mammoth city that would serve as a regional center for more than 600 years. Beginning in about 1000 B.C. the majority of the people in the Valley of Mexico relocated to one of two primary sites, that of Cuicuilco in the southwest corner and Teotihuacan in the northeast. By about 300 B.C., Cuicuilco dominated the region, but its heyday would soon diminish. (Sabloff 2000, p 60)

Massive temples hidden in the jungles of the Yucatan, mysterious stone stelas, and cryptic calendars eluding to advanced knowledge of the stars and mathematics are just some of the artifacts originating from the “Classic Maya” period (200 CE-900 CE). However, these popular items should not be the only defining characteristics of a society that dominated the Mesoamerican region for nearly a millennia. Dynastic lines, similar to those found in European houses, were important elements during this period in places like Palenque, Tikal, and Calakmul. Additionally, the Maya experienced violent and consistent warfare between localized powers and the backbone of their society, agriculture, suffered through several multi-year droughts. These factors