WINNER TAKES ALL-FROM THE FANS

Vigorous ball games played in walled courts were a regular part of Mayan and other Middle American religious festivals. Players were apparently not allowed to use their hands, but bounced the solid rubber ball off padded elbows and hips. Injuries seem to have been common, and sometimes fatal. Losing teams were sometimes sacrificed to the gods.

The Aztecs played a ball game known as tacitly, whose aim was to knock the ball into the opponents’ end of the court in much the same way as in  modern volleyball. Teams could also win the game outright by knocking the ball through either of two stone rings set on the side walls. Since the rings were often 20 feet off the ground and only just big enough for the ball, goals of this kind were rare. But any player who scored one was allowed to confiscate the clothes and possessions of any spectators he and his friends could catch.

ROCK OF AGES

The Aztecs believed that there had been four previous creations of the world, and that theirs was  the fifth and last. They carved this belief into a single stone-the Sun Stone, or Calendar Stone- a huge block 12 feet across. The stone was dug up in 1790 in the Ocala, the main square of both ancient Tenochtitlan and the modern capital of Mexico, Mexico City.

In the center of the stone is carved the sun god, and on the four panels around it are the four previous creations, their once-bright Aztec colors worn away by time. The stone is now in the city’s National Museum of Anthropology.

WELL OF DEATH

Chechen Itza, last outpost of the Mayan civilization, was built in the heart of the arid Yucatan Peninsula, unlike most of the earlier Mayan cities, which were built in rain forests farther south and east. The city was built  around two wells, known as centos, which were fed by underwater streams. The city folk drank from one well and used the other as a well of sacrifice. In times of crisis a maiden was hurled at dawn into the 60-foot-deep hole in the limestone rock. If she survived in the water at the bottom until midday, priests hauled her out to ask what the gods had told her. The Mayas also threw cherished possessions into the hole. Carved jade, gold, copper discs, and human skeletons have all been dredged out of it.

TEMPLES OF BLOOD

Aztecs believed that the sun died every night and needed human blood to give it strength to rise next  day. So they sacrificed 15,000 men a year to their fearsome sun god, Huitzilopochtli. Most of the victims were prisoners taken in wars, which were often started solely to round up sacrificial victims.

DEATH ROW DELIGHT

A particularly handsome prisoner was chosen each year by the Aztecs as a sacrifice to their chief god, Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca was the god of matter- and archrival of the Aztecs’ god of wind and spirit, Quetzalcoatl. For 12 months the prisoner was allowed every luxury. He was taught to play the flute, feasted like a king, and was generally doted upon. He spent his last month with four lovely girls. Then he led a procession to the temple of Tezcatlipoca. Four men held him down over the sacrificial altar, and a priest, using a knife of obsidian, a glasslike volcanic stone, cut open his chest and tore out his heart.

LONELY EMPIRES OF THE INDIANS

Five advanced civilizations flourished in brilliant isolation in Middle America- the term many scholars use to describe the area of Central America stretching from Mexico to the northern edge of Nicaragua-over a period of 3,500 years. Theyr first contact with Europe in 1519 was decisive and disastrous. In  a few decades their societies were swamped by the invader. Not until 300 years  later did archeologists and scholars begin to uncover and appreciate the richness of the civilizations so carelessly swept aside.’

OLMEC

First of the great ancient Middle American cultures. They dominated the coastal plain along the Gulf of  Mexico from about 1200 B.C. to about 400 B.C. Their name comes from a Nahuatl Indian word meaning “inhabitant or rubber country,” because of the rubber trees that grew in the region. They began as subsistence farmers but became  accomplished pyramid builders, using clay and earth. Their pyramid at La Venta is 100 feet high. The Olmecs were also great sculptors. Giant stone heads, some 10feet tall, and figurines and animals of jade are  Olmec legacies.

MAYA

Most enduring of the Middle American civilizations. The Mayas were a recognizable political group as early as 2000 B.C. in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and parts of Belize. Their golden age  lasted  from about  A.D. 250 to 900. Their hieroglyphic writing is only partly understood. The Mayas were superbastronomers with an advanced knowledge of mathematics and devised an accurate calendar.

Middle America

NO USE FOR WHEELS

All the pre-Columbian civilizations of Middle America set up  brilliantly organized states and trade systems without two developments considered vital in the Old World; they made no use of the wheel and had no draft animals, such as horses or oxen. However, they did have their own form of currency- cacao beans. The absence  of practical wheels is all the more remarkable because the principle of the wheel was known in Middle America. Wheeled clay models of animals-possibly toys or religious offerings- have been found in Mexican tombs dating from around the time of Christ. But although several Middle American peoples, in particular the Mayas,built flat, broad roads between their cities, the wheel was never used for transportation or in making pottery.

CLAY TOY

The wheel was not put to work in the Americas until the Spanish conquest. But the principle was known; this clay model was made in Mexico before A.D.100.

STAR STRUCK

Sky-gazing Mayan priests accurately calculated the 365-day solar year more than 1,500 years ago. They broke the year up into 18 months of 20 days each, plus 5 odd days. Superimposed on the Mayan solar year was a sacred 260-day calendar  used to indicate days of  religious ritual. The Mayas had no clocks or telescopes, but  they could predict  solar and lunar eclipses and calculated the time Venus took to make a complete circuit of the sky to within 2 hours of the actual figure, 583.92 days.

OLMEC CERAMIC

Naked and hollow “babies” were a favorite subject of Olmec craftsmen, who fashioned them from the whitish clay called kaolin. This one dates from 1200-1000 B.C.

TIAHUANACO

Named after the city of Tiahuanaco, founded in about 800 B.C. near LAke Titicaca in present -day Bolivia. The city was occupied by a series of five different cultures until about A.D. 1200. Then it was largely abandoned, for unknown reasons.

CHIBCHA

Civilization in the Colombian highlands destroyed by Spanish in 16th century. Accomplished goldsmiths, the Chibcha may have inspired the legends of EI Dorado.

MOCHICA

Flourished in northern Peru from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 800. Mochica farmers used irrigation systems, built fortifications, and developed distinctive crafts and sculpture.

CHIMU

Civilization established on northwest Peruvian coast in about A.D. 1000. Its capital  was the city of Chan chan, which at its peak had a population of 100,000. Expanded into the Andes under Nancen-pinco after 1370. Conquered in about 1470 by Incas.

INCA

Last and largest pre-Columbian civilization in South America. Created vast Andean empire between 1438 and 1532. Destroyed by Spanish conquistadores under Francisco Pizarro in 1530s.

MASS MARRIAGES

Marriage by decree was the norm for ordinary people within the Inca empire. Although nobles often had several wives, commoners were limited to one. Furthermore, the state dictated whom and when each commoner could marry. Each year local chiefs assembled all eligible inhabitants (all men over 24, all women over 18), separating them by sex into lines before calling them up to be paired off.

PRINCIPAL PRE-COLUMBIAN CIVILIZATIONS

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries brought to an abrupt end a series of cultures that dated back more than 2,000 years. These civilizations are known as pre-Columbian, from the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506).

CHAVIN

Earliest highly developed Peruvian culture, existing from about 850 to 200 B.C. The Chavins were a farming society composed of several different regional groups. Their capital was the city of Chavin de Huantar in central Peru.

NAZCA

Mysterious southern Peruvian culture about which little is known. Thought to have been founded about the time of Christ, but its people had  disappeared before the Spanish conquest. The major artifacts of Nazca culture are a series of enormous figures and designs  drawn with lines of pebbles across the coastal desert of southern Peru, which are best seen from the air. The largest design is of a bird; it is about 900 feet long.

FOOD FROM THE HILLS

Besides flooding Spain with looted wealth-nearly 200 tons of gold and 20,000 tons of silver by 1650- the conquistadores introduced  several new foods to Europe.These included maize, tomatoes, gourds, manioc (cassava), guavas, and potatoes. The potato had been cultivated by Andean farmers since at least  A.D.200. Its English name is derived from the Taino word for the sweet potato, batata.

The potato was so important to the Inca diet that they invented a method of freeze-drying to preserve it. Potatoes were  left out to freeze for several nights (they thawed by day). Softened by repeated freezing and thawing, the vegetables were then squeezed by hand to remove msot of their moisture and put out in the sun to dry completely. Finally, they reached a stage known as chuno, in which they could be kept indefinitely. Andean Indians still use this technique.

THE GOLDEN ROOM

The Inca ruler Atahualpa, backed by thousand of warriors, came face to face with Francisco Pizarro, backed by 180 men and 37 horses, for the first time at Cajamarca in Peru. The encounter was a disaster for the Indians. Pizarro kidnapped Atahualpa, and the demoralized  warriors were put to flight by their first experience of firearms and cavalry.

After the kidnapping, Atahualpa offered to ransom himself by giving the Spaniards enough gold to fill his 23-by 16 -foot cell as high as he could reach. He was a tall man and standing on tiptoe could reach to 9 feet.Atahualpa also offered to fill a smaller toom twice over with silver. The Spaniards accepted, but then changed their minds, realizing that Atahualpa could become the focus of rebellion if he were released. Instead, they tried the king on several trumped-up charges -such as murdering a former Inca king, Huascar, and plotting against the Spanish forces – and sentenced  him to death. He was garrotted in 1533.

CEREMONIAL KNIFE

Gold inlaid with turquoise forms the image of a god sacred to the pre-Inca Chimu civilization of northwestern Peru. Knife handle probably dates from 12 th century.

INSTANT GALOSHES

Amazonian Indians invented rubber boots many centuries before they were known in Europe. The Indians dipped their  feet and  legs in latex, the raw liquid of the rubber tree. It formed a tough extra skin, or boot, that protected against insects and thorns

PIERCING STARE

Funerary masks, placed over the faces of the dead, were a common feature of South American civilizations. This hammered gold mask, painted and decorated with smaller pieces of gold-including two needles jutting menacingly from the eyes- was probably made for a wealthy Chimu nobleman. Found near the Chimu capaital of Chan Chan in northwestern Peru, it is thought to date from the early 15th century.

ROYAL HABIT

Centuries before cocaine became known in the West, the leaves of the coca plant(Erythroxylon coca), from which cocaine is derived, were being chewed by the  Incas. Originally reserved for the Inca kings and leading nobles, the habit spread to commoners after the Spanish conquest. Chewing the leaves diminishes hunger, increases stamina, and counteracts the effects of exertion at high elevations.Andean Indians today still chew coca leaves.

SKULL SURGERY

In the Inca empire, priests doubled as doctors and surgeons and appear to have been able to carry out some difficult operations. The remains of some Inca skulls, for instance, show that the  priests knew  how to  perform the operation known as trepanning – cutting a hole in the  skull. It is uncertain whether the operation was performed to relieve pressure caused by injury or to release evil spirits, but it seems likely that coca was used as an anesthetic.

SAY IT WITH KNOTS

Ignorant  of written numbers, the Incas devised an ingenious counting method based on knotted cords called quipus. The system, which is still used by Peruvian peasants, made use of single knots, double knots, and slip knots with loops to represent numbers. Different-colored cords  identified subjects, such as tax and census information, and even historical records.

Official messages were memorized and delivered by  relays of runners, or chasquis, who could cover 150 miles in a single day. In this postal service, established by Pachacuti Yupanqui and made possible by the empire’s efficient road network, pairs of chasquis were stationed in roadside huts about every 2 miles. When a runner approached a hut, he shouted out his message, and a relief chasqui took off for the next hut. Complex messages were sent by quipus