Coatlicue
The name Coatlicue literally translates to this clothing item, which represents earth and fertility.
What is a Serpent Skirt?
In Chiapas, the Maya frequently utilized this evasive military strategy, making the territory "economically useless" to the Spanish by fleeing into inaccessible mountains.
What is the "retreat strategy"?
Created on deer hide with plant and mineral pigments, the Codex Borgia was not a historical narrative but rather this type of roadmap for priests.
What is a divinatory guide?
The term "cenote" comes from the Mayan word d'zonot, which translates to this literal description.
What is a "cavern with water"?
In Mexica society, the population was divided by birth into two primary classes: the macehualtin (commoners) and this elite class of nobles.
What are the pipiltin?
After being unearthed by workers in 1790, officials repeatedly ordered the Coatlicue statue to undergo this process because it was considered a threat to colonial narratives.
What is being reburied (or concealed)?
Maya fugitives who fled colonial oppression, the encomienda system, and forced Christianity deep into the untamed jungles were known to the Spanish as this, a term that referred to a runaway.
What is Cimarrones?
Before it was recognized as a masterpiece, servants of the Giustiniani family gave the Codex Borgia to their children to be used as this.
What is a plaything (or toy)?
The ancient Maya believed cenotes were sacred portals leading to this specific location.
What is Xibalbá (the Maya underworld)?
The heavy balls used in the Mesoamerican ballgame (Pok Ta Pok) were made by extracting liquid latex from these.
What are rubber trees?
Outraged by the pregnancy, Coatlicue's children plotted to kill her, but this god of war and the sun was born fully armed to defend his mother.
Who is Huitzilopochtli?
After executing Atahualpa, Francisco Pizarro installed this teenage brother of Huascar as a puppet emperor to keep the Inca state from collapsing while the Spanish looted Cusco.
Manco Inca
The knowledge contained in the Maya codices was nearly wiped out forever when this Spanish Franciscan friar burned almost all of their books, calling them "the work of the devil."
Who is Diego de Landa?
According to folklore, a farmer must build a small house for an aluxe to protect his crops, but must seal the house shut after exactly this many years to prevent the spirit from turning mischievous.
What is seven years?
The Inca Empire relied on this mandatory public service and labor system for massive infrastructure projects, which prevented a traditional slave economy from developing.
What is the Mita system?
Intertwining life and death, Coatlicue’s statue wears a necklace made of a skull pendant and these two human body parts.
What are hearts and hands?
Originally arriving via a shipwreck in 1511, this Spanish survivor married a Maya woman, fathered children, and eventually fought alongside the Maya against the Spanish invaders.
Who is Gonzalo Guerrero?
The Codex Borgia illustrates that the four Tezcatlipoca emerged from Ometeotl, an initial entity also known by this Nahuatl term meaning the "start of movement".
What is Nahui Ollin?
Inside a cenote, divers may swim through this distinct vertical layer where fresh water meets denser salt water, causing visual distortions.
What is a Halocline?
In the Maya economic system, these specialized merchants traveled long distances to exchange luxury goods and gather political intelligence.
Who are the ppolom?
In Mexica mythology, Coatlicue became pregnant after one of these fell into her skirt while she swept the mountain of Coatepec.
What is a ball of feathers?
While the fall of the centralized Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan took about two years, the final independent Maya kingdom of Tayasal managed to resist Spanish conquest until this century.
What is the 17th century?
This famous Prussian explorer first brought the Codex Borgia to the attention of scholars when he saw it in Rome in 1805.
Who is Alexander von Humboldt?
Modern environmentalists have raised severe concerns about the destruction of cenotes—such as the "Oppenheimer" cenote in Quintana Roo—due to the ongoing construction of this controversial mega-project.
What is the Tren Maya (Maya Train)?
In the Mexica oligarchy, the supreme ruler (the Tlatoani) did not rule completely alone, but was guided by this elite advisory council made up of high-ranking pipiltin.
What is the Tlatocan?