CHAPTER 3 THE MESOAMERICAN WORLD AT SPANISH CONTACT 147other Mesoamerican peoples in trade, political alliance, and warfare. In short, they
formed part of the southeastern periphery of Mesoamerica.
The Nicaraos were clearly tied into the Mesoamerican world-system. Many of
their cultural features—such as the 260-day calendar system, elaborate pantheon of
deities, and ritual human sacrifices—were virtually identical to their Aztec counter-
parts. Cultural similarities of this kind with the rest of Mesoamerica would not have
been possible without continuing interaction between the Nicaraos and the core
units of the larger Mesoamerican world. This conclusion is confirmed by maps shown
to the Spanish conquistadors that portrayed routes used by Aztec and Putun mer-
chants who traveled all the way down to “Nicaragua” in order to engage in trade. In-
deed, the Nicaraos had well-developed markets, where the most important
Mesoamerican preciosities circulated, including cacao money. The Nicaraos traded
with merchants from the Mesoamerican core states, most likely in international trade
centers located along the Pacific Coast.
As noted before, the Nicarao and Chorotega societies were politically weaker
than the Pipil city-states farther to the north. Nevertheless, whether organized as
chiefdoms or states (or more likely, transitional forms between the two), both the
Nicaraos and Chorotegas had well-established tributary systems and standing war-
rior units. Furthermore, as with the core states, noble status was required for hold-
ing the highest public offices.
On the Caribbean side of lower Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, and Panama), to the east of the Pipil, Chorotega and Nicarao polities, were lo-
cated peoples who fell outside the Mesoamerican world-system. From the perspective
of Mesoamerica, they constituted its southeastern frontier. Most of these peoples
spoke Chibchan languages and were linked together into small social networks of
their own. Generally, their political organizations took the form of tribes or chief-
doms, organized largely through kinship (lineage) ties. Their elite leaders traveled
throughout the area exchanging gold and other valuable objects with one another.
As frontier peoples to Mesoamerica, they exercised some influence on that world. For
example, the Nicarao custom of chewing coca was probably borrowed from the
Chibchan frontier peoples. Nevertheless, cultural influence came mostly from
Mesoamerica to the peoples making up the Chibchan worlds of the Central Ameri-
can Isthmus, rather than vice versa.REFLECTIONS ON THE MESOAMERICAN WORLD
We began the chapter by defining the sociocultural diversity that characterized the con-
tact period expression of the Mesoamerican world. Next, we adopted a world-systems
perspective in an attempt to demonstrate that the Mesoamerican world during its
final phase had formed a political-economic network that both unified its compo-
nent parts and provided the network for its broadly shared culture (civilization).
It seems reasonable to conclude from the preceding account that, despite the
great sociocultural diversity (or perhaps in part because of it), the Mesoamerican
peoples indeed had established an integrated world-system at the time of Spanish con-
tact. Accordingly, we defined the Mesoamerican (1) core zones in which powerful