calendar keeping; by educating their
young not only in food preparation and
fishing, but also in sculpting, painting,
and writing detailed histories, in the form
of pictographs, or picture writing.
Aztec society was highly stratified,
with masses of slaves and commoners serv-
ing a small elite group of priests, warriors,
and other nobles. Trade thrived in city
markets, supported by the labor of farming
villages. The Aztec worshiped many gods,
including Huitzilopochtli, the sun and war
god; Coyolxauhqui, the moon goddess;
Tlaloc, the rain god; and Quetzalcoatl, the
feathered serpent god associated with
death and resurrection. Human sacrifice
was central to Aztec religion, with slaves
and prisoners of war regularly killed on the
altar block as offerings.
The Aztec were not the only people
whom the Spanish encountered in Mexico
and Central America. The Aztec empire
consisted of a diverse and sometimes tense
collection of 300 city-states, and there
were many rival states outside the empire,such as the Tarascan empire, as well as an
assortment of Mayan states. Other peoples
of the region included the Mixtec, known
for their metalwork and stonework; the
Zapotec; the Yaqui; and the Pipil.The Inca
Another advanced civilization encoun-
tered by the Spanish was that of the Inca
in the central Andes Mountains of South
America. As with the Aztec in
Mesoamerica, the Inca benefited from the
arts and sciences of their predecessors in
the region, including the Chavín,
Tiahuanico, Mouche, Nazca, Aymara, and
Chimú peoples. About a.d.1200, the Inca,
who spoke Quechua, settled in the valley
of Cuzco in what is now Peru. In the 15th
century, they established an empire
around Cuzco and swiftly expanded it
until it stretched more than 2,500 miles
from north to south and 500 miles from
east to west. Encompassing parts of10 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
Expansion of the Inca Empire, 1470–