140 UNIT 1 PREHISPANIC MESOAMERICA
We will now briefly examine a sample of the most important peripheral zones of
the Mesoamerican world-system, beginning with Northwest Mexico (see the map in
Figure 3.1).Northwest Mexico Periphery. Northwest Mexico was an area rich in resources of
interest to the Mesoamerican core peoples, especially its copper, gold, and silver;
turquoise and other precious stones; cotton; seashells; aquatic birds; salt; peyote;
and other desert flora and fauna. These valuable raw materials were extracted and
processed by peripheral peoples in the Northwest and were exchanged for
manufactured goods coming from the core zones of Mesoamerica. The raw
materials were concentrated in two main areas of the Northwest: one along the
Pacific Coast, the other along the eastern flanks of the Sierra Madre mountains.
At the time of Spanish contact, the peoples who extracted and processed the
raw materials were concentrated in greater numbers along the coast than on the
eastern side of the mountains. They were generally organized as polities that were
transitional between chiefdoms and city-states, and shared many Mesoamerican cul-
tural features. Their closest ties to a core zone were probably with West Mexico and
the Tarascan empire. Trade with the Aztec empire and other Central Mexico core
states may have been partly impeded along the coast by the Tarascans, but it con-
tinued to operate fully along the Sierra Madre route.
The most powerful city-states of the Northwest area were in the southern part,
in what are today the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Nayarit. Most of the peo-
ples there spoke languages related to Nahuatl. City-states like Tonalan (Guadalajara)
and Cazcan were relatively large and highly militaristic. They could take to the bat-
tlefield with several thousand warriors and may have built urbanlike towns occupied
by up to 10,000 inhabitants. They shared several “advanced” Mesoamerican features
such as copper hoes, obsidian-blade swords, markets, and public buildings and houses
constructed of stone. Their religious pantheons featured familiar Mesoamerican
deities, and human sacrifice and cannibalism were part of the ritual system.
The city-states under discussion received strong military and economic pressure
from the Tarascan empire just to the south, and many of the previously mentioned
Mesoamerican features may have been responses to Tarascan meddling. The Taras-
cans no doubt found ways to drain off the scarce goods produced in the area, espe-
cially cotton, metals (gold, silver, copper), salt, honey, and cacao. The southern part
of the Northwest periphery, then, was rather directly dominated by the Tarascan core
state.
City-states farther to the north, such as Chametla, Aztatlan, and Culiacan, were
made up of peoples speaking Cora and Cahita languages, both close relatives of the
Nahuatl language. These peoples probably had limited direct contact with the Taras-
cans, and therefore they were perhaps more influenced by indirect means from other
Mesoamerican core zones. Apparently, they traded with the core societies of Central
Mexico, as suggested by the polychrome ceramics and copper and gold ornaments
fashioned within the Central Mexico art style found at archaeological sites in the
area. Although these polities were smaller than the ones southward, some of the mil-