Written accounts include:
SimplicityCandorBetter form of governmentSocial hierarchy
Popul Vuh language and alphabet
Quiche language, Roman alphabet
Popul Vuh timeline
from Mayan creation to Spanish Conquest of 1530s.
Popul Vuh religious roots
blend of Christianity and Mayan myth
Heart of Sky (kind)
tripartite god
Heart of Sky (components)
Thunderbolt Hurricane, Newborn Thunderbolt, and Sudden Thunderbolt
Brings the earth into formation from the waters
God's speech
Seven Macaw
eats the fruit of the Nance tree
Competition and sport
demonstrate heroic valor and honor
Popul Vuh considered..
.
"council book"
Popul Vuh recounts...
creation story using common epic literary motifs
First epic literary motif
Agricultural allusions (creator carefully measures and stakes the earth just as a farmer preparing cornfields)
Second epic literary motif
Etiological myths: (IV.
animals bring news of yellow and white corn from Split Place. Grains become ingredients to manufacture human flesh)
Huarochiri Manuscript
Details Andeah (Inca) conquest when Spaniards arrived and established Christianity.
Huarochiri Manuscript talked about:
cannibalism, difficulty in agriculture, mapping of Huacas, and sacrifice of villages for revealing information to Spaniards.
Absence of
weaponry
Tabula rasa
clean slate ready to be imprinted with Christianity and European ways.
Natives' reaction
timid, generous, grateful
Pero Vaz de Caminha
Captain of first Portuguese expedition to reach Brazil
Pero Vaz de Caminha describes
trade: voyager's old hat for worthless green stone from native's mouth piercing
Hernan Cortes
came to Aztec Empire and took Moctezuma II prisoner
Hernan Cortes acts as
police tyrant
Bartolome de las Casas participated in
conquests of Hispaniola and Cuba
Encomienda
a system designed to offer legal protection, religious instruction, and a small wage to Indians placed in the care of a Spaniard
Failure of encomienda
devolved into abusive, forced labor, just short of slavery
Bartolome de las Casas worked to reform:
worked to reform encomienda
Seeing violence caused Bartolome de las Casas to
conversion and political activism
Bartolome de las Casas became
first priest ordained in New World
