Posted on 10/09/2015 1:45:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In 1520, a Spanish-led supply convoy that may have consisted of as many as 550 people, including Cubans of African and Indian descent, women, and Indian allies of the Spaniards, was captured and taken to a town inhabited by the Aztec-allied Texcocanos, or Acolhuas. The town is now known as Zultepec-Tecoaque, an archaeological site east of Mexico City. Excavations have uncovered carved clay figurines of the invaders that the Texcocanos had symbolically decapitated. Human and animal bones with cut marks have also been found, indicating that the members of the convoy and their horses were actually sacrificed and eaten. The pigs, however, were killed and left whole. The townspeople hid the remains of the convoy in shallow wells and abandoned the town. "They heard that [Cortes] was coming for them, and what they did was hide everything. If they hadn't done that, we wouldn't have found these things," government archaeologist Enrique Martinez told the Associated Press. Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs the following year.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
Ok, thanks. No further questions at this time.
Also, interesting that you mention those rivers. While the US is huge on a map, remember that those early peoples were completely tied to those water sources (unlike later whites who irrigated massive sections of the country).
I have never been able to figure out why it is that the Basques and the Blackfoot are the two peoples with the highest rate of rh negative blood.
Central Mexico was very fertile farm land back then and could have supported a large population. A lake once existed where Mexico City is today, and many Indian kingdoms existed along its edges and irrigated from it. They even had floating gardens on the lake. They were a smart and sophisticated people, yet, they let the barbarity of the Aztecs overwhelm them. Then came Cortes!
If you get away from the rivers, the Great Plains was a nearly impossible place to live year round. The cold fronts coming down from Canada with 50 to 60 mile hour winds, which are still quite common, would have been awful out on the open prairie. Along the rivers there was at least some firewood and timber for building decent shelters. Those people must have been extremely tough to have survived with only stone age technology.
I have not heard that. However, there are some real curious facts regarding native people.
They were tough, and they had low life expectancies; that is why I am so skeptical of high population estimates for them. I’d recommend reading the original “Little House on the Prairie” books to anyone interested in getting a feel for life on the plains; unlike the TV show, it was an autobiographical story by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and you get a real understanding of the hardships suffered by the original settlers in those areas.
The descriptions of children freezing to death walking home from school due to blizzards, or remaining in the schoolhouse burning all of the furniture while they wait out the storm, are incredible...
Yes. For instance, I don’t off hand recall what the Blackfoot called themselves, but the word meant “the Blood”.
Your description is accurate. Most modern Americans would not last a season living under those conditions today. Few people have the skills and determination to do what our ancestors did. Also, the summers are hell out there on the Plains. Even in the Dakotas many 100 degree days in a row is not uncommon. Combine that with little rainfall, and it was easy to go hungry and get discouraged.
Yeah. I think the Blackfoot had several names for different bands or groups. I don’t remember the names either. It is interesting that a Blackfoot name was a reference to blood given that many have an rh factor. Ancient people seemed to understand many things that they did not have the science to understand. Just amazing.
It was about 16 X 16, and the interior was dominated by a wood cook stove, the remains of a small table, a chair, and what we would call a day bed. the walls were planks, with cardboard on the inside, probably to keep the wind out and for just a smidgin of insulation.
You could walk about three paces at most without running into something.
Now, imagine spending your winter in those quarters--granted you'd have to go out for firewood/coal/whatever you were using in the stove, and to take care of the animals, to use the privvy (if you didn't use a chamber pot--which would have its own air about it, and to get water (likely from the pond nearby). No teevee, no radio, no internet, few books aside from maybe a Bible, and little entertainment. Meanwhile, the temperature out dips to -40 and the wind howls past your abode at 30 to 40 miles per hour...day after day.
Yep, those folks were tough. No doubt about it. I salute them.
Blood works as a thickener, too, when cooking. At least from what I saw on a PBS cooking show where they were cooking colonial recipes.
The Aztecs like Spanish food.
I couldn’t imagine it; locusts devouring crops, hailstorms destroying them...
I loaned it to someone who failed to give it back to me and I forgot who that person was.
My Great Grandparents homesteaded on the Southern plains of western Oklahoma. My Dad and I located their old farm place and measured the rock foundation at 16 feet by 20 feet. Supposedly there was a half loft where the kids slept, all nine of them, and the parents bedroom was below along with the kitchen-dining area. The two hole outhouse was out behind the house somewhere, but my Granddad said a pee bucket was kept upstairs and downstairs during winter. Drinking water came from a nearby creek and a cistern that the family dug. They raised most of their own food, mainly hogs, chickens, and garden vegetables. Each kid got one new pair of shoes per year, and each kid started working off the farm at 14 or so, often staying week nights at the places they hired out to. What a life!
I have read that a higher than average number of people went crazy out on the Plains. It is not hard to see how that could be true.
Now, kids can't run the french fry machine...
No wonder things are so messed up.
“Cabin Fever” happens. I can see why, and that is where real toughness comes in. Being literate and having even a Bible to read would make a major difference.
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