Mayas Vs. Incas

11 Pages 2847 Words

“Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall,” a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright. The Mayan and the Incan cultures were very different from one another. Who are the Incan people and the Mayan people and how did they relate and differ from each other?

The Mayan empire was located in Mexico and Central America. The Maya area is situated in the southeastern part of Meso-America, which is also the most diverse land in the world. The Mayan civilization contained all of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the present-day Mexico, and parts of the present-day Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

There are two natural settings in the land of the Maya, highlands and lowlands. Volcanoes dominate the Mayan highlands, both extinct and active. This land curves down from southeastern Chipas towards lower Central America.

Rain and erosion have made a rough landscape, with deep ravines, and there are few broad valleys. The highland vegetation is closely related to the soils and topography. On the tops of the slopes and ridges, pines and grasses grow. But down in the ravines where there’s moisture, oaks dominate.

In the family life, immediately after birth, the babies’ parents went to consult with a priest to learn the destiny of their child and the name it was to have until baptism. The young men stayed apart from their families and they lived special houses where they learned about war. Girls were brought up by their mothers and suffered harsh punishments for the loss of their chastity.

Marriages were arranged and there were strict rules about with whom an agreement could or couldn’t be formed with. Monogamy was general, but adultery was punished by death.

In the government, political power over much of the Mayan area was in Mexican or Mexican- influenced control. Small towns were headed by t...