Team Members: ____________________________________________
Block: ___________________
Americas: Trial Objectives Religious
Instructions: The following primary and secondary sources are designed to provide your legal firm with the
information needed to formulate arguments that will show that the societies you represent have met and
exceeded the challenges posed by the following four questions. Use your time wisely and provide responses with
proof that your culture has shown the best answers to these questions on earth for this time period. Be aware that
other trial teams have access to this information as well and will be looking for weaknesses in your arguments. Be
prepared to defend your assertions.
1. How does this culture meet the spiritual needs of its members?
2. What influence does religion/philosophy play on the organization and behavior of society?
3. Is religion/philosophy or spiritual development in this culture a positive influence on art, literature,
architecture, and culture in this society?
Objective: How does this culture meet the spiritual needs of its members?
1. What is the relationship between the Aztecs and their God? Is their God an omnipotent distant god or is it
interactive and personal?
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“They called themselves Teochichimeca, Azteca, Mexitin, they brought along the image of their god, the
idol that they worshipped,. The Aztecs heard him speak and they answered him; they did not see how it
was he spoke to them. And after the Aztecs, Mexitin sailed here from Aztlan, they arrived in Culhuacan,
in far-off Culhuacan, in Tona ichuacan or Tonallan, All of them journeyed far – the people of Michoacan,
kin of the Mexitin, and the people of Malinalco – for all of them came.”
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(Primary Source) The Founding of Tenochtitlan, translated from a Nahua (Aztec) Codex, The Legend of the
Suns, 1558
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Objective: What influence does religion play on the organization and behavior of society?
2. How do the Aztecs see worldly power and possessions in light of their spiritual beliefs?
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“O restless and striving king, when the time of thy death shall come, thy subjects shall be destroyed and driven
forth; they shall sink into dark oblivion. Then in thy hand shall no longer be the power and the rule, but with the
Creator, the All-powerful./ He who saw the palaces and court of the old King Tezozomoc, how flourishing and
powerful was his sway, may see them now dry and withered; it seemed as if they should last forever, but all that
the world offers is illusion and deception, as everything must end and die./ Sad and strange it is to see and reflect
on the prosperity and power of the old and dying King Tezozomoc; watered with ambition and avarice, he grew
like a willow tree rising above the grass and flowers of spring, rejoicing for a long time, until at length, withered
and decayed, the storm wind of death tore him from his roots, and dashed him in fragments to the ground…”
(Primary Source) Nezahualcoyotl, ruler of Texcoco, late 15th century, one of his poems; His father, Ixtlilxochitl,
had been deprived of his possessions and put to death by Tezozomoc, King of the Tepanecas, and until the
death of the latter at an advanced age in 1427, Nezahualcoyotl could make but vain efforts to restore the
power of his family.
Objective: What influence does religion/philosophy play on the organization and behavior of society?
3. To many westerners the Americans seemed to be worshipping idols. According to this text what do those idols
represent for the Aztec people and how would they treat them?
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“With this accomplished (the creation of the sun), the gods discovered to their consternation that the new sun and
the new moon remained immobile on the edge of the sky toward the east. For four days the sun did not move,
nor did the moon. Frightened, the gods asked, “How will we be able to live? The sun does not stir?” Then they
decided to carry out a supreme sacrifice to set the sun into motion. They resolved to offer their lives so that with
the divine blood of the gods the sun would have the strength to begin its journey through the universe. “Let us all
die and make it resuscitate through our deaths,” they said. And this is what was done, so that each of them gave
his blood to give motion to the sun. Afterward, from the clothing that the dead gods left, and with their jade
jewels and snake and jaguar skins, their worshipers made bundles that were given the name of the late gods. And
henceforth, these objects were revered as if they were the gods themselves who had sacrificed themselves at
Teotihuacan.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
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Objective: What influence does religion/philosophy play on the organization and behavior of society?
4. How did the Aztec people see their role in the maintenance of the universe? What actions on their part were
required to achieve this?
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5. How did the Aztec religion influence their interactions with surrounding cultures? )
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“But the sacrifice of the gods was not enough to satisfy the new sun’s thirst for blood. That is why humans,
following the example of the gods, had to sacrifice themselves. This divine need gave rise to war, which has as its
purpose obtaining victims for the sun sacrifice. One chronicle says that even before the Fifth Sun was born, the
gods had instituted war so that the sun that was to reign in that age would have many hearts. According to this
chronicle, when the world was still in darkness, the gods resolved to make “a sun that illuminated the earth
and…this sun ate hearts and drank blood, and for this (it was necessary) for them to create war where hearts and
blood could be had.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
Objective: How does this culture meet the spiritual needs of its people?
6. In what ways does the religion of the Aztecs and other Americans provide for the peace of mind and sense of
purpose of the people in this society?
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“Paul Kirchhoff wrote, ‘Ancient Mexico is a world of order, in which everything and everybody has his proper
place…it is also a world that terrifies us because of its universality…These cultures did not know chaos.’
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
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Objective: How does this culture meet the spiritual needs of its people?
7. Describe the relationship the people of Mexico see themselves as having with the world around them.
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“The cosmogonic myth that we have been considering is the model of that order, an order that, for the purpose of
creating harmony and unity between space, time, nature, and the social world, integrated all of these parts into a
system or universal model governed by sacred principles…the significance of the cosmogonic creation is to avert
chaos and establish order. Creation is an ordering of the universe, a placing and a definition of its components, in
such fashion that beginning then each of its parts occupies a precise place in the universal order with defined
attributes and functions. The separation of the heaven and earth places: in the lower feminine, world those
generative forces of nature and in the upper, heavenly, masculine world those fecundating forces, although in
both sectors, as in the essential duality, malefic powers also dwell. Thus, beginning with the act of creation until
the disappearance of the Fifth Sun, the world will be conceived as an essential duality – heaven and earth, above
and below, light and darkness, masculine and feminine, life and death – that repeats the duality that originate it:
Tonacatecuhtli – Tonacihuatl.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
Objective: Is religion/philosophy or spiritual development in this culture a positive influence on art, literature,
architecture, and culture in this society?
8. How did the religious beliefs of the Mayan people lead to a cultural flourishing? What were the results?
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“Religion was the cohesive force in an increasingly stratified society and the hierarchy of priests commanded the
power to exact both labor and tribute from the masses. It was a time of great vigor, with the proliferation of crafts
and skills necessary to provide for complex communities. The leadership was dedicated to a sense of order and
progress, made possible by an apparently strict adherence to regimentation. Pressures to provide sustenance for a
burgeoning population led to more careful consideration of planting cycles, which in turn produced exact
calculations of the seasons. Consequently there developed a very sophisticated knowledge of astronomy and
mathematics, which made possible precise calendrical markings. The Maya devised the world’s most accurate
calendar. Farming became scientific; abstract thinking soared. The intellectuals in ancient Middle America may
have arrived at the revolutionary concept of zero cipher even before its discovery by the fifth-century Hindus. Not
until A.D. 1202 did Arab mathematicians introduce this concept to Europe.”
(Secondary Source) The Course of Mexican History, Michael C. Meyer, 5 th Edition, Oxford University Press,
1995
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Objective: What influence does religion/philosophy play on the organization and behavior of society?
9. How did the religion legitimize political power in the Americas? Did this ensure stability in the society?
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“Among the uses that the Mesoamerican peoples gave to the past, the use of historical memory stands out as an
instrument for legitimizing power, sanctioning the established order, and inculcating in the governed the values
that oriented the rulers’ actions. This use of the past was very oppressive in that the ruling classes enjoyed a
monopoly of power, such that the historical discourse this group produced was not only exclusive, but also
imposed in an authoritarian fashion on the rest of the population.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
Objective: What influence does religion/philosophy play on the organization and behavior of society?
10. How did the Mesoamericans use religious education to create a sense of order from the events of history?
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“Another constant of these societies was the use of the prestige of remote civilizations to serve the ends of the
present domination. The Mexicas, for example, while they systematically erased the memory that brought to mind
their obscure origins or modified the events that opposed the political image that they sought to inculcate, also
recovered the mythic tradition of Toltec dominance and converted it into an antecedent and cultural basis for
their own dominance. As Van Zantwijk has shown, the Mexicas specialized in what he calls “ancestor borrowing,”
and through this strategy they appropriated first the prestigious Toltec past and later the past of Teotihuacan and
of other peoples.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
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Objective: How does this civilization meet the spiritual needs of its members?
11. What aspects of nature do the Aztec gods represent? How do these gods reflect the values of the Aztec
people?
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12. What roles were humans given by the gods at the beginning of creation? How would this influence
Mesoamerican views of their roles in society?
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“After six hundred years of inactivity, Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli began the creation of the world. They
created fire and the sun, but not a whole sun, just a half sun that illuminated very little. They also created a man
and a woman and entrusted him to cultivate the land and her to spin and weave. From Oxomuco and Cipactonal,
the first human couple, was born the generation of the macehuales, who had to be watched by the gods so that
they did not stop working. Simultaneously, they created the underworld, with its gods Mictlantecuhtli and
Mictecacihuatl, and also the skies and the water, in which there was a lizardlike” Cipactli, from which the earth
came forth. The gods also created the god of water, Tlaloc, and his mate, Chalchiuhtlicue, along with numerous
tlaloques, demigods that helped them spill the waters over the land.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
(Use the text and the images on the next two pages to research these questions.)
Objective: Is religion/philosophy or spiritual development in this culture a positive influence on art, literature,
architecture, and culture in this society?
13. How did the construction of cities in the Mesoamerican world reflect the concept of creation in their religion?
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“The Mexicas took this conception to the extreme, as they made the space on earth and the social order an
exact replica of the cosmic order. In the same fashion as Mexica vertical space (heavens, earth, underworld)
reproduced the vertical division of cosmic space, thus also did horizontal space reflect, like a mirror, the four
directions of cosmic space, integrated to a center that articulated all the directions, gods, and forces. The greater
space, that which constituted the terrestrial extension of the so-called Mexica Empire, was divided into four great
region divided up along the four cardinal points and united by a center, or fifth region: Mexico-Tenochtitlan. In
this manner, the conquered territories were assimilated into the archetypal cosmic order and integrated into a
new spatial and religious distribution.
The founding and later spatial division of Tenochtitlan also repeat with great accuracy the organizational
principles of cosmic space: ‘in the center of what was to be the city was erected the temple to Huitzilopochtli, and
in it were joined the vertices of the four major divisions (nauh) campan (or wards) called Moyotlan, Teopan,
Atzacualco, and Cuepopan,’ distributed along the four cosmic points of the Codex Mendocino. The central part of
this quadripartite division of urban space was the sacred area of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, in the center of which the
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Templo Mayor was raised. Counting this center, urban space adopted the same form and division as the cosmic
surface: a square cut into a cross, in whose center was the navel of the universe.
The calpullis, or smallest territorial units, were distributed in the four large segments into which the city was
divided. According to one author, these totaled twenty, as twenty was the number of tributary provinces of the
empire. Recent studies have demonstrated that the calpullis were organized around temples, gods, and social
groups distributed in the four principal segments that divided the city.”
(Secondary Source) Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, Enrique Florescano. University of Texas Press, Austin
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The quadripartite division of space and the four directions of the universe. (Primary Source) Codex FejervaryMayer, plate 1.
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(Primary Source) Codex Mendocino, plate 1.
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(Primary Source) Hernan Cortes, Map of Tenochtitlan, 1524.
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(Use the images on the next page as well.)
Objective: Is religion/philosophy or spiritual development in this culture a positive influence on art, literature,
architecture, and culture in this society?
14. How did the Mesoamerican religion promote artistic and architectural expression?
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Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of the earth, wore a skirt made out of snakes and a necklace of human hearts. She
was usually portrayed with clawed hands and feet. This monumental statue of Coatlicue measures more than 8
feet tall.
- Chac-mool, Chichen Itza
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Artist Recreation, Teotihuacan (top) – Artist Recreation, Tenochtitlan, Diego Rivera, (bottom)
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Name: ________________________________
Block: _____________________________________
Trial preparation: Now that you have explored the basic outlines of the American religous systems it is time for your law firm to construct a
series of answers that will be used in the trials. For each question you must construct an opening statement that you will present to the court.
Include aspects of all of the societies you represent and then list specific examples you will use in your rebuttals during the trials. Divide the
topics between your legal team. Each of you will use the research from today to construct opening arguments. These opening arguments are
required by the beginning of the next class day. Teams that do not submit opening arguments will not be qualified to move on to the next research
topic and will be given the essay topics.
1. How does this culture meet the spiritual needs of its members?
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Evidence: Cite the source and summarize the evidence
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b.
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c.
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d.
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e.
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Name: _____________________________________
Block: ____________________________
2. What influence does religion/philosophy play on the organization and behavior of society?
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Evidence: Cite the source and summarize the evidence
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c.
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Name: ________________________________________
Block:__________________________
3. Is religion/philosophy or spiritual development in this culture a positive influence on art, literature,
architecture, and culture in this society?
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Evidence: Cite the source and summarize the evidence
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b.
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