As someone who is quite ignorant of Mesoamerican mythology, how similar are Aztecs to Incas or Mayans? Do they share a lot of common mythology (similar to Greek vs Roman) or is it likely that at least one could be a separate civ addition? If so, which one would the best candidate? Why?
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Aztec and the Maya are similar in terms of their customs and architecture. But the Inca are quite distant and their customs are a bit more different. Their mythology is very different, but there are quite a bit of passing similarities. The coastal Inca people had a different mythology from the Inca tribes that lived in the mountains as well.
Mayans were the only ones with a writing system out of the three. Aztecs had no writing system but they had colourful calendar books that depicted stories. Inca had neither. They all practised human sacrifices and blood rituals.
All the cultures had mummies but the way they preserved the bodies was quite different.
In most of their creation myths the humanity is created in multiple stages, and gods use different resources such wood, mud or maize to create them. They all have colourful flying serpents.Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Amaru. They feature gods or heroes who are twins, which is a common motif across all of America.
The number 400 shows up both in Aztec and the Maya mythology. In both mythologies there are 400 boys, or 400 celestial warriors that are killed by a single entity.
Sadly most of the Mayan mythology is lost. Their creation myth and the story of the hero twins is all that we have left. From there we can see that Cipactli and Zipacna are similar characters.
I would argue that their mythology is quite different. The giant Bat God Camazotz was quite big in the Mayan cosmology but he had no direct counterpart in the Aztec or the Incan culture. There is an obscure Aztec Bat got, but I have only ever seen one website mention that.
Outside of Quetzalcoatl, there aren’t many direct god counterparts. Some of them share the qualities of Tlaloc and Tezcatlipoca but they are not identical.
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Incas are not mesoamerican
Incas is as close to the aztecs as 3-4 times the distance from eggy to mesopotamia or egyptians and greeks they are not civilizations that branched from the same culture, they are quite different in culture, achivements, landscape, civiliation.
Mayans would be although still different, far closer.
Across Indo-European pagans as well.
For one, they’re from three distinct ethno-linguistic groups. Aztecs and Mayas are similar due to contact, Incas had none with either of them.
The Aztecs also used a script, but it is debated whether it was a “full” writing system.
While the Inca had no script, they used knotted cords to record information, called quipu.
I’m curious who everyone would prefer if they were working on a second complementary civ like they did with China and Japan.
Who would you prefer as a potential other Civ?
- Mayans
- Incas
- Neither, they are too similar
- Neither, I would prefer another type of Civ entirely
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