ZAPOTECAS religion and social organization

The Zapotec They are one of the Mesoamerican cultures that less we usually comment when talking about the history of the region, being a region with less relevance than the Mayans or Aztecs, but still being key to understanding the Mesoamerican world. To talk about the Zapotecs and know part of their relevance in this lesson from a PROFESSOR, we must talk about the Zapotec religion and social organization.

The Zapotec civilization It is a pre-Columbian civilization because it had its time of greatest splendor before the arrival of the Europeans. Its stage of greatest influence varies a lot depending on the sources that we consult, speaking some of a origin about 2500 years ago, while other historians place it closer to 800 BC. C. but the sources do not allow us to know for sure its true influence.

To get to know the Zapotecs in depth, we must talk about some of their features, although due to the nature of the lesson we will only talk about general characteristics and, later, those related to religion and society. Some main characteristics of the Zapotecs are as follows:

1. They were believers in nature, so much of their religion and myths were related to nature.
2. Sacrifices were a very common thing, being used especially to win the favor of the gods.
3. There were funerals and other rites about death.
4. His religion was polytheistic so it was based on the existence of many gods.
5. The art It was very important in the Zapotec culture and most sources seem to show the existence of a strong Olmec influence.
6. The Zapotecs possessed more than ten languages different, being something that makes it very difficult to decipher the few sources we have about them.

Like any other mesoamerican culture, the religion of the Zapotecs had a series of beliefs that were key to understanding the importance and relevance of much of their culture. In this class of pre-Columbian peoples it is impossible to divide religion and the rest of the characteristics of the population due to the importance of beliefs.

To understand the religion of the Zapotecs, the simplest and most interesting way is to list their features, through which we can know the main key elements of the Zapotec religion. The main characteristics of the Zapotec mythology are as follows:

• The Zapotec religion was polytheistic, so his pantheon had many different gods.
• The nature It was a key factor in Zapotec society, so it was common for myths and gods to represent key elements of nature.
• The sacrifices As in other Mesoamerican cultures, they were common in the Zapotec religion, serving to ask the gods for things.
• Numerous have been found buildings and sculptures that were used to represent the gods of the Zapotecs.
• As was common in Mesoamerican peoples, there were gods of other cultures like the Mayan or Olmec that also existed in the Zapotec beliefs, although in most cases with a small name change.
• Animals were very important in the Zapotec religion, there are gods represented by animals and in some cases the deities are hybrid beings between human beings and animals.
• Similar to certain ancient peoples, the Zapotecs sometimes associated animals to newborn children, as a kind of protective totem.

To continue with this lesson on Zapotec religion and social organization, we must talk about the Different social classes existing in the Zapotec people to understand the social organization of this culture.

The first thing we must understand about the Zapotec culture is that they were a theocratic society, so the great figures of power were highly related to religion, the priests occupying positions of power and the kings and other leaders being people united to the gods.

Zapotec society had two large groups very differentiated, which were differentiated by having enormous differences in privileges between both and because it is, therefore, almost impossible to switch from one group to another during the life of a Zapotec.

Upper classes of the Zapotecs

The first group that encompasses the upper classes was formed by priests, merchants and military, being very interesting that the merchants are at such a high level as it is not the usual thing in the towns of the time.

Regarding his order, we can say that his influence was in the form of a kind of pyramid, being the priests the most important being a theocratic society, just below the nobles that formed the group of the merchants and finally the military, being the armed force of Zapotec society, but since they were not a warlike people, they were not so important.

Zapotec lower classes

The lower classes or second group consisted of peasants, hunters, goldsmiths and weavers, following a pyramidal shape depending on the greater or lesser importance of their trades. The Zapotec training based on hunting and gathering made peasants and hunters more important than weavers or artisans.

The slaves

Lower down, and outside the groups, were the slaves, being people who did not consider themselves Zapotecs and who on many occasions ended up being sacrificed to the gods. Most of them were either prisoners of war or Zapotecs who had committed serious crimes.