These are the stories of how the world began. They are the origin myths of four precolumbian civilizations: the Taíno, the Aztec of Mexico, the Maya of Guatemala, and the Inca of ancient Peru. Aspects of these stories will be familiar to you if you have grown up in the judeo-christian or muslim religions. There are lost sons, floods, paradise lost, and epic battles between gods and spirits. 

The Taíno were the native people of the carribean. They were the first to encounter European invaders and were the first in the new world to be largely eradicated by them. Many Taino were unwilling to serve as slaves and in some cases fled by canoe to neighboring islands, often hundreds of miles away. In other cases they committed mass suicide by leaping from cliffs or drinking poison. Why were the Taino willing to sacrifice their lives and the lives of their children for their principles? 

In the Taino religion, God did not create heaven or earth. He lived in a hut in a place before time. Above him, hung the bones of his dead son until one day, hungry spirits crept in to steal the power of the bones. But hungry and shaky, the spirits knocked the bones from the place they hung and broke them on the floor of God’s hut. From inside them, the sea and all the creatures of the earth spilled out. 

About 2000 years ago the Taíno still lived in the rain forests along the carribean coast of south america. They were prodigious hunters and fishers and were acutely aware that the numbers of the plants and animals were as important as their own. In order to avoid over harvesting, the children each tribe were required to leave their homes and create their own communities elsewhere. God himself had had to make this sacrifice and killed his own son when he shamed his family and returned to the village. 

Inevitably, they ran out of room and it was the exiled sons and daughters of these tribes who became the Taíno. 

The Aztec was a thriving civilization at the time of european invasion in 1517. However they quickly became vulnerable after the introduction of foreign diseases. They were also terrifically unpopular due to their taxation of local tribes, notably, their required tribute of human sacrifices. As a result, the Europeans were able to conquer the aztecs with minimal effort. If the Aztecs had known that their actions would cause their extinction would they still have chosen to sacrifice people from neighboring tribes? Listen to their creation myth and decide for yourlself. 

The Mayan civilization had highly developed traditions of science and art. It reached its peak in the sixth century AD but most of the cities had been abandoned by 900AD. There is still significant debate about the cause of this exodus, but by the time the Europeans arrives most of the maya were living in agrarian villages instead of grand stone cities. Did the maya believe that something like this could happen to them? Based on their creation myth, what do you think?

The Inca empire was the largest of the precolombian civilizations and in many ways the most sophisticated and similar to most modern governments. Conquest was a significant part of their culture, which accounts for the size and wealth of their empire. Why did the Inca believe that they had the right to conquer foreign people?