EMPIRES CHILDREN: THE PEOPLE OF TZINTZUNTZAN — FOSTER 



Aramen and Zetaco, were drunkards and unfit 

 to rule, the priests took charge of Tariacuri, 

 still just a boy, and educated and advised him 

 during his youth until he was able to take over 

 the kingship. Tariacuri spent a large part of 

 his life fighting his enemies, including the Az- 

 tecs, and enlarging the kingdom. By many he 

 is considered to be the father of the Tarascan 

 Empire. Apparently he lived during the last 

 years of the 14th or the first years of the 15th 

 century. After his death the kingdom was divid- 

 ed between the two sons of his older drunken 

 cousins and his own son. Hiripan, the son of 

 Zetaco, took the kingdom of Cuyacan (Ihuat- 

 zio). His own son, Hiqugage, took Patzcuaro, 

 and Tangaxoan, son of Aramen, took Tzintzun- 

 tzan including the islands of the lake. The close 

 geographical proximity of these three towns 

 — Patzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan, the most distant, 

 are only 16 km. apart — shows how minute the 

 kingdom was at this time. These rulers success- 

 fully made war on their neighbors, and as trib- 

 ute took the first gold and silver which they 

 had ever seen, believing it to be excrement of 

 the golden sun and the silver moon respectively. 

 Rather than divide it up, it was guarded in Cu- 

 yacan as a national treasure until moved to 

 Tzintzuntzan and ultimately discovered and car- 

 ried away by the conquerer Olid. 



During the reign of Zizispandaquare, son of 

 Tangaxoan, the kingdom was reunited and Tzin- 

 tzuntzan made the capital city. The god Curi- 

 caveri was brought there from Cuyacan, as was 

 the national treasure, part of which was distrib- 

 uted among the islands of the lake for safe 

 keeping. At this time the empire seems to have 

 reached its greatest expansion. The son of Zi- 

 zispandaquare, Zuangua, successfully stood off 

 assaults of the Aztecs, but already the sands of 

 time were running out for the Tarascans, and 

 for all the Indians of the New World. For dur- 

 ing his last days the Spaniards arrived in Mex- 

 ico, and his weak son Tangaxoan, or Zincicha, 

 was to be the last of the Tarascan rulers. 



Although this entire account, as abstracted 

 from the Relacion, cannot be accepted entirely 

 at face value, it seems reasonably certain that 

 from the time of Tariacuri, the kings listed were 

 historical persons. Likewise it is apparent that 

 the Tarascan Empire, as a large political unit, 

 was a phenomenon of only a few years before 



the conquest of Mexico. The parallel, both in 

 time and form, to the creation of the Aztec 

 Empire is striking. In both cases barbaric in- 

 vaders conquered sedentary peoples with a high 

 level of culture, which they learned and adopt- 

 ed as their own. 



PRE-CONQUEST ETHNOGRAPHY 



ETYMOLOGY 



In their own language the Tarascans refer to 

 themselves as Purepecha. The etymology of the 

 word Tarascan is disputed. The most common 

 explanation is that, following Spanish practice, 

 the conquistadores took Indian women as wives 

 and concubines, and were called tarascue, "son- 

 in-law," by the fathers of the girls. Thinking 

 that the term was the name of the tribe, the 

 Spaniards referred to all as Tarascos. 



ECONOMIC LIFE 



At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, 

 the Tarascans had abandoned their former no- 

 madic and hunting ways and had adopted the 

 agricultural life which had no doubt flourished 

 in Michoacan long before their arrival. Large 

 villages and towns existed, some relatively new, 

 such as Tzintzuntzan, and others much older, 

 such as tliat on the island of Jaracuaro. The 

 fact that most of the villages extant at the time 

 of the Conquest exist to the present day, many 

 still bearing the ancient names, indicates that a 

 nice balance between land and population had 

 been worked out. Towns were divided into ba- 

 rrios, or wards, though the fact that Patzcuaro, 

 16 km. away, is given as a barrio of Tzintzun- 

 tzan, reveals that the barrios were in fact sep- 

 arate settlements. The form of houses is not 

 certain; recent studies indicate that the typical 

 wooden shake-roofed house of the sierra is post- 

 Spanish, as are certainly tiles on adobe houses 

 in other parts of the region (Beals et al., 1944). 

 Reconstructing from the chronicles it seems 

 probable that most houses in the high country, 

 that is, the true Tarascan country as against 

 the conquered tierra caliente, were rectangular, 

 of mud or adobe, and with gabled thatched roofs 

 of four slopes. Windows appear to have been 

 lacking. The haphazard arrangement of houses 

 which is found to this day in remote Indian 

 villages probably characterized Tarascan towns. 



