Europeans arriving in the 1500s met diverse native customs and economies. Most local native cultures predate Incas by centuries or millennia. In northern desert canyons sedentary Aymara farmers cultivated maize in transverse valleys irrigated by rivers descending from the Andes Mountains. At higher elevations they grew potatoes and tended llamas and alpacas. Atacameno to the south beyond the Rio Loa, people practiced a similar livelihood, while fisherfolk Chango occupied the coast from Arica to the Rio Choapa, south of La Serena. Diaguita Indians inhabited this region's interior, drained by the Copiapo, Huasco and Elqui Rivers. Inca rule barely touched Chile's Central Valley and southern forest, where Araucamian (Picunche and Mapuche) Indians fiercely resisted northern incursion. Picunche lived in permanent agricultural settlements while Mapuche, shifting cultivation, were more mobile and thus more difficult for Incas and Spaniards to subdue. Groups closely related to Mapuche - Pehuenches, Huilliches and Puelches - lived in the southern lake district, on Chiloe island and along the shores of the gulf of Renocavi. Cunco Indians fished and farmed. Late 1800s European descendants established permanent residence beyond Rio Biobio. South of Chile's mainland numerous small Indian populations hunted and fished - Chomos, Qawashgar (Alaculfes), Tehuelches, Yamana (Yahgans), and Onas (Selkum) Isolated archipelago tribes long avoiding European contact are now nearly extinct.
Maya
Maya, dating to the Mam protocommunity (2500 BC), is a major Mesoamerican culture. 2 million descendants of historic Maya live today in the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, and Tabasco and Chiapas, Mexico. Pre-Colombian Maya were called Sorcerers and People of the Jaguar. Mayan realms once covered 125,000 square miles, their domain divided into northern and southern lowlands, southern highlands and northern, southern and central regions. The Northern lowlands encompassed the upper part of Yucatan Peninsula, including Campeche and Quintana Roo, a flat, tropical plain broken by a series of hills. The Usumacinta, the Pasion and other rivers drain southern lowlands in the lower Yucatan Peninsula, receiving more rain than their northern neighbors. This region includes the pacific littoral of Guatemala and El Salvador with lagoons, tidal estuaries and alluvial plains. Chontal, Chol, Chorti and Lacandon Maya established realms here. In time it was considered the cultural heart of the entire Maya world. Chichen Itza represented preHispanic Yucatan village life.
Maya Sea Traders
Never believing in the Americas Columbus calculated his 4 Caribbean voyages as sailing through the Indies, absolutely certain Asia and a lucrative spice and silk trade lay beyond the next island. July 1502 Columbus met a group of Maya sea traders on the Bay Islands off Honduras' coast. Maya, looking more civilized than Indians Columbus saw earlier, wore brilliantly colored capes covering their bodies in a modest Christian fashion. They traveled in canopied canoes as long as Spanish galleys and piled high with textiles, grains, hatchets, cacao beans, fermented liquor and money in the form of copper bells. Columbus had finally met people of wealth and culture. Columbus dismissed what should have been a momentous day, uninterested in discovering the unknown. The Navigator knew where he was going. 1521 Spain first drifted into Maya territory from Panama after their ship struck a reef en route to Santo Domingo. 17 passengers and crew drifted in an open boat to Yucatan's coast. Captured by Maya, only Brother Jeronimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero survived. By the time conquistadors arrived Brother Jeronimo was praying for release for the savages and Gonzalo Guerrera was leading Maya warriors against his own people. 6 years after the castaways washed ashore Spain's first military expedition, led by Fernando Hernandez, landed on Cape Catoche at the tip of Yucatan Peninsula.
Tarahumara
Tarahumara live in harsh, magnificent gorges of Sierra Madre Occidental. 50,000 live in the region surrounding Barranca del Cobre and Barranca de Urique in the southwestern corner of Chihuahua in Mexico. Their rugged homeland covers 13,500 square miles of mountains, gouged by torrents of Rio Fuente and Rio Conchos. Tarahumara live along tributaries of these rivers, often in caves, farming canyon tops most of the year, descending with their sheep and goats to the semi-tropical floors in winter. Related to Apaches, Tarahumara call themselves Raramuri, running people, from their legendary ability to sprint barefoot up rocky mountainsides, often spurred by copious consumption of tesquino, a potent corn-beer. Respect for the individual is their greatest belief, to which links a unique certainty in their control over time, an intense spirituality and conviction of life after death. Long isolated, reserved, disdainful of civilization, and in close touch with the land, they developed strong telepathic powers. This inborn mystical curve incorporates peyote into rituals. Peyotic creations: Primordial role of the Huichol shaman (maarkame) only he can communicate directly with gods. Sucre was the first Spanish seat of government after defeating the Incas. Inca suspension bridge links 500-year-old roads. Carrancas figureheads protect boats from evil spirits. Swift runners kept the Inca empire together, averaging several miles an hour for many miles, carrying knotted cord records.
1780 - 1782 Indian uprising to drive out all Europeans.