This document discusses the origins and cosmology of Native American civilizations. It describes how the Olmec, who flourished between 1500-300 BCE, were considered the "Mother Civilization" and built pyramids and aligned structures to the movements of celestial bodies. It also outlines the major sites and cultures of Teotihuacan between 200-700 CE and Tollan/Tula from 900-1100 AD, which reinvented Mesoamerican culture after Teotihuacan fell. The document emphasizes how religion for these peoples involved an orientation to the ultimate significance of their place in the world through experience, expression and behaviors aligned with the landscape and cosmos.

1. Chapter II
History and Cosmovision

2. European Origins for Native
Americans
Where are they from (because they
can’t be from America)?
Egypt, Asia, Atlantis, Lost tribe of Israel,
Outerspace [Bering Strait]
Origin stories, Creation Myths are all
indigenous

3. Plants and the Dead
Control of
agriculture and
Urbanism
Imagination of
Matter
From Olmec to
contemporary
people

4. Olmec (1500-300 BCE)-
”Mother Civilization”
giant basalt heads of ancestors
body was earth--dead rulers in contact with the
living
interior architecture
Pyramid
temple and mountain
Ballgame
action of solar drama
buildings aligned with the rising sun at
equinox
Religion a Orientation

5. Charles H. Long
”(Religion) . . . will mean orientation--
orientation in the ultimate sense, that is, how
one comes to terms with the ultimate
significance of one's place in the world. . . . .
The religion of any people is more than a
structure of thought; it is experience,
expression, motivations, intentions,
behaviors, styles, and rhythms.”
Significations (1986), vii.

6. Teotihuacan (200-700 CE)
“City of the Gods”
Temple of the Sun
4 directions
Street of the Dead
Tlaloc and
Quetzalcoatl
Place of origins for
the Aztec
First Impirial city of
Central Mexico

7. Reproducing the landscape

8. Me in another lifetime

9. Temple of the Moon

10. Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl

11. Tollan/Tula (900-1100 AD)
Reinvented Mesoamerican culture after
the fall of Teotihuacan
Priest/King Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl
Tezcatlipoca--Trickster
Cortes was mistaken for Quetzalcoatl
returning