How are Inca and Aztecs alike?

Answer 1

The Aztec and Incas highly respected the Gods who they believed gave them their crops, rain, and food. They both had a unique way of architecture, such as the material used to make houses. An example would be the Incas, who built their houses out of adobe. Both believed in living in tribes. It was an easy way to keep a society in order and together without much dispute. Successful technology also kept both communities abundant. Canals brought the Incas water while chinampas brought the Aztecs water.

• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture

Economy

• The Aztec religion highly influenced their everyday lives & work. An agricultural society, the main purpose of crops was not only for consumption but to please the gods such as the rain and fertility gods. Sacrificial ceremonies also had a great influence in their lives. They believed that in order for the sun to rise everyday, they must sacrifice human blood and heart to the Sun God, Huitzilopochtli.
• Aztec homes were usually made of adobe or poles. Aztec women would grind corn and do household work while their husbands and sons worked in the fields.The Aztec's successfulness of crops and farming came from their technique of using mud from the bottom of the lake to grow crops. These were called chinampas, little islands made from mud from the bottom of a lake.They usually harvested corn, chili, and beans. They substituted money with cacao beans because it was valuable being considered "food of the gods". What each person wore represented were they stood in the society. If a man carried a fan they were an ambassador and women wore skirts. Colorful designs also distinguished their rank.
• The Incas usually became wealthy due to their gold, silver, and copper mines. Just as the Aztec, the Incas were great farmers. To travel they often used Llamas and Alpacas. They used canals just as the Aztecs used chinampas. It was their way of watering their fields to keep the agriculture prosperous. Camelids, such as llamas and alpacas were used to transport goods from place to place.

The Aztecs used chinampas(above) to extract the rich, fertile mud/soil from the lake bottom in order to grow crops.

Political

• Although the Aztec form of government is often referred to as an empire, in fact, most areas within the empire were organized as city-states, known as altepetl, in Nahuatl. These were small polities ruled by a king from a legitimate dynasty. The Aztec conquered many tribes, allowing them to retain their own religion and government. However, the tribes were expected to supply the Aztecs with food, textiles, pottery and other items needed to support the nobles, priests and administrators of the city of Tenochtitlan, which numbered perhaps in the hundreds of thousands. However, the reign of Moctezuma II (the most known leaders of the Aztecs) was interrupted by the invasion of the Spaniards in 1519.
• Unlike the Aztecs, the Incas ruled by proxy and had a highly organized government based in Cuzco. After conquering a people, they would incorporate local rulers into their imperial system, generously reward anyone who fought for them, and treat well all the conquered people who cooperated. So, in reality, the Inca "empire," was not really an empire. It was more of a confederation of tribes with a single people, the Incas, more or less in control. Each tribe was ruled independently by a council of elders; the tribe as a whole gave its allegiance to the ruler, or "Inca." The "Inca" was divine; he was the descendant of the sun-god. The sun -god was the highest god for the Incas and Aztecs. Both empires also believed that there was a heaven, a hell, and a resurrection of the body after death. In 1521, Herman Cortés conquered the Aztecs; this conquest inspired Francisco Pizzarro to invade the Incas in 1531.

Moctezuma II and Herman Cortes

Social

SIMILARITIES

• The Aztec's and Inca's social structure and life were alike in many ways. Both the Aztecs and Incas social structure was based on royalty and wealth, with the royal people being at the top of the social ladder and the common people at the bottom. They both lived in groups in cities with a huge temple in the center working as both a masterpiece and a town center. Slavery was a common issue between these two tribes, both enslaved others as a form of punishment or if in battle the losing, conquered tribe would become slaves.

DIFFERENCES

• As there are similarities between the social structure of the Aztecs and Incas there are also differences. The head of the Inca civilization was known as the "Inca" and he was the sole ruler. The Aztecs had a primary ruler who chose four other leaders, creating a democratic type of government opposed to the monarchy type used by the Incas. Aztecs were able to move into other social classes from the ones that they were born into but the Inca's social structure was rigid and inflexible making it hard and nearly impossible to change social classes.

Answer 2

Both the Inca and Aztecs were ancient civilizations located in the Americas. They both built advanced civilizations with impressive architecture, infrastructure, and agricultural systems. Additionally, they practiced complex social structures, including a hierarchal system of rulers, nobility, and commoners.