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References:
Encyclopedia Britannica. 2014. Nahua.
Electronic document, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/401786/Nahua,
Accessed March 21, 2014.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
How the Nahua People Live
The Nahua live in Central Mexico and their living conditions reflect their lifestyle. Nahua houses consist of one-room and are usually built from cane, wood, adobe, or stone, with they have thacth or tile roofing. The Nahua traditional clothing consists of a long wraparound skirts, blouse, sash, short triangular cape, and a shawl for women; short white cotton pants, cotton shirt,woollen overshirt, sandals, and straw hat for men. Non-Traditional clothing are commonly worn by men as well. Commericial clothing is worn by men and women, but mostly men. The Nahuatl culture is also well known for their impressive masks, head ornaments, and costumes. They use big and colorful feathers from several types of birds which live in the Central America area. Three main impacts of the Nahua culture are dance, music, and poetry. Dance is also very popular among the Nahua and they create their own instruments such as shakers out of shells and seeds, drums are a very important part of their instruments. The Nahua use things in their natural environment to create their instruments, this can be noted as independent invention. The Nahua dance when certain events happen such as rainfall, germination, ripening of corn, war victory, hunting, and tribal death. The ability to dance gives you credibility in their culture. Facial paints such as red and yellow were connected with the sun, fertility, and rebirth of nature. The color blue honored manifestation of rain and fire, these colors signified abundance. Only men were allowed to paint themselves black. The color white, which is usually associated with death, was rarely found as a facial paint. Facial painting was considered a great privilege because it honored the manifestations of the creator. There were many forms of dancing, but the general types were serpentines, circulars, and processions.The Nahua also worship the "feathered" snake, as this brings them prosperity as well and is a sign of abundance. Most of their dances included the serpent.The most important thing to the Nahua culture is their art. The Nahua put a lot of time and skill into their art work. The Nahua equates any form of their art with greater knowledge and prosperity.
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I would have to say that i was a little suprised by the way that they live after seeing their housing arrangements. Being that they are in Central Mexico i thought that their living conditions would be more urbanized, so that was a bit of a culture shock to me. I was also very shocked when i read that they worship the serpent, and that the serpent brings prosperity. I found this very disturbing because my religious beliefs equates the serpent with being evil and bringing bad luck. This is where my ethnocentric views came into play, I couldn't help but think that the Nahua tribe is going about things the wrong way, but I had to quickly realize that I can not judge another person's culture. I really admire the women clothing style. They are very well preserved and it shows a lot of respectablility for their bodies and for their families as well, whereas in American society women tend to show skin to be labeled as "sexy" or pretty from the judgments of others. I also found it interesting how the Nahua associated the color White with death. This does not fit the norm in American culture because the color white is usually equated with purity and innocence, and black is associated with death or even red. Overall, I learned a lot of things about the Nahua people and I was very fascinated with their lifestyle as an indigenous group of people.
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