Purépecha Empire

The Purépecha Empire, also known by the term Iréchikwa, was a polity in pre-Columbian Mexico. Its territory roughly covered the geographic area of the present-day Mexican state of Michoacán, as well as parts of Guanajuato, Guerrero, and Jalisco. At the time of the Spanish conquest, it was the second-largest state in Mesoamerica. The state is also known as the Tarascan Empire, an exonym often considered pejorative by the Purépecha people. The empire was founded in the early 14th century and lost its independence to the Spanish in 1530. In 1543 it officially became the governorship of Michoacán, from the Nahuatl exonym for the Purépecha Empire, Michhuahcān from michin ("fish"), -huah ("possessor of"), and -cān ("place of") and means "place of fishers." Thus, Michoacan is not a native name but a name given by Purépecha's dreaded enemy. The Purépecha Empire was constituted of a network of tributary systems and gradually became increasingly centralized, under the control of the ruler of the empire called the Irecha or Cazonci. The Purépecha capital was located at Tzintzuntzan on the banks of Lake Pátzcuaro and, according to Purépecha oral tradition, was founded by the first Cazonci Tariácuri and dominated by his lineage, the "Wakúsïecha" ("Eagles" in Purépecha language). The largest city before the inception of the empire may have been Angamuco, extensive ruins of which were discovered in 2012 using LiDAR technology. The Purépecha Empire, better described as a confederacy or mandala system (cooperative collectivity) of independent and separate ethnic units not only paying tribute but fighting together in common security, was contemporary with and an enemy of the Aztec Empire, against which it fought many wars. The Purépecha Confederation blocked Aztec expansion to the northwest, fortifying and patrolling their frontiers with the Aztecs, possibly developing the first truly territorial state of Mesoamerica. Due to its relative isolation within Mesoamerica, the Purépecha Confederacy had many cultural traits completely distinct from those of the Mesoamerican cultural group.

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Related concepts (12)

Purépecha language

Purépecha (also Pʼurhépecha phuˈɽepet͡ʃa, Phorhé or Phorhépecha), often called Tarascan, a term coined by Spanish colonizers (Tarasco) which can be seen as pejorative, is a language isolate or small language family that is spoken by some 140,000 Purépecha in the highlands of Michoacán, Mexico. Purépecha was the main language of the pre-Columbian Tarascan State and became widespread in the region during its heyday in the late post-Classic period. The small town of Purepero got its name from the indigenous people who lived there.

Lost-wax casting

Lost-wax casting - also called investment casting, precision casting, or cire perdue (siʁ pɛʁdy; borrowed from French) - is the process by which a duplicate sculpture (often a metal, such as silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is cast from an original sculpture. Intricate works can be achieved by this method. The oldest known examples of this technique are approximately 6,500-year-old (4550–4450 BC) and attributed to gold artefacts found at Bulgaria's Varna Necropolis.

Nahuatl

Nahuatl (ˈnɑːwɑːtəl ; ˈnaːwat͡ɬ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE. It was the language of the Aztec/Mexica, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history.