Introduction to Joara and Tenochtitlan

Introduction to Joara and Tenochtitlan

Joara was a Mississippian chiefdom at the base of the Appalachian Mountains at the upper part of the Catawba river. Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec empire, which was in a valley next to a lake near the Gulf of Mexico. The people of Tenochtitlan spoke Nahuatl, and the people of Joara likely spoke a Cherokee dialect. The relationship to nearby bodies of water were very important to both societies. Tenochtitlan derived a lot of political power from their control of the surrounding lake. Joara’s economy was likely based on salt trading because of salt extracted from saltwater springs at the base of the mountains. Both societies have nature-based mythologies, specifically both worship the sun in some form. All Mississippian chiefdoms had similar mythologies that included the belief that the chief was a descendent of the sun. Tenochtitlan included a pyramid temple to Huitzilopochtli, the primary deity of Aztec society, a god of the Sun, war, and human sacrifice.