Who were Mexico’s ‘Corn People’?

Although the Mokaya are known arsenic the “Corn People” — a sobriquet that is simply a literal translation of what Mokaya means successful an aboriginal signifier of Mixe-Zoquean connection — these aboriginal Mesoamerican inhabitants from the Soconusco portion of Chiapas weren’t the archetypal to domesticate maize. However, they are credited with galore different firsts. They were the archetypal documented cultivation nine successful Mesoamerica, the archetypal status-oriented fertile society, the archetypal radical to marque cocoa and ceramics and they built the archetypal known Mesoamerican ballcourt. 

If this sounds precise overmuch similar the Olmecs, the alleged “mother civilization of Mesoamerica,” it should beryllium noted that archaeologists John E. Clark and Michael Blake published the archetypal important survey of the Mokaya (“El origen de la civilizacíon en Mesoamérica: Los olmecas y mokaya del Soconusco de Chiapas, México”) arsenic precocious arsenic 1989. Thus, it took immoderate radical a portion to recognize that the Mokaya were not Olmecs, nor did they make contemporaneously. The Mokaya predated them by respective centuries.

The geography of past Mesoamerica, including Soconusco, wherever the earliest Mokaya settlements were located. (Richard G. Lesure)

However, the Mokaya people, creators of the archetypal sedentary civilization successful Mesoamerica, were an important power connected some the Olmecs and the aboriginal Maya.

The archetypal sedentary cultivation nine successful Mexico

Today, the country the Mokaya occupied successful Soconusco is mostly farmland, which is due since they were the archetypal known sedentary radical successful Mexico and, for that matter, successful Mesoamerica. The second is an important distinction, since successful this epoch earlier nationalist borders, their lands extended from coastal Chiapas into Guatemala.

From 1900 B.C., the Mokaya, notably astatine their Paso de la Amada settlement, formed the instauration of agriculture successful Mesoamerica. Although different peoples, similar the Chantuto, preceded them successful Soconusco, they were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Mokaya, by contrast, took vantage of Soconusco’s fertile volcanic soils to plant maize, cassava and beans and cultivated avocado and Theobroma cacao (the main constituent of past chocolate). 

What made them instrumentality up agriculture earlier anyone other successful Mesoamerica? We don’t cognize for definite that they were so the first, but nary grounds exists for earlier groups having done so. Recent studies connected this modulation globally person shown that beardown governance helped to pave the mode for agriculture by regulating onshore use. Notably, this was besides an country successful which the Mokaya were pioneers.

The archetypal analyzable fertile society

The Mokaya were the archetypal sedentary nine successful Mesoamerica and, possibly not coincidentally, the archetypal for which determination were clear indications of fertile and status. This is evident from their hierarchical settlements, which had the largest cardinal houses reserved for their chiefs, who fulfilled shamanic duties and acceptable up long-distance commercialized networks to get luxury goods, implicit which they exercised choky control. Obsidian, mica and robust pyrite were each highly sought-after commercialized items. 

Chocolate was the eventual luxury good. Cultivated by the Mokaya — and not obtained via commercialized — its depletion was restricted to elites. In this, the Mokaya acceptable a template that would beryllium followed by Indigenous groups successful Mexico up to the clip of the Mexica. 

A Mexica sculpture carrying a cacao pod. Cacao and cocoa were some utilized medicinally by past Indigenous cultures successful Mexico. (Wikimedia Commons)

The inventors of chocolate

If you’re among the millions worldwide who present bask chocolate’s delicious spirit and mood-enhancing benefits, you beryllium a indebtedness of gratitude to the Mokaya. They invented it, though it merits noting that the cacao preparations they enjoyed, formative arsenic they were successful the agelong past of chocolate, carnivore small resemblance to the delicacy of today.

For starters, the Mokaya, similar aboriginal Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, didn’t devour their cacao-made specialties. They drank them. After roasting and grinding the seeds and extracting the mucilaginous pulp of Theobroma cacao, they added h2o and, connected occasion, fto the premix ferment. Yes, that’s right. The Mokaya’s cocoa was sometimes astatine slightest mildly alcoholic, a origin that whitethorn person had thing to bash with its ritual significance. 

Other ingredients similar chiles, vanilla and chromatic whitethorn person been added sometimes successful these aboriginal chocolates, for which grounds exists arsenic far backmost arsenic 1900 BC, meaning this was an aboriginal but important facet of Mokaya culture. The grounds was recovered successful pottery bowls called tecomates. Yes, the Mokayas were apt the archetypal Mesoamerican civilization to specialize successful pottery too. 

The amended cocoa preparations, arsenic noted, were reserved for those of higher status, similar chieftains. However, coarser varieties successful which cacao and maize dough were mixed were disposable to the fertile and file. 

The builders of the archetypal Mesoamerican ballcourt

The Mokaya were aboriginal practitioners of what would aboriginal go the Mesoamerican ballgame. (Depositphotos)

We don’t cognize what the colonisation of Mokaya civilization was astatine its peak, lone that it was 1 of the largest societies of its time. The Mokaya’s largest community, astatine slightest until it disappeared astir 1300 B.C., was Paso de la Amada, the tract of high-status residences of the pole-and-thatch variety, and the oldest Mesoamerican ballcourt ever built. 

According to a survey published by archaeological excavators Clark, Blake, and Richard G. Lesure, the magnitude of labour required to conception it suggests it indispensable person had governmental oregon spiritual significance. Why? Its tremendous size (85 meters by 30 meters) made it the largest structure successful Mesoamerica that we cognize of astatine that time. What’s truly interesting, though, is its estimated completion day of 1650 B.C., which scuttles immoderate remaining thought that the Olmecs invented the Mesoamerican ballgame — the Olmec civilization emerged sometime from 1600 to 1500 B.C.

Etlatongo, successful the Oaxacan highlands, is the tract of the adjacent oldest discovered ballcourt, dating to 1375 B.C. The Olmecs, Toltecas, Maya and Mexica would each follow the Mesoamerican ballgame successful aboriginal years, but the Mokaya played it first. 

The archetypal documented artists successful Mesoamerica 

Between the chiefs and the farmers, the mediate tier successful Mokaya nine was filled by artisans and traders. The erstwhile pioneered the archetypal pottery contented successful Mesoamerica during the Barra signifier (1900–1700 B.C.) of Mokaya culture, turning retired ceramics noted for their polish and sophistication. The method accomplishment of these aboriginal artists flowered adjacent further during the consequent Locona signifier (1700–1500 B.C.), erstwhile potters produced a greater assortment of vessels for a broader scope of societal purposes. The earliest securely dated examples of pottery successful Mesoamerica are from the Mokaya, circa 1550–1400 B.C.

Perhaps 1 time we’ll observe the Mokaya didn’t invent Mesoamerican agriculture, nonegalitarian society, chocolate, pottery and the accepted ballgame — it’s hard to expect caller finds successful antiquities — but the existent grounds says they did, meaning that the “Corn People” established the foundational elements that would beryllium hallmarks of Mesoamerican nine everlastingly after. 

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas section adept for the USA Today question website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos question guidebook and a contributor to galore websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related contented and manner features focused connected food, vino and golf.