Ancient America:  Daily Life Looking to learn with primary source documents.

Examine the objects in Odyssey Online to see what you can figure out about the daily life of the ancient Americans.

• Who is pictured in ancient American art?  Who is missing?

• Are there images of babies and old people, women and men, rich and poor as well as of the powerful rulers and elite groups?

• What did they eat? Did they have a healthy diet?

• Did they like to get all dressed up?

• How was the Inka dressed differently than the other people?

• What did women and children do all day?

• Who grew the crops?

• What other jobs did people do?

• What jobs appeared to be the most important ones?

Compare your conclusions with those of a man who lived in South America during the 17th century.

• Primary source: The New Chronicle by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
  http://www.kb.dk/elib/mss/poma/index-en.htm

• You can see many of the objects in use in the drawings by Guaman Poma, a Quechua Indian who recorded the contact between the Andean natives and the Spanish invaders in the early 17th century. He sent his drawings and letters to the Spanish king Phillip III.

• You will need to think about his point of view.
  How does he portray the Inkan customs?
  How does he portray the Inkan people?
  How does he portray the Spanish?