Indigenous cultures and nature

Ancient cultures had a very close and special relationship with nature. Observation was a fundamental part of understanding it. Leisure, as the Greeks used to say, was nothing more than observing and reflecting. Something that has been lost over time with the post-modern lifestyle we have as people who live far away from nature.

Sun worship seems to me to be both logical and brilliant. Because in the end what would the world be without the sunlight that enables life. That ball of fire that comes out every day to give light to the world, that allows photosynthesis, warmth, colour, joy.

From the Olmecs, the mother culture who began to worship the jaguar and who related it to rain, agriculture and harvests, to the Aztecs, one of the last cultures to settle in Mesoamerica, who worshipped Huitzilopochtli, the solar god and god of war.

All pre-Hispanic cultures agreed in worshipping the nature. It is said that they did not worship the sun god, but the sun as such and all the elements. Human sacrifices came from the idea of giving an offering to nature so that it could take its course. In this way they believed that by giving it life, they would receive life in return. Everything revolved around nature, the observation of the movements of the sun's rays in the caves for the study of the weather and with that the design of the calendar to make forecasts for agriculture and their harvests.

Respect for natural phenomena was intrinsic in their culture and in the way they transmitted the highest knowledge, for example in the teaching of metaphysics in the pyramids of the mayans and in the calmecac, where the Mexica studied. The artistic expressions of indigenous cultures are the living proof of the ancestral cosmogony with respect to nature. Textiles, ceramics, clay, handicrafts, utensils, music, legends and myths. To delve into ancestral cultures is to discover parallel worlds, to open up possibilities of understanding the cosmos and the world, a fascinating path that gives you different perspectives of appreciating life. For it seems that with every giant step we take we ignore the essentials of life, our environment and our relationship to the world we live in. To look back at ancient beliefs is to reconnect with the one who has always had the ultimate answer, nature.