askhistorians

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The Aztecs believed that the day of your birth dictated your entire life from luck to if you were prone to addictions or infidelity. The social stigma from a "cursed" birthday could be life ruining. Did parents ever lie about a birth day to spare their child the stigma?	12
Some ancient cultures say the universe is made out of energy. How did they understand the concept of energy without electricity? Or is this an assumption by modern historians injecting their modern knowledge onto ancient beliefs?	10
Mesoamerican Tlatoanis often had many concubines of varying genders in addition to their wife, and having over 100 children from these concubines were not unheard of. Why did tlatoanis have so many children and did this pose problems politically as rulers of their country?	10
Pirates are seen as thieves, but how connected were they to the budding independence movements in the Americas?	8
Aztec houses were said to rarely use windows and didn't use glass for windows because houses were meant for storage during the day and sleeping at night with most jobs being done outside the house on a patio due to the tropical heat. How true is this?	8
Mesoamerica had a practice of "corn magic" where corn was used in rituals to cast magic to predict if a ill patient will die. How did these "cob casters" fit into the religion and what other practices did they have?	7
I read that merchants of Mesoamerica, the Pochteca, would spend considerable time studying and practicing customs of the land they were going to visit to better trade and spy. How did they study the customs of distant lands, were there written records kept by their guild?	6
The Aztecs would often send convicts to the Pochteca merchant guild as indentured servants to transport goods. How did they stop escapes as laws forbade guards from chasing slaves and escaping meant legal freedom?	6
Meso-American myth and rituals often use cactus spines with some legends having creatures offer gifts of cactus spines, people would also prick themselves in certain ceremonies specifically with these spines. What was the symbolic significance of the cactus spines?	5
How diffrent were sieges of the pre-contact Aztecs to the European and Asian concept of a siege? If sieges existed at all?	4

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