The Tarascan Empire

Does anybody know anything about the Tarascans? like the history? military, technology and religion?

I think I am not Mexican! because all my family comes from Guanaguato and Michoacan. They have always lived their also. So I think I am Tarascan(Purepecha). Their is also alot of people in my highschool from Michoacan and guanaguato who always talk about Tarasco and that they are Tarascans and not Mexicans. I want to take one of those DNA tests to make sure!

Can somebody help me!

The Tarascans are a mysterious people. Linguistically the Tarascan language comes from the same group as Quechua the tongue of the Inca. They also appear to have had trade links with Andean people.

The Tarascans hadn't developed writing but were able to give the Spanish an oral migration history identifying Curzo in Peru as their origin. Telling how their ancestors wandered for many moons before reaching the mouth of a great river, the journey continued by sea, reputedly on the backs of turtles. The Spanish concluded that the river must have been the Orinoco. The Tarascans reported after their sea journey they landed at Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. Many Spanish chronicles believed this to be a poetic myth though.

Very little is known about the Tarascans, they were wiped out by disease long before the Spanish had any contact with them. So the only accounts around are those of their enemy, the Aztecs.

Militarily they were pretty similar to most cultures in Mexico, using archers, tepoztopilli and maquahuitl. Their tactics on the field resemble Tlaxcalla more than the Aztecs, giving greater inportance to the bow and less to the sword. Mass archery seems to have been the main tactic. Presumably they would have had elite warriors, most other places had them.

Their metalwork was quite advanced in the form of artwork. They had no metal weapons though.

The Purepecha language (Ethnologue/ISO code tsz), previously known as Tarascan, is a language isolate that is not even provisionally linked with any other language. It is spoken in the state of Michoacan near Lake P�tzcuaro and the Paricut�n volcano. There are two main variants and perhaps a dozen minor variants, the main divider being the lake area vs. the volcanic plateau. Speakers can easily identify each other by their speech as to their region, and even their home village. Speakers take pride in keeping their "native" variety even if they have moved to another part of the region. The dialectal differences are relatively recent, though, and the speakers identify all of the variants as being part of the same language.

 From Summers Linguistics Institute of Mexico

What about their religion and art? symbols of any kind.

Tarasco means "relative" in Purepecha they called the Spanish that because they  kept on raping the Purepecha women but My friend says that the word Tarasco today is used as a way of saying countrymen or Comrad for Purepecha because tarasco means "relative" in Purepecha.

Bronze was still relatively rare, difficult to make and valuable so only used for jewelry.

Copper is a poor material for weapons because it can't be sharped well and doesn't hold an edge, however it's very durable.

Obsidian is sharp but not durable.

For cutting cloth armour obsidian is superior to copper. However for chopping wood obsidian is far too brittle, so a copper axe much better.

As for Tarascan weapons, so far I heard of no discoveries of anything metal.

However the Tlaxacallans made a nice line of metal arrowheads for the Spanish. So perhaps should be considered the first Mexicans to manufacture metals weapons.

I found this:

Throughout the PostClassic period, various West Mexican societies enriched themselves on the vibrant desert and coastal trade that extended from the American Southwest to the Valley of M�xico, Oaxaca, and beyond. Around A.D. 1300, the Tarascans emerged to dominate much of the region. Erecting a capital at Tzintz�ntzan along the banks of Lake Patzcuaro, they embarked on a program of military expansion that enabled them to monopolize exchange in such essentials as precious metals, feathers and turquoise and to control a territory of over 45,000 square miles (72,000 square kilometers).

While sharing in the Tolteca-Chichimeca culture of their eastern and southern contemporaries, the Tarascans were also uniquely possessed of South American influences in customs and dress that had resulted from over a millenium of intermittent trade with Ecuadorian peoples. It was through West M�xico that the most sophisticated metallurgical techniques were first introduced from South America, and no one excelled at its production better than the Tarascan coppersmiths who created masterpieces of intricate design. In 1480, the Tarascans had begun to move eastward where they encountered a new foe, the vanguard of a new Aztec state with expansionist ambitions equal to their own. Emboldened by their successes in the region, an Aztec army proceeded far beyond the extent of their supply lines and were set upon by the Tarascans in such numbers that they were totally annihilated. It was later remembered as the greatest single military defeat ever suffered by the Aztec Empire of the Triple Alliance up to the time of the Spanish Conquest.