Wars or Uprisings within the Amazon Civilizations - Essay Example

 These archaeological sites later became overgrown by plants and vegetation due to the collapse of the civilizations, with people abandoning the areas and forming smaller and more manageable groups and communities (Heckenberger 69). However, despite the rapid increase and decline of the population, because the people respected nature, sustainable agriculture, and only growing as many crops as necessary to feed the people, the surrounding vegetation was preserved and even maintained even when constantly growing crops (Thomas and Kelly 186).

Wars or uprisings within the Amazon civilizations often happen due to powerful influences of persons of authority such as priests or members of royalty. These people are influential because of their strong ties to the supernatural, wherein priests or religious shamans invoke the power of spirits to cast boons or bane, while members of the royal family claim to be descendants of the gods (Thomas and Kelly 35). Due to such claims, cults or large groups of followers affect political or economic influence by making people believe that they are on the winning or the upright side and making them act following the wishes of the cult leaders. This was also shown in the story of the Temple of Doom when the high priest persuaded the Thuggee cult members to perform human sacrifices and use children to dig mines to find rocks that could help them conquer the world (“Temple of Doom”). The strong influence of the divine and the belief in the supernatural helps convince cult followers to blindly follow what the leaders ask, even going to war solely to serve their “divine leaders”. It also affects how people see their leaders. Those with solid claims of supernatural or divine descent are given more special treatment than those who do not have these claims, in which those with supernatural or divine claims can influence more people than those without. This situation affects which ruler influences more people and can also affect if the leader’s bidding will be followed. However, this setup was only effective when the population of the empire or the kingdom was large. Once the ruler loses influence over the people, they have enough will to disobey the ruler and go on their way, leading to the empire's collapse.

The separation of the large civilizations in the Amazon rainforest into smaller tribes made it possible to prevent large-scale wars and contributed to maintaining better order and peace within the communities. Also, aside from maintaining order and peace through smaller groups, these groups were further divided into hierarchal groups to give everyone a role in the community and contribute to the proper functioning and maintenance of the small society (Thomas and Kelly 235). It was also easier to prevent any uprisings because people within the smaller tribes were well aware of the community’s rules and conditions and the fact that a societal hierarchy maintained the hold of power within the elite. And because everyone has a definitive role within the society, it was also easier to deal with possible emerging troubles since there are fewer people to deal with, and problems can be settled much faster than when the population is numerous. As such, the combination of having a low population and a hierarchy contributed to smaller but more stable Amazon tribes compared with larger Amazon populations since the former focuses more on the survival of the group, in contrast with the latter, which mainly concentrates on empire expansion through waging of wars with other tribes.