Tarascan (Purepecha) state

In the 1300s a ruler named Tariacuri began uniting the communities around Lake Patzcuaro in what is now the Mexican state of Michoacan, and his heirs built the Tarascan state, whose people call themselves Purepecha. Its capital, Tzintzuntzan, grew to a city of perhaps 25,000 to 35,000 people, with a great platform topped by five temple-pyramids (yacatas) with rounded backs. The king, the cazonci, ruled a centralized state that taxed farmers, controlled markets and garrisoned a fortified frontier.¹²

The Tarascans were Mesoamerica's leading metalworkers. Using techniques that reached west Mexico from South America, they cast copper and bronze bells, ornaments, axes and tools by the lost-wax method. Their power showed around 1479, when the Aztec ruler Axayacatl invaded and his army was badly defeated, a rare Aztec loss; the two states then faced each other across a fortified border. The Tarascan language is unrelated to Nahuatl or other neighbors. In 1522 the last cazonci, Tangaxuan II, submitted to the Spanish, who executed him in 1530.¹