Did Indigenous Americans have contact with the Inca and Aztec?

Aren’t the Aztec and Incas indigenous to the Americas? Or, do you mean the Natuve Americans in what is now the United States having contact with the Aztec and Incas?

IF I’m remembering my history properly, the Aztecs were located in central Mexico & the Incas were in present day Columbia. So, although it’s possible that they made it as far as modern day southern US, I don’t think it was a long term contact. Still there has been indication of influences of both the Aztec & Incas, so just guessing there must have been some form of contact!!!

I’m sure they overlapped in the southern states. Probably fought a lot. Many Indian tribes around the plain states were nomadic. They may have been harder to run into. Half the year, they were probably tucked up in a valley, waiting for winter to break…

They may have heard stories. Any Indians contacting another tribe may also have been killed outright, or sacrificed. Indians may have killed other Indians from another tribe and it was no big deal since there was no chain of command like in the military. What one indian did was of no importance to others of his tribe if what he did was outside the realm of the tribe he belonged to.

According to the movie “Kings of the Sun”:https://youtu.be/FPo6QyL8mz8 they did.

Some Indigenous people travelled far; others stayed close to their home area. It is as likely that Itiquois and Mohawk and other tribes of the Northeast were as aware of Central American people as they were of Aleuts.

A quick read of this article says there were three big trading areas – North America centered on the Mississippi, Mezo America centered on Mexico, and the Andean where the Incas lived.

It says there was a little trade between them, but nothing like the other hemisphere, where Europe, Asia, and Africa were more connected by trade and conquest. And it says the lack of water routes between the main populations over here was a limit.

Trade Routes in the Americas Before Columbus

There was trade between them and the Native Americans of the Southwest according to what I learned when I was in Santa Fe last year.

South Americans

I’m not sure exactly what you are asking. But….

HomeDNA has determined that I’m 10% El Salvador Native American. Before I even knew that I put a beautiful reproduction of an Inca Calandar on our porch and also put the face of Inca God on the blade of my outrigger canoe paddle (the same image that was put on the sail of Kon-Tiki). I’ve always been fascinated with South American History. Side note: it is absolutely inconsistent with the Book of Mormon.

Perhaps you should distinguish between South an North America. They are both America.

There were extensive trade routes in North, Central and South America in Pre-Columbian times and these included North/South routes from Central America to the Southwest. There are several examples of Southwestern Turquoise in Aztec areas and evidence of Parrot feathers among the Hopi/Pueblo/Zuni tribes. Although, there has been recent work showing that much of what they had assumed was Southwestern turquoise was actually from a local source.

Many of the explorers of the time of western expansion followed existing native American trade routes across the country. It was not by chance that they found the shallow river crossing points and passes through the mountaln ranges. I also seem to recall reading at one time that the major route used by the Spaniards to enter Texas and Louisiana and beyond, El Camino Real (the Royal road), followed old trading routes between the Aztecan empire and that of the Mound building cultures, such as the Hopewell who occupied much of the Mississippi River regions upward into the Great Lakes.

Between Central and South America it gets a little more problematic. While there are extensive road networks in the Andes and along the Western Coast and corresponding roadways in Honduras, Belize, Mexico and the other countries of the area the constriction at Panama seems to have kept land travel to a minimal there is still evidence of both trade goods and ideas between the two areas. I would say there was a greater chance that this trade was up and down the coastal towns than any overland commerce.

Regarding statements about South America, I’m pretty sure the Aztec were in Mexico (which is North America) and also Central America. The Incas were in South America. I’m sure they traveled a little here and there.