Religious Creativity in the New World

The Challenge of Conquest for Mesoamerica

The Trauma of America

• Devastation of Mesoamerica– 30 million to 5 million by 1550– Religion (Christianity)• Catholicism and Protestantism

– Education– Slavery– Warfare– Private Property

What survives Conquest?

• L. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth– Appropriation of European culture by Indigenous

people• Nahuatl word for Devil, Sin

– Idols Behind Altars

Modes of Appropriation

• Pilgrimage (Journeys)– Pre-Columbian sites with a new meaning

• Syncretism– Creative process of different people and

cultures coming together in an exchange of religious ideas

– Myths, symbols, rituals, etc.– Formation of Mexican Identity

Mexican Flag

Cholula--”Rome of Mesoamerica”

Tonantzin--”Our Honored Mother”

Virgin of Guadalupe

• Appeared to Juan Diego in 1531– Appeal to Bishop of

Mexico, Zumarraga

• Canonized• In which direction is

the appropriation?

Tepeilhuitl--”Festival of the Mountains”

• Aztec ceremony in October

• Dedicated to harvest and ancestors– Molding images of the

dead from sweet food

Day of the Dead

• November 2nd, All Souls Day

• Sugar skulls– Sweets for children

Partying with the Dead

• Mexicans assemble in graveyards for all night celebrations– Eating, drinking,

partying– Return of the dead

Mictlanticutli

• Aztec god of the dead• Skeleton associated

with ancestors

Contemporary Mexican Views of Death

• Intimate relationship of Life and Death

• Associations of Agriculture, Food and the Ancestors

Death as Political and Cultural Critique

• Finitude– Limits of human greed,

desire, oppression

I, Rigoberta Menchú

• Maya woman from Guatemala• 1992 Noble Peace Prize winner• “Every part of our culture comes from the

earth. Our religion comes from the maize and bean harvests which are so vital to our community.” (p. 16)

Indigenous or Native Religions

• Centrality of place– Locative• Primacy of place• Crisis of contact with utopian traditions

– Mircea Eliade--the hierophany• Manifestation of the sacred• Distinctive qualities and presence of the sacred

Mesoamericans as Indigenous

• Religion as Habitation– Centrality of habitation– Centrality of the body– Centrality of exchange

• Materiality of Religion– Engagement with material world– Distinctive from “belief” emphasis