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The Covenants with Earth and Rain
Exchange, Sacrifice, and Revelation in Mixtec Society
By John Monaghan
In this book, John Monaghan explores the culture of the Mixtecs, today one of the largest Native American groups in Mexico. Focusing on the community of Santiago Nuyoo, located in the mountainous Mixteca Alta region, he describes Nuyooteco marriage practices, gift exchange, kinship systems, land tenure, cosmology, ritual, and feasting.
"The Covenants with Earth and Rain is probably the best anthropological treatment of another culture that I know of, and certainly one of the most readable."--George E. Stuart, Staff Archaeologist, National Geographic Society
"One of those rare books that truly impresses the reader in its originality, revealing detail, and compelling insight. It is a tribute to the Mixtec community of Nuyoo and a significant contribution to the study of native cultures in Mesoamerica."--Ethnohistory
"Monaghan skillfully captures the way kinship and marriage, gifting and sacrifice, household and cargoholding, myth and morality, shape and sustain Nuyoo life--yet never resolve it into a unitary whole. . . . [He] has written a deeply insightful, clearly argued, warmly empathic book, wonderfully illustrated by his Nuyooteco associates. A major contribution to Mesoamerican studies, peasant household and community organization, ethnicity, and social history, it will stand well the test of time."--American Ethnologist
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