The Via crucis en mexicano by Fray Agustin de Vetancurt and the Spread of a Devotion
by John F. Schwaller
In Schwaller’s deft analysis—which extends from the origins of the devotion, to the processions and public rituals of the Mexica (Aztecs), to the text and illustrations of the Vetancurt manuscript—the Via crucis en mexicano opens a window on the practice and significance of the Stations of the Cross—and of private devotions generally—in Mexico, Hispanic America, and around the world.
Documenting the evolution and operation of intertribal networking, Gage demonstrates its effectiveness—and recognizes for the first time how, through Native activism, long-distance, intercultural communication persisted in the colonized American West.
California, Indians, and the Transformation of a Missionary
by Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M Senkewicz
In Junípero Serra: California, Indians, and the Transformation of a Missionary, Beebe and Senkewicz focus on Serra’s religious identity and his relations with Native peoples. They intersperse their narrative with new and accessible translations of many of Serra’s letters and sermons, which allows his voice to be heard in a more direct and engaging fashion.
Gods, Demons, and Priests in Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón's Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions
by Viviana Díaz Balsera
Guardians of Idolatry tells a compelling story of the robust presence of a unique form of Postclassic Mesoamerican ritual knowledge, fully operative one hundred years after the incursion of Christianity in south Central Mexico.
Franciscans, Indigenous Leaders, and the Inquisition in Early Mexico, 1524–1540
by Patricia Lopes Don
In their efforts to convert indigenous peoples, Franciscan friars brought the Spanish Inquisition to early-sixteenth-century Mexico. Patricia Lopes Don now investigates these trials to offer an inside look at this brief but consequential episode of Spanish methods of colonization, providing a fresh interpretation of an early period that has remained too long understudied.
In Crow Jesus, Clatterbuck explores contemporary Native Christianity by listening as indigenous voices narrate their own stories on their own terms. His collection tells the larger story of a tribe that has adopted Christian beliefs and practices in such a way that simple, unqualified designations of religious belonging—whether “Christian” or “Sun Dancer” or “Peyotist”—are seldom, if ever, adequate.
With more than 200 illustrations, including 24 in color, Framing the Sacred is the most extensive study to date of the indigenous aspects of these churches and fosters a more complete understanding of Christianity’s influence on Mexican peoples.
For half a century, readers on peyotism have devoured Weston La Barre’s fascinating original study, which began when the author, at age twenty-four, studied the rites of fifteen American Indian tribes using Lophophora williamsii, the small, spineless, carrot-shaped peyote cactus growing in the Rio Grande Valley and southward.
With the grace of a novel, this book chronicles the six-year duel between two remarkable men with different visions of religious freedom in America. Neither sought the conflict. Al Smith, a substance-abuse counselor to Native Americans, wanted only to earn a living. Dave Frohnmayer, the attorney general of Oregon, was planning his gubernatorial campaign and seeking care for his desperately ill daughters. But before this constitutional confrontation was over, Frohnmayer and Smith twice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the First Amendment protects the right of American Indians to seek and worship God through the use of peyote. The Court finally said no.
The Popol Vuh is the most important example of Maya literature to have survived the Spanish conquest. It is also one of the world’s great creation accounts, comparable to the beauty and power of Genesis.
Most previous translations have relied on Spanish versions rather than the original K’iche’-Maya text. Based on ten years of research by a leading scholar of Maya literature, this translation with extensive notes is uniquely faithful to the original language. Retaining the poetic style of the original text, the translation is also remarkably accessible to English readers.
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