Mesoamerican Rituals and the Solar Cycle

New Perspectives on the Veintena Festivals
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4331-7540-4
Verlag: Peter Lang

Buch, Englisch, Band 1, 334 Seiten, HC gerader Rücken kaschiert, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 646 g

Reihe: Indigenous Cultures of Latin America

This book explores a seminal topic concerning the Mesoamerican past: the religious festivals that took place during the eighteen periods of twenty days, or veintenas, into which the solar year was divided. Pre-Columbian societies celebrated these festivals through complex rituals, involving the priests and gods themselves, embodied in diverse beings and artifacts. Specific sectors of society also participated in the festivals, while city inhabitants usually attended public ceremonies. As a consequence, this ritual cycle played a significant role in Mesoamerican religious life; at the same time, it informs us about social relations in pre-Columbian societies. Both religious and social aspects of the solar cycle festivals are tackled in the twelve contributions in this book, which aims to address the entire veintena sequence and as much of the territory and history of Mesoamerica as possible. Specifically, the book revisits long-standing discussions of the solar cycle festivals, but also explores these religious practices in original ways, in particular through investigating understudied rituals and offering new interpretations of rites that have previously been extensively analyzed. Other chapters consider the entire veintena sequence through the prism of specific topics, providing multiple though often complementary analyses. As a consequence, this book will attract the attention of scholars and graduate students with interests in Mesoamerica and early Latin America, as well as ethnohistory, cultural history, history of religions, art history, archaeology and anthropology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dupey García, Élodie

Mazzetto, Elena

Weitere Mitwirkende

Vail, Gabrielle

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte Präkolumbische Geschichte Amerikas
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volkskunde: Sitten, Traditionen, Mythen, Legenden
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volkskunde: Kunst, Musik, Tanz
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Archäologie spezieller Regionen und Zeitalter
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte Religionen der Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Elena Mazzetto and Élodie Dupey García : Introduction – Rites and Myths in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica – Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos: Tezcatlipoca and the Maya Gods of Abundance: The Feast of Toxcatl and the Question of Homologies in Mesoamerican Religion – Guilhem Olivier: The Re-enactment of the Birth of the Gods in Mexica Veintena Celebrations: Some Observations – Élodie Dupey García: Quetzalcoatl in Nahua Myths and Rituals: Discreet or Omnipresent Protagonist? – Johannes Neurath: Beyond Nature and Mythology: Relational Complexity in Contemporary and Ancient Mesoamerican Rituals – Ritual Actors and Activities in the Veintena Festivals – Gabrielle Vail: Haab’ Festivals among the Postclassic Maya: Evidence from Ethnohistoric Sources and the Madrid Codex – Elena Mazzetto: Maize and Flaying in Aztec Rituals – John F.Schwaller: The Toxcatl and Panquetzaliztli Figurines – Sylvie Peperstraete: Myths, Rites, and the Agricultural Cycle: The Huixtotin Priests and the Veintenas – Pre-Columbian Categories, Colonial Interpretations – Mirjana Danilovic: Dance and Sacrificial Rituals in the Veintena Ceremonies – Andrea B.Rodríguez Figueroa, Mario Cortina Borja, and Leopoldo Valiñas Coalla: Ritual and Religious Practices Described in the Florentine Codex: Ritual Unit as a Structural Concept – Sergio Botta: An Augustinian Political Theology in New Spain: Towards a Franciscan Interpretation of the Veintenas – Rossend Rovira-Morgado: Bright Plumages, Teary Children, and Blessed Rains: Possible Reminiscences of Atlcahualo during the Indigenous Ceremonial Pomp of Saint Francis in Post-Conquest Mexico City – Danièle Dehouve: Epilogue – Notes on Contributors – Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Élodie Dupey García is a tenured Professor and Researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She holds a PhD in History of Religions from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (France). She has received a fellowship in Pre-Columbian Studies from Dumbarton Oaks and a Scholar Grant from the Getty Research Institute. She is the editor of Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl and the volume Painting the Skin. Pigments on Bodies and Codices in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (2018).

Elena Mazzetto is Adjunct Lecturer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), where she previously held a postdoctoral position. She also received a two-year postdoctoral grant from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and holds a PhD in History from the Universidad Ca’Foscari de Venecia (Italy) and the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France). She is the author of Lieux de culte et parcours cérémoniels dans les fêtes des vingtaines à Mexico-Tenochtitlan (2014).