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Chapter Four—Divinity

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Chapter Four—Divinity OUTLINE OF CHAPTER FOUR The Ritual-Architectural Commemoration of Divinity: Contentious Academic Theories but Consentient Supernaturalist Conceptions (Priority II-A).............................................................499 The Driving Questions: Characteristically Mesoamerican and/or Uniquely Oaxacan Ideas about Supernatural Entities and Life Forces…………..…………...........…….501 A Two-Block Agenda: The History of Ideas about, then the Ritual-Architectural Expression of, Ancient Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity……………………......….....……...503 I. The History of Ideas about Ancient Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity: Phenomenological versus Social Scientific Approaches to Other Peoples’ God(s)………………....……………506 A. Competing and Complementary Conceptions of Ancient Zapotec Religion: Many Gods, One God and/or No Gods……………………………….....……………514 1. Ancient Oaxacan Polytheism: Greco-Roman Analogies and the Prevailing Presumption of a Pantheon of Personal Gods..................................519 a. Conventional (and Qualified) Views of Polytheism as Belief in Many Gods: Aztec Deities Extrapolated to Oaxaca………..….......521 b. Oaxacan Polytheism Reimagined as “Multiple Experiences of the Sacred”: Ethnographer Miguel Bartolomé’s Contribution……...........528 2. Ancient Oaxacan Monotheism, Monolatry and/or Monistic-Pantheism: Diverse Arguments for Belief in a Supreme Being or Principle……….....…..531 a. Christianity-Derived Pre-Columbian Monotheism: Faith-Based Posits of Quetzalcoatl as Saint Thomas, Apostle of Jesus………........532 b. “Primitive Monotheism,” “High Gods” and “Monolatry”: Mesoamerican Resonances of Wider Academic Debates….............…534 c. Elite-Formulated Monotheism and Monistic-Pantheism: Supreme Beings as the Esoteric Preserve of an Intelligentsia….....…..539 d. Debates over Monotheism in Oaxaca: Congratulatory Contentions of a Zapotec Supreme Being and Minority Critics………………........541 e. Víctor de la Cruz’s Polemical Zapotec Monotheism and John Monaghan on a Pervasive Mesoamerican Monistic-Pantheism…........547 3. Ancient Oaxacan Animism and/or Animatism: Affirming Impersonal Super- natural Energies and Undermining Polytheism-Monotheism Debates…….....554 a. Animism versus Animatism: Differentiating Between and/or Conflating Two Timeworn Terms……………..……….....…...556 b. Qualified Affirmations of Animism: Alfredo López Austin on “Animistic Entities” and “Animistic Centers”…………….....…... 557 c. A “Spectrum of Animacy”: Molly Bassett on Shades of Gray in Native Discernments of Animate versus Animate Entities…….......561 d. Affirming Zapotec Animatism (and Deified Ancestors), while Rejecting Zapotec Gods: Joyce Marcus’s (Over)Correction……........563 4. Coexistent Personal and Impersonal Supernatural Entities: Multiplicity and Not-Mutual Exclusion among Zapotec Divinity Conceptions……….......567 a. Alfredo López Austin’s “Both/And” Solution to the Divinity Question: Mediating the “Two Great Categories of Supernaturals”………..........568 b. Interim Conclusions and a Way Forward: Acknowledging, at a Minimum, Six Different Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity.....….....….571 B. Competing and Complementary Sources on Ancient Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity: Ethnography, Ethnohistory and Archaeology...........................................574 1. Ethnographic Sources and Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity: The Post- Contact Vulnerability of Gods and Resilience of Animistic Forces…….....…576 2. Ethnohistoric Sources and Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity: Four Fraught but Fortuitous and Fecund Bodies of Colonial-Era Writings............................582 a. The Gods of Fray Juan de Córdova’s Vocabulario (1578): A Prim Pantheon or an Uneven Assemblage of Supernatural Entities..............586 b. The Gods of the Relaciones Geográficas (1579-1581): Spanish Surveys, “Idols,” Local Patron Deities and Natural Spirits...................601 c. The Gods of Fray G. de Balsalobre’s Inquisition Records (1656): Esoteric Deity Lists and a Pretense of Systematic Coherence..............613 d. The Gods of Fray Francisco de Burgoa’s History of Oaxaca (1674): Antagonistic, Sanitized and Informing Interest in Indians....................628 3. Archaeology and Zapotec Conceptions of Divinity: Funerary Urns as Gods, Priests, Companions, Royal Ancestors and/or “Open Sites”..................642 a. Pre-Caso and Bernal Ideas about Urns: Deity Effigies, Purely Human Types, Animals, and/or Deified Rulers………………....……647 b. Caso and Bernal’s Las Urnas de Oaxaca (1952): Stunningly Specific Hypotheses on the Evolution of the Zapotec Pantheon.....…..653 c. Ideas after Las Urnas de Oaxaca: Deities, Alter Egos, Royal Ancestors, Deity Impersonators and/or Calendrical Patron Gods.........657 C. Summary Thoughts and Methodological Cautions on the Study of Ancient Zapotec Divinity Conceptions: Idealization, Reification and False Systematization……........665 1. The Main Obstacle: Imagining Neat Systematization Instead of Accepting Messy Empirical Accuracy—Lakota Parallels................................667 2. A Way Forward: Acknowledging Zapotecs’ “Multiple Experiences of the Sacred” and Avoiding the Fallacies of Purity and Typicality.....................673 II. Four Variations on the Ancient Zapotec Ritual-Architectural Commemoration of Divinity: Unbuilt Divine Landscapes or Built God Bodies, Abodes and Abstractions ………......…….681 A. The Personification and/or Divination of Natural “Architectural” Features of the Landscape: Unbuilt Foci for Interacting with the Divine……………….....……..686 1. Divination of the Natural Landscape as a Cross-Cultural Phenomenon: The Buildingless Sacred Space of Indians and Aborigines…………….....…..688 2. Divination of the Natural Landscape in Oaxaca and Monte Albán: Three Ways of Understanding the Relations between Mountains and Divinity…......693 a. Mountains as “Cosmic Axes”: Access to the Realm of the Gods and/or Maintenance of a Human-Divine Covenant………….….....….695 b. Mountains as Deity Residences: Unbuilt Hill Homes to Water Serpents and Other Supernatural Entities…………………….....…….697 c. Mountains as “Animate Entities”: Obligatory Reciprocity with Earth Goddesses, “Lords of the Hills” and “Thunder-Talkers”…........700 d. Divination of the Unbuilt Mountain of Monte Albán: Natural Altepeme as Themselves Deities and “Animated Entities”……...........709 B. Architecture Conceived as the Actual Body of a Deity: Buildings as Animate Entities and/or Physical Embodiments of a God or Goddess……….....……711 1. Architectural Deity Bodies as a Cross-Cultural Phenomenon: Meru Temples, Effigy Mounds and Minoan Palaces as Embodiments of Divinity..............….712 2. Architecture as the Body of a Deity in Mesoamerica: Symbolic Death and Rebirth at Maya Earth-Monster Temples and Southwestern Kivas.…......…...716 3. Architecture as the Body of a Deity at Monte Albán: The Interchangeability of Natural and Built Altepeme and the Sacredness of Substructures…….....…722 C. Architecture Conceived as the Abode of a Deity or Divine Presence: “Houses of God” as an Overworked But Undertheorized Possibility…….….....…….728 1. Houses of God(s) as a Cross-Cultural Phenomenon: Accommodating Deities in Earthly Replicas of Otherworldly Habitations…………….....…….729 2. Houses of God(s) in Mesoamerica: Teocalli God-Houses, Supernatural Clients and One-to-One Correlations of Deities and Temples…………......…735 3. Houses of God(s) at Monte Albán: Attracting and Accommodating Deities, Deified Ancestors and/or Impersonal Life Forces………..…….....…742 D. Architecture Conceived as a Built Expression of the Attributes of Divinity: Evoking “Otherwise Hid” Qualities of God(s) and Ultimate Reality………....……...750 1. Cross-Cultural Architectural Expressions of Divinity Attributes: Ostensible Strictures against Idolatry and Real Representations of God…......752 2. Architectural Expressions of Divinity Attributes in Mesoamerica: Strategic Manipulations of Light, Geometry and Sheer Size…….....……...…759 3. Architectural Expressions of Divinity Attributes at Monte Albán: The Complementarity of Temple Substructures and Upper Sanctuaries…….....….763 III. Closing Thoughts: Discovering, Embodying, Housing and/or Expressing the Attributes of Many and Mixed Supernaturals……………………. …………....…..…….768 A. Ritual-Architectural Commemorations of Divinity at Monte Albán: The Ample Applicability of All Four Variations on the Theme…………….....…..…770 B. Contentious Academic Theories but Complementary Historical Phenomena: Meaning-Making Juxtapositions of Alternate Divinity Conceptions……...….....……774 CHAPTER FOUR The Ritual-Architectural Commemoration of Divinity: Contentious Academic Theories but Consentient Supernaturalist Conceptions (Priority II-A) “All Greek sacred architecture explores and praises the character of a god or group of gods in a specific place. That place is itself holy and, before the temple was built upon it, embodied the whole of the deity as a recognized natural force. With the coming of the temple, housing its image within it and itself developed as a sculptural embodiment of the god’s presence and character, the meaning becomes double, both of the deity as it nature and the god as imagined by men.” Vincent Scully, 19621 “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Mexican Indian lived for his gods. For this reason, almost all the objects which have been preserved are [for] ritual or show a form strongly affected by the religious sense.” Alfonso Caso, 19362 * Note that I have managed the footnotes in ways that respect “the first citation” (which is thus a full bibliographical citation) in this chapter,
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