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Catalan Holy Week ceremonies, Catholic ideology, and culture change in the Spanish colonial empire Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Alvarado, Anita Louise, 1931- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 03/10/2021 21:27:04 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565320 CATALAN HOLY WEEK CEREMONIES, CATHOLIC IDEOLOGY, AND CULTURE CHANGE IN THE SPANISH COLONIAL EMPIRE by Anita Louise Alvarado A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 7 4 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Anita Louise Alvarado______________________ entitled Catalan Holy Week Ceremonies, Catholic Ideology, and Culture Change in the Spanish Colonial Empire______ be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the degree of ___________ Doctor of Philosophy__________________________ Dissertation Dir After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and recommend its acceptance:* Zj'lf /( 1 7 / s /?,*>// ‘T7<4- This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. 1 SIGNED COPYRIGHTED BY ANITA LOUISE ALVARADO 1974 Dedicated to Edward P, Dozier PREFACE This study began, although I was unaware of it at the time, in the office of Dr. Thomas B . Hinton one early spring day in 1969. Dr. Hinton had called me in to ask me if I would be interested in going to Mexico to do an ethnography of Holy Week ceremonies among the Opata. I agreed enthusiastically because I was quite anxious to do the fieldwork although in truth, I did not find the subject matter of the study particularly appealing. Twelve years of Catholic education had drummed into my head such subjects as the content and meaning of Catholic dogma and liturgy, its history and development, the history of the Church, seemingly endless numbers of popes and bulls and encyclicals, the Reformation, the Counter-reformation, the persecution of the Church by protestants and infidels, the persecution of protestants and infidels by the Church. Occasionally there were some amusing and interesting interludes in these studies, such as the history of ritual before the reforms of the Council of Trent. The nuns told us, for example, how it had been customary to compose hymns by using the most popular secular music of the day and simply writing reli­ gious lyrics so that the same music might serve as an occasion of sin on Saturday night and as the highest form of praise to God on Sunday morning. We laughed and wondered vi at the unrecognizable ways of our not so remote Catholic ancestors. However, religious education is for the most part extremely dry. Having been indoctrinated in religion for so many years, I had never felt any particular urge to study it as an anthropologist. If I were to take advantage of the opportunity offered me by Dr. Hinton, however, I would certainly have to do some background work on the forms of Catholicism found in the Spanish New World. I therefore began to read everything I could find on religion in northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States, as well as other areas of Spanish America, It also happened that a seminar on the Philippines under Dr. Edward P. Dozier enabled me to explore the subject in another area of the Spanish American empire. With my reading background I felt that I was fairly well prepared for fieldwork among the Opata. However, I was completely amazed at what I saw. The Opata Holy Week complex is indeed typical of those found elsewhere in Latin America and the Philippines. What I was unprepared for is the observation that much of what has been typically described as of pagan provenience struck me as an ancient form of Catholicism. When I returned to Tucson and expressed this opinion, Dr, Edward H* Spicer suggested that I look into the European background of Holy Week ceremonies in a summer of library research. vii The summer of 1969, therefore, was spent in Washington at the Library of Congress whose staff kindly arranged for me to have comfortable research facilities on the premises. I gathered much interesting and valuable Spanish data covering the period from the middle ages to the present. However, the primary objective of my search, i.e., a complete Holy Week ceremonial complex such as is typical of christianized Indians throughout the former Spanish colonial empire, eluded me. I then turned to the rest of Europe with particular attention to Italy and Germany, parts of which were under Spanish hegemony and which had supplied men for'the Spanish missionary field. There was even less to be found in those areas. The Oberammergau passion play was the closest phenomenon but its well documented development left no doubt that there was no relationship, I then turned back to a reconsideration of the Spanish data with an eye for geographical gaps, I found I had nothing on Catalonia. Inquiry into the Catalan data soon revealed a reason for its having been overlooked. Practically all of the literature is in Catalan, Although somewhat discouraged by my failure to find appropriate information in the rest of Spain, I armed myself with a Spanish-Catalan dictionary and went to work, ■ I was almost immediately rewarded with tantalizing bits and pieces as Catalan folklorists described parts of processions which seemed remarkably like those I viii had seen in Mexico. Although entire ceremonial complexes were not reported, it was apparent that all of the characteristic elements were there in context. The next task then was evident: to go to Catalonia and see what information could be gathered through ethnographic and ethnohistoric research. The first opportunity to do so came in January, 1971, at which time I began fieldwork in Verges, Gerona. This village was selected because I had seen several partial descriptions of ceremonies there which seemed to offer a promise of fruitful research. Moreover it seemed likely that the ceremonial complex was still extant. In addition, I was aware that some Catalan archives went back to as early as the tenth century. Therefore it seemed possible that I might be able to do ethnographic and ethnohistoric research in the same village. This hope was dashed when I learned that the village's ancient archives had been burned as recently as 1936, The archives of the provincial capital of Gerona, 26,5 kilometers away are intact however, so the selection still seemed worthwhile. Fieldwork, archival work, and the learning of Catalan were done simultaneously for the most part with mornings spent in Gerona and the rest of the time in Verges except for short fieldtrips to other towns for ethnographic and/or archival research. The actual fieldwork for this ix study was begun in January, 1971, and ended on August 28 of the same year. My formal acknowledgments for the help, encourage­ ment, and financial support which made this study possible will be found in the following section. However, I think it appropriate here to give a special "thank you" to the good people of Verges who gave a stranger a memorable home away from home and to the Sisters of the Orders of Saint Joseph and Notre Dame de Namur who first taught me to wonder at the unrecognizable ways of our not so remote Catholic ancestors. It is difficult to find words that properly express the appreciation which I feel for the following persons whose help, encouragement, and criticism have contributed so much to my development, both personal and professional. The earliest helper, encpurager, and critic in my career has been my mother, Beatrice R. Alvarado, She has endured the ups and downs of my scholastic life, with their attendant changes in mood, with remarkable fortitude. Since she has been all her life a neat, precise, wellr- organized administrative assistant to various scientistsf perhaps the most difficult aspect for her has been her self­ assumed role as typist and proofreader of this manuscript in its earliest stage. She has given tirelessly of her time and talent to get the chapters in proper form for the committee and the final typist. Without this assistance. I would be much further behind schedule in its completion. In addition, she has given as generously in terms of financial assistance throughout .my undergraduate and graduate periods. Finally, she has made a very material contribution to this study. Her lifelong devotion to Catholicism is reflected in part by the support of twelve years of excellent Catholic education for her children. It is this educational background which has provided the finest possible participant-observation for a future anthropologist.

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