Religions of Mesoamerica, Second Edition, Will Cover Specific Exa1nples of This Interweaving

Introduction In 1943 a Gern1an anthropologist living in Mexico nan1ed Paul Kirchhoff synthesized years of research and formulated the vie\V that a unique cultural and social system had spread across a huge range of Mex- ico and Central America start ing several thousand years ago. He called this geographical and cultural area "Mesoamerica" or Middle America. Working with the scholarship of several generations of researchers, he sho\ved that the cultural traits and practices shared by peoples in ancient Mesoan1erica included writing, intensive agriculture, stepped pyrarnids, obsidian-edged tools and \veapons, elaborate pottery crafts, solar calen- dars, long-distance trade, ritualized human sacrifice, bark paper, and a wide range of languages. His education in Be rlin and Leipzig encouraged him to focus on the nagging question of the evolution of kinship systen1s into class systerns and the first city-states in the An1ericas. Kirchhoff noticed in his research that there were profow1d social and cultural dif- ferences between the "high cultures" of central Mexico and the societies of its northern neighbors including the hw1ters, fanners, and gatherers in the southwestern United States. His groundbreaking article of 1943 des- ignated Mesoa1nerica as a distinctive area lin1ited to the southern two- thirds of mainland Mexico, Guaten1ala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras , N icaragua, and Costa Rica \vhere \Vhat other scholars called "the urban revolution" took place. 1 Soon after this article appeared, one of Kirchhoff's followers, a Span- ish archaeologist living in Mexico named Pedro Armillas, helped a new generation of Mexican students apply Kirchhoffs evolutionary nlodel to the rise and developn1ent of urban centers and agricultural abundance that led to the magnificent achieven1ents of the Maya and the Aztec civ- 1 2 Introduction ilizations. One central archetype throughout Mesoamerica was 1naize and its regenerative cycle celebrated in 1nany religious practices and world- views. Subsequent studies by multidisciplinary tean1S of archaeologists, h istorians of religions, ethnobotanists, and iconographers revealed that pre-Hispanic Mesoan1erica was a highly diverse ecological \Vorld \Vid1 fluctuating social frontiers, dyna1n ic cultural exchange systems, and robust com1nunication nenvorks often dominated by \vhat Richard Blan- ton calls "higher-order central places." Great city centers \vith names like Tikal, Palenque, Copan, Monte Alban, Mitla, Quirigua, Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Cholula, El Tajfn , T zintzunczan, and Tenochtitlan served as regional and son1etin1es in1perial cores of long-standing states that both dominated large geographical areas and competed n1ilitarily, ceremoni- ally, and economically \vitl1 rival and allied communities. Mesoan1erican societies suffered a n1assive shock when Hernan Cor- tes led an i11Satiable Spanish army across Maya coastal territories and into View of A2tec capital Tenochtitlan. Die.go Rivera's painting shows the imperial marketplace ofTlatelolco in the foreground where artisans and traders gather. A causeway leads to the Great Temple with its two shrines. The snow-capped vol- canoes Lxtaccihuatl and Popocatepetl rise in the background. Introduction 3 the Valley of Mexico in 1519 \Vhere they eventually starved and slaugh- tered the Aztecs into submission. The Spaniards, even \Vith the help of n1any thousands of allied indigenous warriors, ca1ne \Vithin a hairline of being crushed by the Aztecs on nvo occasions, one that the Spaniards and Mexicans still refer ro a "La Noche Triste" (the Night of Sadness). Bur by the early fall of 1521 it appeared rhar they had conquered the great capital of the etnpire of Moctezuma II and \Vou ld have their way n1ilirarily, econon1ically, and spiritually \Vith Mesoamerican peoples. Yer, during the long process of several centuries of colonization that turned ancient Mesoamerica into Ne\v Spain, a prolonged series of physical, cultural, and religious conflicts and exchanges took place an1ong the con- querors, indigenous survivors, mestizos , priests, parishioners, and ne\v kinds of "racially" mixed fan1ilies, son1etimes called castas. What actually happened to Mesoainerican cultures and institutions after the European invasion?2 One view, still popular today, is that the Spaniards were the great agents of obliteration and change while the Indians (a colonial category of indigenous subjects to the Spanish cro\vn) were victims and beaten into sub1nission spiritually, bodily, and culrur- a lly. As we learn later in this book, the surviving Mexicas, Maya, Totonac, Huastec, and scores of other ethnic groups \Vere sometin1es rap- idly, son1etimes gradually, traumatized and changed. Yet, it is impossible to identify a con1n1on colonial history for all of Mesoan1erica, ai1d there is ahnost every,vhere evidence that Indian com1nuniries appropriated both the ne\v Spanish culture and institutions while also reviving pre-His- panic religious and cultural ideas and practices. In the words of the art historian Elizabeth Wilder Wisen1an about the new co1nplexities and exchanges that n1ade the new Mesoan1erica after 1521, "T\vo (or more) different kinds of life absorbed each other and produced things ne\v and different from anything else in the \Vorld. "3 Often \Vhen \Ve turn to the religions, cuisines, fan1i ly histories, and cultural practices of Mexicai1s, Guatemalans, Salvadorians, and other Latino/as fro1n Mesoa1nerica today, \Ve see elements of the living legacy of these exchanges and the ne\V productions. The term "Mesoamerica" is used in this book in nvo \vays-as a pre- Hispanic world characterized by a heterogeneity of cultures organized by city-states that 1nanaged periods of agricultural abundance, con1plex eco- no1nic exchange systen1S, and n1ilitary i11Stitutions and also as a \vorld of complex social ai1d cultural co1nbinar.ions of European and indigenous 4 Introduction This page from rhe Florentine Codex depicrs rhe suffering and medical care of smallpox victims. The Spanish brough r to Mexico a number of foreign diseases that devastared the indigenous population. ideas and practices developed in colonial and up to contemporary times. In the first usage, which will be the focus of 1nost of this book, Mesoamer- ica is valued as one of the six areas of primary urban generation, 1nean- ing where urban society \Vas invented "sui generis," that is, \Vithout outside influences, leading to the flourishing of great ceren1onial-civic centers, city-states, and long-range social networks. Many scholars see parallels benveen cultural traits and developn1ents in Mesomnerica and China, Egypt, the Indus Valley, Peru, and Mesopotamia. Questions of ancient cultural contact benveen these great civilizations were explored, and scho lars wondered if ancient mariners had come to Mexico across the Atlantic or the Pacific, or both. Today, after extensive m1alysis and debate the great majority of scholars have rejected the idea tl1at Meso- american civilizations developed out of direct or indirect influence fron1 Old W orld civilizations, in spite of the si milarities. TI1e strongest evidence shows that Mesoamerican cultures, city-states, and en1pires were developed independently of foreign influences until the time of the Spanish military conquest of parts ofMesoan1erica beginning in 1519. Introduction 5 In the second usage, Mesoamerican cultures include the inter.veaving of these legacies \vith European and to a lesser extent African traditions fron1 the Spanish conquest to the present day. The first and final chapter of Religions of Mesoamerica, Second Edition, will cover specific exa1nples of this interweaving. One central idea for understanding the paradox of radical change and long-term continuities of Mesoamerica's h istory and religion is the "hard nucleus" or a set of ancient and long-standing pre-Hispanic ideas d1ar \Vere eventually uni red \vi th Spanish Christian ideas ro fonn a new cos- n1ovision present an1ong Mesoamerican peoples today. This hard nucleus of Maya and Aztec religious ideas \Viii be discussed in chapters 2, 3, and 4, and \ve \vi ii see ho\v they combined \vith Spanish Catholic conceptions of the hun1an and divine in d1e final chapter of this book.4 Son1e historical co1n- n1enrs belo\v \vill prepare readers for both usages of Mesoan1erica. Spaniards introduced at least four decisive institutions into colonial Mesoamerica; (1) the Spanish language; (2) the Ron1an Catholic Church attempting to carry our a "spiritual conquest" of all native peoples; (3) an enormous royal bureaucracy administering ne\v landholdings, local gov- en1ments, animals, and mines; and ( 4) ne\v technology, tools, and crafts. The don1inating itnpact of soldiers, C hurch, and governmental bureaucracy \vas greatly enhanced by an i nm1ense biological catastrophe that reduced the indigenous population fron1 around 25 million in 1520 to one million in 1620. This incredible loss of life \Vas caused by either direct mur- der in warfare, cruelty in the n1ines, fields, and to\vns, or "microbe shock," that is, diseases. The majority of those who died during the si.xteenth cen- tury were d1e victin1s of diseases transmitted by d1e "lethal handshake"- d1e physical contact with Europeans including baptis1n by Catholic priests who sometimes used their o\vn saliva to bless their native parishioners. These diseases turned into epidemics fueled by malnutrition, fatigue, and the destruction of the indigenous social relations and medical practices. People in Mesoainerica had had

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