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The Tales of Two Cultures: Ecclesiastical Texts and Nahua and Maya Catholicisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Mark Z. Christensen
Mark Z. Christensen*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania
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[Priests should use] … an abbreviated catechism, scrupulously extracted from the Roman one so that the faithful receive the pure and sound Doctrine of the Church with uniformity and with the authority accordant to the Provincial Council … therefore, with luck, random works destitute of legitimate authority and revision in matters so grave will not circulate such important material.

When in the late eighteenth century the prelates of the Fourth Mexican Provincial Council ordered all clergy to stricdy employ their newly printed catechism, they provided a valuable description of the colonial Church and its relationship to unofficial ecclesiastical texts. The Fourth Provincial Council's call for the faithful to receive the doctrines of the Church in a sanctioned and uniform manner acknowledged the presence of a variety of Catholic discourses that stemmed from colonial religious works deemed to be “destitute of legitimate authority and revision.” Such unofficial ecclesiastical texts avoided the editing process that both the clergy and Crown established to ensure the orthodoxy of all printed religious material. In so doing, the texts could convey diverse, unorthodox interpretations of Catholicism. These unofficial ecclesiastical texts, and the role they played in producing multiple versions of Catholicism, constitute the focus of this study.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , January 2010 , pp. 353 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2010

References

I thank Elizabeth Gano Sorcnssen for allowing me access to the Nahuatl sermon. I also thank Matthew Restali and Rebecca Horn for their comments, and James Lockhart for his crucial aid with the transcription and translation of the Nahuad text, and for his insights. Of course, any errors or misunderstandings are my own.

1. Catecismo y suma de la doctrina Christiana(México: Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana, 1771); translation mine.Google Scholar

2. For a few examples of works challenging the tenets of Robert, Ricarda’s The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain: 1523–72,Google Scholar translated by Lesley, Byrd Simpson (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966),Google Scholar see Madsen, William The Virgin’s Children: Life in an Aztec Village Today (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960);Google Scholar Gibson, Charles The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico 1519–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964);Google Scholar León-Portilla, Miguel Testimonios nahuas sobre la conquista espiritual,” Estudios de cultural náhuatl 21 (1974), pp. 11–36;Google Scholar Lockhart, James The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar Recently, scholars have produced excellent edited volumes on the topic. See Austin Nesvig, Martin ed., Local Religion in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006);Google Scholar Schroeder, Susan and Poole, Stafford eds., Religion in New Spain (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007).Google Scholar

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5. Some exceptions would be Burkhart, Before Guadalupe; Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; Klaus, Susanne Uprooted Christianity: The Preaching of the Christian Doctrine in Mexico Based on Franciscan Sermons of the 16th Century Written in Nahuatl, Bonner Amerikanistische Studien, no. 33, (Bonn: Anton Saurwein, 1999);Google Scholar de Alva, don Bartolomé A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, ed. Sell, Barry D. Schwaller, John Frederick with Homza, Lu Ann (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999);Google Scholar Sell, Barry “Friars, Nahuas, and Books: Language and Expression in Colonial Nahuatl Publications” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1993);Google Scholar Sell, Barry D. Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: lite 1552 Ordinances of Fray Alonso de Molina, OFM (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002);Google Scholar Tavárez, David “Naming the Trinity: From Ideologies of Translation to Dialectics of Reception in Colonial Nahua Texts, 1547–1771,” Colonial Latin American Review 9:1 (2000);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Schwaller, John F. “The Ilhuica of the Nahua: Is Heaven Just a Place?” The Americas 62:3 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also, to some extent, Díaz Balsera, Viviana The Pyramid Under the Cross: Franciscan Discourses of Evangelization and the Nahua Clrristian Subject in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005);Google Scholar and Pardo, Osvaldo F. The Origins of Mexican Catholicism: Nahua Rituals and Christian Sacraments in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. The work of William Hanks provides notable exceptions. See his “Authenticity and Ambivalence in the Text: A Colonial Maya Case,” American Ethnologist 13:4 (1986); and his “Discourse Genres in a Theory of Practice,” American Ethnologist 14:4 (1987).

7. Restali, Matthew “The Telling of Tales: A Spanish Priest and His Maya Parishioners,” in Colonial Lives, ed. Richard Boyer and Geoffrey Spurling (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 24.Google Scholar

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12. Lockhart, The Nahuas, p. 256;Google Scholar Burkhart, Louise “Doctrinal Aspects of Sahagún’s Colloquies,” in The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico, ed. Klor de Alva, J. Jorge Nicholson, H.B., and Quiñones Keber, Eloise (Albany: State University of New York, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 1988), p. 68;Google Scholar Burkhart, Tlje Slippery Earth, p. 39.Google Scholar

13. Burkhart, “Sahagun’s Colloquies,” pp. 65–82;Google Scholar Karttunen, Frances and Lockhart, James eds., The Art of Náhuatl Speech: The Bancroft Dialogues, UCLA Latin American Center Nahuad Studies Series 2 (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1987), p. 25.Google Scholar

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15. de León, Fray Martín Primera parte del sermonario del tiempo de todo el año, duplicado, en lengua mexicana (México: Emprenta de la Viuda de Diego Lopez Daualos, 1614),Google Scholar preliminary page, unnumbered; translation mine.

16. Lockhart, The Nahuas, pp. 270–84.Google Scholar

17. For specific examples, see Burkhart’s, The Slippery Earth which covers the matter in detail.Google Scholar

18. Lorenzana, Francisco Antonio Concilios provinciales primero, y segundo, celebrados en la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de México, presidiendo el Illmo. Τ Rmo. Señor D. Fr. Alonso de Muntufar, en los años de 1555, y 1565 (México, 1769), pp. 143–3.Google Scholar See also Sell, “Friars, Nahuas, and Books,” p. 122 note 20;Google Scholar Mosquera, Daniel “Nahuad Catechistic Drama: New Translations, Old Preoccupations,” in Náhuatl Theater, vol. 1, Death and Life in Colonial Nahua Mexico, ed. Sell, Barry D. and Burkhart, Louise M. with a foreword by León-Portilla, Miguel (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), pp. 58–61.Google Scholar

19. Lorenzana, Concilios provinciales, p. 149;Google Scholar Sell, “Friars, Nahuas, and Books,” pp. 58–9, 122.Google Scholar

20. Sell, “Friars, Nahuas, and Books,” pp. 120–1.Google Scholar For a discussion on the degree of Spanish supervision and inspiration, see Lockhart, The Nahuas, pp. 402–3.Google Scholar

21. For more on the duties of the fiscales see Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest, pp. 97–8;Google Scholar Lockhart, The Nahuas, pp. 210–15.Google Scholar

22. Collins, Anne C. “The Maestros Cantores in Yucatan” in Anthropology and History in Yucatán, ed. Jones, Grant D. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), p. 244.Google Scholar

23. Gibson, The Aztecs, p. 112.Google Scholar

24. Collins, “Maestros,” p. 238.Google Scholar

25. Thompson, Philip C. Tekanto, A Maya Town in Colonial Yucatán (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, Tulanc University, 1999), p. 17.Google Scholar

26. Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest, pp. 97–8.Google Scholar

27. Collins, “Maestros,” p. 236.Google Scholar

28. de Santa Rosa, Fray Pedro Beltrán Novena de christo crucificado con otro oraciones en lengua maya (México: don Francisco de Xavier Sanchez, 1740),Google Scholar photostat reproduction, preliminary page, unnumbered; translation mine.

29. “Maya Sermons”, Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts Collection (C0744) no. 65, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

30. Burkhart, Louise M. Holy Wednesday, p. 165;Google Scholar Acuña, René “Escritos Mayas inéditos y publicados hasta 1578: testimonio del obispo Diego de Landa,” Estudios de Cultura Maya 21 (2001), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

31. “Discourses on the Passion of Christ and other Texts,” Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts Collection (C0744) no. 66, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

32. Some recent articles examining such texts are Knowlton, Timothy “Dynamics of Indigenous Language Ideologies in the Colonial Redaction of a Yucatec Maya Cosmological Text,” Anthropological Linguistics 50:1 (Spring 2008);Google Scholar and Tavárez, David Eduardo “La idolatría letrada: un análisis comparativo de textos clandestinos rituales y devo-cionales en comunidades nahuas y zapotecas, 1613–1654,” Historia Mexicana 49:2 (Oct.-Dec, 1999), pp. 197–252.Google Scholar

33. Lara, Jaime Christian Texts for Aztecs: Art and Liturgy in Colonial Mexico (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), pp. 56–7.Google Scholar

34. Don Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci originally owned the manuscript which fell into the hands of Ramón Mena who later gave it to the father of Federico Gómez de Orozco. In 1945 Mexico's Museo Nacional acquired the manuscript, but Horcasitas noted its absence in his 1974 El teatro náhuatl. Today, the manuscript is housed in the Schoyen Collection as MS 1692, The Schøyen Collection, Oslo and London. See Horcasitas, El teatro náhuatl, pp. 447–59, 6103;Google Scholar de Orozco:, Federico Gómez Catalogo de la colección de manuscritos relativos a la historia de America (Mexico: Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, 1927), pp. 156–158;Google Scholar and Glass, John “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” in Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, vol. 14 of HMAI, ed. Wauchope, Robert (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975), p. 175, no. 236.Google Scholar

35. Personal correspondence with James Lockhart, December 13, 2007. A more detailed analysis of the manuscript appears in my forthcoming dissertation. A transcription and loose Spanish translation of the text by Galicia Chi-malpopoca first appeared in Horcasitas’ El teatro náhuatl, pp. 449–58. While similarities exist, my transcription of the original manuscript varies, at times markedly, from that found in Horcasitas' work; mine is the first English translation.

36. Schøyen Collection, MS 1692, pp. 8–9.

37. Ibid., pp. 8–9.

38. Orozco, Catalogo, pp. 157–8;Google Scholar Horcasitas, El teatro náhuatl, pp. 601–2.Google Scholar

39. Horcasitas, El teatro náhuatl, p. 603.Google Scholar Cornyn believed the manuscript to date from 1530. He likely thought it was the same play he and Byron McAfee claimed was performed in the atrium of Mexico City's parish church in 1530. Cornyn, John H. and McAfee, Byron “Tlacahuapahualiztli (Bringing up Children),” Tlalocan 1:4 (1944), p. 316.Google Scholar

40. I thank Elizabeth Boone for her aid in analyzing the profiles.

41. Burkhart notes a similar familiarization of Saint James in various psalms of Sahagun’s Psalmodia; see Burkhart, Louise “The Amanuenses Have Appropriated the Text: Interpreting a Nahuad Song of Santiago,” in On the Translation of Native American Literatures, ed. Swann, Brian (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), pp. 339–355.Google Scholar

42. Whalen, “An Annotated Translation.”Google Scholar

43. “The Morley Manuscript,” p. 195, as appears in Whalen, “An Annotated Translation.”

44. Ibid., pp. 194–99.

45. Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest, p. 98.Google Scholar

46. de Aguilar, Pedro Sanchez Informe contra idolorum cultores del obispado de Yucatan, in El alma encantada: Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico, ed. Benítez, Fernando (México: Instituto Nacional Indigenista/Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1987), p. 115.Google Scholar I thank Timothy Knowiton for informing me of this citation and for his comments on the matter. For more on the works of Maya maestros particularly concerning the creation see Knowiton, Timothy “Dialo-gism in the Language of Colonial Maya Creation Myths” (Ph.D. diss., Tulanc University, 2004);Google Scholar and Knowiton, “Dynamics.”

47. de Cogolludo, Diego López Historia de Yucatán (Madrid: J. García Infanzón, 1688), pp. 192–93.Google Scholar

48. Hor example, see Karttunen, and Lockhart, The Bancroft Dialogues, p. 120.Google Scholar The Maya seem to have also appreciated sweeping for its spiritual significance as the ruler Mizcit Ahau swept the roads of Chichén Itzá, see Thompson, Maya Religión, p. 14.Google Scholar However, the act of sweeping appears much more frequently associated with the pre- and post-contact Nahua whereas such references for the Maya are scarce and typically refer to Mizcit Ahau and Chichén Itzá which, interestingly, is a settlement with Central Mexican influence.

49. Wood, Stephanie “Adopted Saints: Christian Images in Nahua Testaments in late Colonial Toluca,” The Americas 47:3 (January 1991), p. 283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. For more on the symbolic significance of seats see Terraciano, Kevin The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca: Nudza-hut History, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 32–38.Google Scholar

51. de Molina, Fray Alonso Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, facsimile of 1571 ed. (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1944), f. 81r.Google Scholar

52. Burkhart, Louise M. “Death and the Colonial Nahua,” in Náhuatl Theater, vol. 1, Death and Life in Colonial Nahua Mexico, p. 40.Google Scholar

53. For more on omens, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, p. 64.Google Scholar

54. de Sahagún, Fray Bernardino Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, book five, trans, and ed. Anderson, Arthur J.O. and Dibble, Charles E. 13 parts (Santa Fe, New Mexico and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and University of Utah, 1953–82), pp. 151–56, passim.Google Scholar

55. Molina, Confesionario mayor, f. 21r; personal translation from the Náhuatl.

56. For more insights into the Maya influences on the Genesis account see Whalen’s comments on the “Creation of Adam” İn her “An Annotated Translation.” Her preliminary work inspired much of my analysis on the Maya account.

57. Roys, Ralph L. “A Maya Account of the Creation,” American Anthropologist, New Series, 22:4 (Oct. - Dec, 1920), p. 363.Google Scholar Also, see Edmonson, Munro S. trans, and ed., Heaven Born Mérida and Its Destiny: The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), pp. 121–26.Google Scholar

58. Whalen, “An Annotated Translation.”

59. The Nahua also believed that the earth and humanity were formed through a scries of creative cycles. See León-Portilla, Miguel Native Mesoamerican Spirituality: Ancient Myths, Discourses, Stories, Doctrines, Hymns, Poems from the Aztec, Tucatec, Qttiche-Maya and other Sacred Traditions, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 137.Google Scholar

60. Edmonson, Chumayel, p. 125.Google Scholar

61. Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh the Sacred Book of the Maya: The Great Classic of Central American Spirituality, Translated from the Original Maya Text (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), p. 83.Google Scholar

62. Carrasco, David Religions of Mesoamerica: Cosmovision and Ceremonial Centers (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), pp. 98–103.Google Scholar

63. Cenotes are sinkholes containing groundwater.

64. Brown, Clifford T. “Caves, Karst, and Settlement at Mayapán, Yucatán,” in In the Maw of the Earth Monster: Mesoamerican Ritual Cave Use, ed. Brady, James E. and Prufer, Keith M. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), pp. 384–5.Google Scholar

65. Moyes, Holley “Cluster Concentrations, Boundary Markers, and Ritual Pathways: A GIS Analysis of Artifact Cluster Patterns at Actun Tunichil Muknal, Belize,” in In the Maw of the Earth Monster, p. 287.Google Scholar

66. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, p. 190.Google Scholar

67. Acts 9-10 (AV). Saul is continually referenced by his original name after his baptism. It is not until Acts 13:9 that he is referred to as Paul.

68. Personal correspondence with James Lockhart, March 31, 2009. For more on the orthography of “s” see Lockhart, James Náhuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Náhuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 114–5.Google Scholar

69. Although Genesis 1:26-31 and 2:1-11 present distinct accounts of the Creation, both combine to form the standard Christian narrative.

70. Genesis 15:2; 2 Kings: 5; Acts 9:1-27. I thank Stafford Poole for his insight on the matter.

71. Mark 7:34; Mark 8:22-6.

72. Gruzinski, Serge The Conquest of Mexico: The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World, 16th-18th Centuries, trans. Eileen Corrigan (Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers, 1993), p. 56.Google Scholar

73. Schøyen Collection MS 1692, pp. 1–9.