The Imagination of Matter

This volume grew out of a symposium held in Boulder, Colorado, in 1986. Any review of it should probably begin with an explanation of its title: what is, after all, imagination of matter? In some cases, the phrase seems refer the ways in which (primarily Aztec) peoples incorporated prominent features -of the landscape into their religion and worldview. In other cases; it refers the way cosmological beliefs were given tangible, physical expression in Aztec architecture, site layout, or building orientation. Thus, 'the term ecology in the subtitle is a bit misleading; ethnoscience would probably have been closer what was actually done. In fact, ecology is used throughout not as the name of a subdiscipline within biology, but as a synonym for natural environment or topographic features of the landscape. As editor, Carrasco identifies the book's objective as an effort to gain a clear view of how religious imagination and material forms were intertwined in the dynamic worlds of ceremonial centers. He poses a number of questions, such as How did the imagination work design the general cultural landscape? and What is the distinctiveness of the religious imagination, concerning the parallelism between the heavens and ecology? latter question, which cuts the heart of what is specifically Mesoamerican, is particularly fascinating, but really never addressed. Perhaps one day we will have a conference on what, if anything, is distinctively Mesoamerican about that area's religion, use of ritual space, site layout, city planning, and so forth, as opposed the expression of those features in Egypt, Sumer, China, or India. Following Carrasco's introduction, 10 articles are grouped under four headings. In Part I, Hermeneutics and the Imagination of Matter, are papers by Jorge Klor de Alva, Peter van der Loo, and Elizabeth H. Boone. In Part II, Astronomy, Skyscapes, and the Imagination of Matter, are contributions by Anthony Aveni, Susan Milbrath, and Carmen Aguilera, while Part III, Landscapes and the Imagination of Matter, includes papers by Johanna Broda and Richard F. Townsend. Finally, in Part IV, The Body and the Imagination of Matter, are papers by Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano and Doris Heyden. As in any symposium volume, the papers vary in quality. Those making significant methodological points or presenting data of general interest are by Aveni, Boone, Broda, Heyden, van der Loo, Milbrath, and Townsend. A particularly good example is the paper, Geography, Climate and the Observation of Nature in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, by Johanna Broda. Here (and elsewhere in a number of other important papers [Broda 1987a, 1987b]), Broda has adopted an interdisciplinary and comparative approach by integrating data from astronomy, geography, climate, worldview, the Aztec calendric cycle of festivals, and the performance of ritual behavior. Broda makes a number of points, including the notions that 1) mountain worship had its basis in the specific conditions of the environment; 2) mountains played an important role in the astronomical-horizon-reference system; 3) characteristics attributed mountain deities were based on

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• The Chicano Codex

  Damián Baca•College English•2009

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• Decapitated Lunar Goddesses in Aztec Art, Myth, and Ritual

  Open Access•Susan Milbrath•Ancient Mesoamerica•1997

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• Archaeological Views of Aztec Culture

  Open Access•Mary G Hodges, Mary G Hodge•Journal of Archaeological Research•1998

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