Translated Christianities

Nahuatl and Maya Religious Texts

Bibliographic Data

ID2822228
AuthorsDavid Tavárez (0000-0002-1033-6590, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume95
Issue4
Pages675-676
Publication date2015-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-3161553
OpenAlexW2770492815
LanguageEN
Citations received16

Currently, the study of religion in colonial Mexico is in the midst of a dynamic phase, particularly in terms of assessments of indigenous devotions. Having left behind Robert Ricard's influential metaphor about “spiritual conquest” and its near-demiurgic portrayal of mendicants at the helm of the evangelization enterprise, studies have shifted toward the analysis of mendicant policies in institutional and regional contexts and have pursued a consideration of the quotidian interactions between natives and their magistrates in terms of sacred, Christian realms. Other scholars have explored moral dialogues among ecclesiastic authorities, natives, mendicants, and priests, or investigated popular devotions without sparing a look at the various contradictions, disjunctions, and diffuse understandings that accompanied evangelization and the administration of sacraments. Some of the most important trends in the analysis of indigenous Christianities, a term decidedly in the plural, have been stimulated by works that examine the adaptation of European narratives and devotional genres, the substantial corpus of Nahua theatrical works, the study of indigenous public performances, and, of course, habitual catechetical practice in indigenous communities.Some of these analyses have endeavored to display the intimate connections made by catechetical authors between a variety of texts derived from early modern European sources and highly specific cultural beliefs, indigenous histories, and local social conditions. In Translated Christianities, Mark Christensen embraces such an approach. This work provides an enlightening primer and a concise introduction to two impressive bodies of literature: catechetical works written for, and sometimes in collaboration with, Nahua and Maya Christians in colonial Mexico. While many specialists are aware of the challenging depth and breadth of such literatures, especially for Nahuatl, this book is directed to nonspecialist, undergraduate audiences with little background on the topic. Christensen's concise volume walks nimbly across difficult terrain in order to highlight and analyze important examples drawn from a diverse corpus.The volume opens with two singular tales that highlight the multiple, noncanonical transformations of well-known narratives, the conversion of Paul and the ministry of Saint Sebastian, which took place as they went through the hands of Nahua authors. The stories are taken from the hyperbolically named “Nahuatl Bible” preserved at the Schøyen Collection in Oslo — alas, no such colonial Bible ever existed, although a Nahuatl adaptation of Solomonic wisdom did survive an inquisitorial ban. Both tales, previously translated by Fernando Horcasitas, prove engaging in Christensen's rendering, which also discusses these tales' links to scripture and an influential medieval hagiography, the Flos sanctorum. The next chapter highlights moral tales, or exempla, translated into Yucatec Maya. These accounts, found in the sixteenth-century Morley Manuscript and recently translated by Gretchen Whalen, illustrate the creative adaptation of moral tales to a Yucatec Maya context. For instance, a man choosing between penance in purgatory or on Earth counts his sentence not by years but by katun (a 20-year period).The second half of the book focuses on more quotidian matters pertaining to foundational teachings and the administration of sacraments. Chapter 3 provides samples of instructions on baptism for the Nahua by three influential Franciscans (Alonso de Molina, Andrés de Olmos, and Juan Bautista Viseo), a secular priest (Andrés Sáenz de la Peña), and a Jesuit (Ignacio de Paredes). Christensen emphasizes the contrast between the great degree of detail given in Nahuatl texts and the sparseness of Maya texts about baptism. Chapter 4 provides a quick look at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century catechisms, with an emphasis on lesser-known texts, such as Nahuatl works by Carlos de Cárdenas y León and Manuel Joseph de Reyna and an unusual Methodist catechism produced for Mayas in Belize by the evangelist Richard Fletcher. The final chapter assays Maya and Nahuatl confessional guides through a section from Molina's influential 1569 Confessionario mayor and the first full English translation of a highly condensed Maya manual by Juan Coronel.In the end, Christensen's brief and gracious introductions to a variety of examples from the Nahua and Maya catechistic corpus provide a compelling point of entry for the study of what is revealed, upon close inspection, to be a diverse and challenging corpus that defies easy generalizations. This work should instruct and engage both undergraduate and specialist audiences

Archaeology · Art · Ceremony · Colonialism · Indigenous · Linguistics · Literature · Maya · Nahuatl · Narrative · Plural · Sociology · Syncretism (linguistics · Variety (cybernetics · Anthropology · History · Latin American history and culture · Philosophy

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