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Eagle, grasshopper, jaguar, butterfly, dog, monkey, feathered serpent, all these animals, real or mythological, tiny or majestic, carry a message. Forty works drawn with pen or brush have a dialogue with the texts of Elisabeth Foch, By taking us to a journey through the museums of Anthropology, the Templo Mayor in Mexico and the collections of the musée du quai Branly in Paris, this book takes us into the world of an ancient Mexico.
Drawings on the signs of the Stone of the Sun that represent each of the 20 tonaltin of the month, accompanied by the Spanish and Nahuatl words.
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Of all the civilizations the Spanish explorers found in the New World, the one that loved the native chile peppers the most was the Aztecs. Theirs was a culture in which the hot and tasty treats were revered almost as much as sex. Over the centuries, Aztec cookery grew and spread to become the basis for the Mexican food of today, and many Aztec dishes have lasted through the years basically unchanged. Usually, these foods were roasted, boiled, or cooked in sauces, in a legacy that Dave DeWitt, the noted Pope of Peppers, has compiled into this wonderful addition to his scintillating Pepper Pantry series.
In Aztec Philosophy, James Maffie reveals a highly sophisticated and systematic Aztec philosophy worthy of consideration alongside European philosophies of their time. Bringing together the fields of comparative world philosophy and Mesoamerican studies, Maffie excavates the distinctly philosophical aspects of Aztec thought. Aztec Philosophy focuses on the ways Aztec metaphysics—the Aztecs’ understanding of the nature, structure and constitution of reality—underpinned Aztec thinking about wisdom, ethics, politics,\ and aesthetics, and served as a backdrop for Aztec religious practices as well as everyday activities such as weaving, farming, and warfare. Aztec metaphysicians conceived reality and cosmos as a grand, ongoing process of weaving—theirs was a world in motion. Drawing upon linguistic, ethnohistorical, archaeological, historical, and contemporary ethnographic evidence, Maffie argues that Aztec metaphysics maintained a processive, transformational, and non-hierarchical view of reality, time, and existence along with a pantheistic theology. Aztec Philosophy will be of great interest to Mesoamericanists, philosophers, religionists, folklorists, and Latin Americanists as well as students of indigenous philosophy, religion, and art of the Americas.
Arriving in Mexico less than a decade after the Spanish conquest of 1521, the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún not only laboured to supplant native religion with Christianity, he also gathered voluminous information on virtually every aspect of Aztec (Nahua) life in contact-period Mexico. His pioneering ethnographic work relied on interviews with Nahua elders and the assistance of a younger generation of bicultural, missionary-trained Nahuas. Sahagún's remarkably detailed descriptions of Aztec ceremonial life offer the most extensive account of a non-Western ritual system recorded before modern times. This book uses Sahagún's corpus as a starting point to focus on ritual performance, a key element in the functioning of the Aztec world. With topics ranging from the ritual use of sand and paper to the sacrifice of women, contributors explore how Aztec rites were represented in the images and texts of documents compiled under colonial rule and the implications of this European filter for our understanding of these ceremonies. Incorporating diverse disciplinary perspectives, contributors include Davíd Carrasco, Philip P. Arnold, Kay Read, H. B. Nicholson, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Guilhem Olivier, Doris Heyden, and Eloise Quiñones Keber.
Contents: Notes on the Oldest Structure of El Tempo Mayor at Tenochtitlan; A Study of Skeletal Materials from Tlatelolco; Discovery of a Painted Mural at Tlatelolco; The Mt. Tlaloc Project; The Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca -- To Change Place; Mapping the Ritual Landscape -- Debt Payment to Tlaloc During the Month of Atlcahualo; The Sacred Landscape of Aztec Calendar Festivals -- Myth, Nature and Society; Migration Histories as Ritual Performance; The Myth of the Half-Man Who Descended from the Sky; The Octli Cult in Late Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico; Dryness Before the Rains -- Taxcatl and Tezcatlipoca; Reflection on the Miraculous Waters of Tenochtitlan; Vamos a Rezar a San Marcos -- A Tlapanec Pilgrimage; Eating Landscape -- Human Sacrifice and Sustenance in Aztec Mexico; Religious Rationalisation and the Conversions of the Nahuas -- Social Organisation and Colonial Epistemology; Remnants of the Shaman.
This book examines the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and transformations in political, social, cultural, and religious life in Mexico during the Conquest and the ensuing colonial period. In particular, contributors consider the ways in which the Conquest itself was remembered, both in its immediate aftermath and in later centuries. Was Moteuczoma really as weak as history portrayed him? As Susan D Gillespie instead suggests in 'Blaming Moteuczoma', the representation of Moteuczoma as a scapegoat for the Aztec defeat can be understood as a product of indigenous resistance and accommodation following the imposition of Spanish colonialism. Chapters address the various roles (real and imagined) of Moteuczoma, Cortés, and Malinche in the fall of the Aztecs; the representation of history in colonial art; and the complex cultural transformations that actually took place.
The new field of spatial history has been driven by digital mapping tools that can readily show change over time in space. But long before such software became available, mapmakers regularly represented time in sophisticated and nuanced ways in supposedly static maps, and even those maps presented as a historical snapshot illustrate the centrality of time to what we think of as primarily a spatial medium. In this collection, an array of today’s leading scholars consider how mapmakers in a variety of contexts depicted time in their creations—from Aztecs documenting the founding of Tenochtitlan, to early modern Japanese reconstructing nostalgic landscapes before Western encroachments, to nineteenth-century Americans grappling with the new concept of deep time. The book includes a theoretical salvo and defense of traditional paper maps by William Rankin—himself a distinguished digital mapmaker—and includes more than 100 maps and related visuals, all in full color.
Combining older findings with new data on 1,000 previously undescribed archaeological sites, this book presents the cultural evolution of the Mixteca Alta in an up-to-date chronological framework. The ñuu -- the kingdoms of the famous Mixtec codices -- are traced back through the Post-Classic and Classic periods to their beginnings in the first states of the Terminal Formative, revealing their origin, evolution, and persistence through two cycles of growth and collapse. Challenging assumptions that the Mixtec were peripheral to better-known peoples such as the Aztecs or Maya, the book asserts that the ñuu were a major demographic and economic power in their own right. Older explanations of multiregional or macroregional systems often portrayed civilisations as rising in a cradle or hearth and spreading outward. New macroregional studies show that civilisations are products of more complex interactions between regions, in which peripheries are not simply shaped by cores but by their interactions with multiple societies at varying distances from major centres. This book is a significant contribution to this emerging area of archaeological research.
Help create peaceful children and a peaceful world with this book that teaches the universal wisdom of yoga philosophy using multicultural, interfaith stories to bring peace and character education to children and families. This book, for teachers and parents to share with children, has 26 teaching tales culled from the world's many faith traditions. It features such gems as "Mohammad and the Cat" (about kindness), "Brahma's Tears" (about unity), "Calming the Storm" (about courage), and "Conejito and the Wax Doll" (about anger management). Plus, there are many stories from African, Buddhist, Jewish, and Sufi traditions as well. This book also focuses on meditation and relaxation-for children to improve health and literacy-and features follow-up activities and the classic Storytime Yoga method of including yoga poses scripted with the stories!
This clear, readable, and amply annotated translation, the first in English, of what can only be considered a key Nahuatl-language manuscript is definitely a significant contribution to the fields of Mesoamerican ethnohistory, early Mexican history, and historical philology, and more particularly for those interested in the history and historical memory of the Nahuas. the publication of this text should generate lively interest at the academic level.-- Robert Haskett, author of Idigenous Rulers; co-editor of Indian Women of Early Mexico Transcribed from the original Nahuatl manuscript (written circa 1600) and translated into English for the first time, this epic chronicle tells the preconquest history of the Tlaxcalteca, who migrated into central Mexico from the northern frontier of the Toltec empire at its fall. By the time of Cortés's arrival in the sixteenth century, the Tlaxcalteca were the main rivals to the Mexica, or Aztecs, as they are commonly known. One of the few peoples of central Mexico not ruled from the Mexica capital city of Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalteca resided in the next valley to the east and became Cortés's powerful allies. They were also speakers of the Nahuatl language who followed a sophisticated agriculturally based urban way of life and documented their history in traditional —painted books —created by specially trained scribes. Thus, their chronicle, AnónimoMexicano, offers a rare alternative perspective on the history of central Mexico, which has been dominated in the popular imagination by the stories of the Mexica. The original Anónimo Mexicano is housed in the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. Its first complete publication here includes a full English translation, the original classical Nahuatl, a modern Nahuatl version, and comprehensive annotation. This definitive edition thus will be valuable for linguists, ethnohistorians, folklorists, Mesoamerican scholars, and others. Moreover, anyone interested in the epic origin tales of peoples and nations will find interest inAnónimo Mexicano's grand narrative of dynastic wars, conquests, and migrations, cast in mythological terms.
Updated with a new chapter by Davíd Carrasco describing how the Aztec world has been re-imagined by modern Mexican American communities and Chicano scholars, 'Moctezuma's Mexico' is a lavishly illustrated volume that provides an in-depth historical profile of the Aztec empire on the eve of its fateful encounter with the Europeans. Beginning with an exploration of Aztec history and cosmovision, the authors and two other prominent scholars-Anthony Aveni and Elizabeth Hill Boone-examine Aztec ceremonies, astronomy, myths, rhetoric, and moral philosophy, as well as controversies in recent Aztec scholarship using poetry, sculpture, painting, and the archaeological record. With nearly 150 full-colour illustrations, 'Moctezuma's Mexico' is an important and handsome book that will appeal to scholars and students of Mexico's indigenous past.
Tezcatlipoca: Trickster and Supreme Deity brings archaeological evidence into the body of scholarship on “the lord of the smoking mirror,” one of the most important Aztec deities. While iconographic and textual resources from sixteenth-century chroniclers and codices have contributed greatly to the understanding of Aztec religious beliefs and practices, contributors to this volume demonstrate the diverse ways material evidence expands on these traditional sources. The interlocking complexities of Tezcatlipoca’s nature, multiple roles, and metaphorical attributes illustrate the extent to which his influence penetrated Aztec belief and social action across all levels of late Postclassic central Mexican culture. Tezcatlipoca examines the results of archaeological investigations—objects like obsidian mirrors, gold, bells, public stone monuments, and even a mosaic skull—and reveals new insights into the supreme deity of the Aztec pantheon and his role in Aztec culture.
THE AZTEC EAGLE HAS FALLEN DOWN A .D. 1525. In the tropical forest of the Maya region, white hands runs a rope around the neck of a brass-skinned young man. The executioners are Spanish. The victim is a Mexican; his name, Cuauhtemoc, means “the eagle that falls, or that fells”; he is the eleventh and last emperor of Mexico. In this hour of weariness, the death of Cuauhtemoc is wanted by Hernán Cortés, who has brought down the Aztec empire and the eagle impersonating it. It is the dismal conclusion of an absurd and tragic story – almost a science-fiction story- which began when, in 1519, a few hundreds of Spanish soldiers landed on the east coast of the country: “beings”, and what was their nature? Why did they emerge from the seas’s abysses? Religious to the point of frenzy, of illness, the emperor Montezuma opened the doors of the empire to the man who he mistook for the incarnation of the Feathered Serpent god; later on, having succeeded to Montezuma after the parenthesis of Cuitlahuac, Cuauhtemoc tried, he himself, to close these doors. Alas! the “beings” have won, the eagle has bitten the dust...This great novel, rigorously based on historical documents of difficult access, is the voice of Cuauhtemoc rising during his long night in the Maya forest: his autobiography and, at the same time, the portrait of a world and an epoch. But this noble and solemn evocation does not restrict itself to a single signification: it is also a drama, with very topical echoes, of racial and political misunderstanding (when people are “not like us”, they are nothing but “beings”, and dialogue seems impossible); it is a deep analysis of colonialism seen “from the other side”; it is also – in Carlo Coccioli’s grave and glaring way – the triumph of the Green Light: the mysterious intuition of God, that is present wherever man’s soul becomes conscious of itself.
A set of six titles for young children which introduce the greatest ancient civilisations. Each spread has a stunning colour dioramic artwork accompanied by a supporting illustration with easy-to-read text and captions.
The incessant discoveries that archeology reveals to us attest that humans wished very early to leave traces of their lives and thus offer their descendants testimonials of their ingenuity and creativity in all areas. Footprints left on cave walls to the wonders of the early dynasties of China, or those of the Aztec empires and Inca, going through the complexity of civilizations from Mesopotamia, let yourself be carried away by the extraordinary history of civilizations!
Spanning history from Ancient Egypt through Roman, Greek and Aztec times, History Spy brings the past to life using devices which never fail to get attention. Stunning art, cunning mazes, and a spy adventure draw young readers into the heart of troubled times. While they come to grips with complicated situations, they find out more than they bargained for about the way people worked and lived. The accompanying side art and detailed facts about that period see to that.
Spanning history from Ancient Egypt through Roman, Greek and Aztec times, History Spy brings the past to life using devices which never fail to get attention. Stunning art, cunning mazes, and a spy adventure draw young readers into the heart of troubled times. While they come to grips with complicated situations, they find out more than they bargained for about the way people worked and lived. The accompanying side art and detailed facts about that period see to that.
The Inca Empire's immense territory spanned more than 2,000 miles -- from Ecuador to Chile -- at the time of the Spanish invasion, yet Inca culture remains largely a mystery. The Incas did not leave pictorial codices and documents in their native language as the Maya and Aztec did and they narrated to Spanish chroniclers just a few of the multiple alternative histories maintained by descendants of various rulers. In this classic work, Nigel Davies offers a clear view into Inca political history, economy, governance, religion, art, architecture, and daily life. The Incas has become a classic in its ten years in print; readers and scholars interested in ancient American cultures will relish this new paperback edition.
