Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Sweeping the Way: Divine Transformation in the Aztec Festival of Ochpaniztli
    Sweeping the Way: Divine Transformation in the Aztec Festival of Ochpaniztli
    Sweeping the Way: Divine Transformation in the Aztec Festival of Ochpaniztli
    Ebook234 pages4 hours

    Sweeping the Way: Divine Transformation in the Aztec Festival of Ochpaniztli

    By Catherine DiCesare

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Incorporating human sacrifice, flaying, and mock warfare, the pre-Columbian Mexican ceremony known as Ochpaniztli, or “Sweeping,” has long attracted attention. Although among the best known of eighteen annual ceremonies, Ochpaniztli’s significance has nevertheless been poorly understood. Ochpaniztli is known mainly from early colonial illustrated manuscripts produced in cross-cultural collaboration between Spanish missionary-chroniclers and native Mexican informants and artists.

    Although scholars typically privilege the manuscripts’ textual descriptions, Sweeping the Way examines the fundamental role of their pictorial elements, which significantly expand the information contained in the texts. DiCesare emphasizes the primacy of the regalia, ritual implements, and adornments of the patron “goddess” as the point of intersection between sacred, cosmic forces and ceremonial celebrants. The associations of these paraphernalia indicate that Ochpaniztli was a period of purification rituals, designed to transform and protect individual and communal bodies alike. Spanish friars were unable to apprehend the complex nature of the festival’s patroness, ultimately fragmenting her identity into categories meeting their expectations, which continues to vex modern investigations.

    Taken together, the variety of Ochpaniztli sources offer a useful tool for addressing myriad issues of translation and transformation in pre-Columbian and post-conquest Mexico, as Christian friars and native Mexicans together negotiated a complex body of information about outlawed ritual practices and proscribed sacred entities.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity Press of Colorado
    Release dateMay 31, 2009
    ISBN9780870819728
    Sweeping the Way: Divine Transformation in the Aztec Festival of Ochpaniztli

    Related to Sweeping the Way

    Related ebooks

    Latin America History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Legacy Of The Aztecs

      Aug 13, 2020

      Legacy Of The Aztecs
      7 min read

    • Article

      Aztecs in Their Own Words

      Feb 27, 2020

      Aztecs in Their Own Words
      7 min read

    • Article

      Aztec Renaissance: New Research Sheds Fresh Light On Intellectual Achievements Of Long-vanished Empire

      Apr 8, 2021

      Exactly 500 years after they were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores, the long-lost intellectual foundations of Aztec civilisation are being rediscovered by a British anthropologist. In 1521, the Spanish military presided over the destruction of

      5 min read

    • Article

      Spirited Away

      Jul 16, 2019

      Spirited Away
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Lure Of Merfolk

      Jan 28, 2021

      A Human History Vaughn Scribner Reaktion Books 2020 Hb, 320pp, £20, ISBN 9781789143140 Lusty, dangerous, pious, monstrous, thought provoking, ancient, modern. These are only a few of the ways in which merpeople can be described in Vaughn Scribner’s i

      8 min read

    • Article

      Page-Turners

      Nov 21, 2023

      Page-Turners
      8 min read

    • Article

      Books With The Most Impact

      Mar 15, 2022

      Books With The Most Impact
      8 min read

    • Article

      Twelve Ways to Resurrect the Dead, Which Is to Say: To Write

      Dec 14, 2022

      1. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day (Chronicle Books, 2015) translated by Ogden Goelet, Raymond Faulkner, Carol A. R. Andrews, J. Daniel Gunther, James Wasserman. On not dying a second time. Nor losing your heart in the g

      5 min read

    • Article

      On The Dark Side

      Jul 14, 2022

      Mark Norman & Tracey Norman The History Press 2021 Hb, 174pp, £14.99, ISBN 9780750998017 There is certainly darkness a-plenty within the world of folklore; what Chthonic treasures will be found in Dark Folklore? Its five chapters offer a bewitching a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Jul 15, 2021

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Illusion Of Discovery

      May 1, 2023

      BEGINNING IN THE MID-1400S — bear with me here — the Catholic Church issued a series of decrees sanctioning the dispossession of the Indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas. Known as the “Doctrine of Discovery,” these decrees were used by Europ

      1 min read

    • Article

      Wisdom Of The Ancients

      Oct 15, 2020

      Wisdom Of The Ancients
      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Years of Books

      Sep 15, 2023

      This issue marks my fifth anniversary as books editor. In the spring of 2018, I opened the BCHF Buzz, the BC Historical Federation’s (BCHF) e-newsletter, and read that British Columbia History magazine was looking for help with the books section. Aft

      8 min read

    • Article

      Necrolog

      Jun 16, 2022

      John Nicholson was the only child of Captain W Ivan Nicholson and Eleanor (Nella) Zollner, daughter of the Danish Consul. In 1946, when John was six, the family moved to Flying Rat Cottage in Great Dunmow, Essex, where they kept poultry, plus a goat

      6 min read

    • Article

      Stories To Tell

      Aug 13, 2020

      Stories To Tell
      1 min read

    • Article

      Books With The Most Impact

      Dec 4, 2021

      Books With The Most Impact
      7 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On…

      Sep 1, 2022

      In my job, travelling the world making films on history and culture, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring religion in its many manifestations. Religion, after all, is a gift for the camera: full of colour, action and often moving rituals. It’s also a c

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hunting for History Books

      Sep 3, 2019

      Hunting for History Books
      11 min read

    • Article

      Día De Los Muertos

      Sep 29, 2020

      Día De Los Muertos
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sweeping the Way

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Sweeping the Way - Catherine DiCesare

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1