The Use of Latin American Mythologies and Beliefs as a Conversion Tactic
The goal of this is to inform people of how Latin American mythology and beliefs have been twisted through the Catholic church to conform them towards the beliefs of the Catholic mythology of Jesus. These techniques were mainly done by recruiting the native people to demonstrate their cultures through art, then translating these images through Codexes, and translating back in a way the natives could understand to indoctrinate Catholicism into their previous traditions. Though there were these more peaceful routes of conversion, force was still used as well by the Spaniards and Franciscans when Cortes arrived.
Codex Magliabechiano
One of the more famous codexes is the Codex Magliabechiano (excerpt above). This Codex was commissioned by a friar living in the Aztec land to the native artists to fill a book with depictions of their native land, traditions, religion, and calendar system and then had it explained to him (1). The friar then took those descriptions, translated them into Spanish, and sent them to Spain to be examined by his higher ups. By getting these calendar systems the Spanish were able to teach the Aztecs the Julian calendar in an attempt to make them lose track of their days of worship. The Aztec calendar only having 260 days while the Julian has 365. This was also a useful tool to understand the native's religion and be able to communicate with them. With this understanding of the natives writing and speech they were also able to teach them Spanish and even created new words as a way to teach the Aztecs sexual control and suppression (8).
Death and the Underworld
The Mexica believed in many different afterlives not just the black and white of heaven and hell. There was Ilhuicatl or their version of heaven, known as Ilhuicac, which had 13 different levels to it; as well as Mictlan, which transformed into hell, having nine layers much like Dante Alighieri's version of hell. The Mexica's heaven had different destinations based on one's death as well as how they were put to rest. For example, most normal deaths resulted in a cremation but if one was to be struck by lightning or died in the water they would be buried instead and would reside with the thunder spirits. For the Mexica their nine layers were as follows: 1. “the earth,” 2. “the passageway of water,” 3. “the place where the hills are found,” 4. “the obsidian hills,” 5. “the place of the obsidian wind,” 6. “the place where the banners fly,” 7. “the place where people are killed by arrows,” 8. “the place where people’s hearts are devoured,” 9. “the obsidian place of the dead” or “the place that has no outlet for smoke” (6). The main difference between these 9 layers and Dante's are that the Mexica's is more of a journey to the afterlife while Dante's 9 layers are more, so designations assigned after cardinal sins committed in the waking life.
When a Mexica crossed over to the afterlife, they were sent over with supplies from their mortal life to help aid them in their journey through Mictlan. These supplies were known as death bundles (depiction of contents above), these bundles were filled with their earthly trinkets and anything that would help them in the afterlife in regard to their profession or life's specialty, women would often be sent with their weaving supplies while a fisherman their net, and a warrior their shield and spear. The bundle would be wrapped in textiles to show the status of the individual along with feather work if they were at a high enough status (3). If the deceased had nothing to show from their life on earth, they were sent off with just a cloth and greenstone placed within their mouth while nobility would get jade. The obsidian winds were said to be especially harsh to anyone that would crossover without their possessions as it would slash away at their bodies.
The Chancay also made textile figures that were to be included in these death bundles that were supposed to be brought throughout the person's life and given many forms of rebirth. The figures were made of cotton, camelid fibers, tapestry weave, and human hair (example above). In these rebirthing ceremonies a man dressed as a woman would give birth to the figure and a year later it would be remade a new. With the coming of the Spanish these figures would have to be baptized immediately afterwards (8). These baptisms were done after events such as marriage and death and would give the person a new Christian identity.
Hybridization
Another technique that the Spanish used was the act of hybridization. Through hybridization the Spanish would either take an object that the Mexica used and repurpose it or build upon it until it became a shadow of its former self. Take this Cuahxicalli vessel (seen above). It was formerly used in rituals of bloodletting sacrifice and as a device to hold hearts. The eagle was given yellow legs and eyes like the blazing sun to connect it with the heavens or Ilhuicac. The Aztecs were an agricultural society and as such the sun was significant in the welfare of their crops and they would do anything to keep them thriving and keep their society alive, even if it meant sacrificing to the sun. In a move to hybridize this vessel and take away any sense of ritual sacrifice, the Spanish repurposed it so that the Cuahxicalli would be used for the new ritual of Baptism (5).
One technique of hybridization was to build holy sites on top of or with other sacred objects and sites. This is a technique that the Aztecs themselves utilized with their own temples. Take the Templo Mayor for example, each time a new ruler came into power the previous temple was covered with dirt and rubble and used as the foundation for the next ruler's temple. The Templo Mayor had twin temples on top of it, one to worship Huitzilopochtli the god of war and the sun and Tlaloc the god of agriculture and rain. The Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City is the first cathedral to be built in the Americas, and it contains stones from the Templo Mayor built into it as a sign of power over the previous gods, all while using the Aztecs traditions against them to assert that power. The Metropolitan is said to contain parts of the Pyramid of Tonatiuh and possibly built upon a temple dedicated to Xitle or Quetzalcoatl, with Hernan Cortes laying the first stone (7).
Hernan Cortes
One theory as to why the Aztecs were susceptible to conversion was that they viewed Cortes as the god Quetzalcoatl. In some spaces this is still seen to be true, but others say that it is a fabrication brought upon much later by editing the Florentine Codex as a way to make it seem as if the Spanish take over was justified and an easy endeavor. Cortes and his men happened to arrive in the Aztec empire in year 1 Acatyl or 1519 and it was said that the white bearded would claim the land which Cortes resembled. Bernal Diaz de Castillo, a Spanish soldier under the command of Cortes, wrote that Montezuma spoke to him and to the other Spaniards saying, “his ancestors in years long past had spoken, saying that men would come from where the sun rose to rule over these lands, and that we must be those men…” (2)(4). In the artwork seen above by Roberto Cueva del Rio, Cortes is pictured as Quetzalcoatl along with Malinche who is said to be his interpreter that helped him conquer the land. In the less peaceful routes, Cortes also conquered the lands with his army bringing about massive destruction to any artifacts and artwork that brought about any religious significance to the Aztec empire.
Judas
The story of Judas was crafted in a way to both share the stories of Judas and Oedipus to again teach the natives lessons in sexual control by having a story that shows incest in a negative connotation. Judas' end was shown as nearly the same when it was observed that the Nahua people believed that the breath contained fragments of one's soul and would exit through the mouth. As such, the Nahua would put greenstone or jade (depending on if they were a commoner or of nobility) in the mouths of the deceased where they believed the soul fragments would become encapsulated within the greenstone and survive the cremation process. Within the original story of Judas, his soul was unable to escape from his mouth after he had kissed Jesus Christ in his betrayal, and his stomach ruptured, splitting him in half to release his soul to be caught in the air. The Nahua believed that spirits couldn't freely reside in the air, so they used Mictlan, which became hell for Judas' spirit to reside (8).
With the Mayan's fascination with the story of Judas, more recently in Mexico they have created a tradition called "the burning of Judas" to be observed during Holy Week. During this festival the people of Mexico will create many effigies of both Judas and corrupt politicians to be paraded throughout the streets called, cartoneira (seen above). From there, they will cast stones at them, burn them, and even place explosives inside of them. They will create anywhere from handheld effigies to life size or larger, the smaller ones will have a firecracker placed in their back to explode them at home. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have popularized these cartoneria as they had acquired quite the collection, Frida even depicting one in her painting, El Sueno (seen below). In El Sueno a cartoneria is depicted above her bed with the traditional explosives strapped to it. Per the Frida Kahlo website, the cartoneria was an actual Judas that Frida kept above her bed and the vines were a symbol for life and rebirth.
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