Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica

Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica PDF Author: Amos Megged
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521112273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
In Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica, Amos Megged uncovers the missing links in Mesoamerican peoples' quest for their collective past. Analyzing ancient repositories of knowledge, as well as social and religious practices, he uncovers the unique procedures and formulas by which social memory was communicated and how it operated in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest. Megged's volume also suggests how social and cultural historians, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists can rethink indigenous representations of the past while taking into account the deep transformations in Mexican society during the colonial era.

Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica

Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica PDF Author: Amos Megged
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521112273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
In Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica, Amos Megged uncovers the missing links in Mesoamerican peoples' quest for their collective past. Analyzing ancient repositories of knowledge, as well as social and religious practices, he uncovers the unique procedures and formulas by which social memory was communicated and how it operated in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest. Megged's volume also suggests how social and cultural historians, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists can rethink indigenous representations of the past while taking into account the deep transformations in Mexican society during the colonial era.

Mesoamerican Memory

Mesoamerican Memory PDF Author: Stephanie Wood
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 080618809X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Euro-Americans see the Spanish conquest as the main event in the five-century history of Mesoamerica, but the people who lived there before contact never gave up their own cultures. Both before and after conquest, indigenous scribes recorded their communities’ histories and belief systems, as well as the events of conquest and its effects and aftermath. Today, the descendants of those native historians in modern-day Mexico and Guatemala still remember their ancestors’ stories. In Mesoamerican Memory, volume editors Amos Megged and Stephanie Wood have gathered the latest scholarship from contributors around the world to compare these various memories and explore how they were preserved and altered over time. Rather than dividing Mesoamerica’s past into pre-contact, colonial, and modern periods, the essays in this volume emphasize continuity from the pre-conquest era to the present, underscoring the ongoing importance of indigenous texts in creating and preserving community identity, history, and memory. In addition to Nahua and Maya recollections, contributors examine the indigenous traditions of Mixtec, Zapotec, Tarascan, and Totonac peoples. Close analysis of pictorial and alphabetic manuscripts, and of social and religious rituals, yields insight into community history and memory, political relations, genealogy, ethnic identity, and portrayals of the Spanish invaders. Drawing on archaeology, art history, ethnology, ethnohistory, and linguistics, the essays consider the function of manuscripts and ritual in local, regional, and, now, national settings. Several scholars highlight direct connections between the collective memory of indigenous communities and the struggles of contemporary groups. Such modern documents as land titles, for example, gain legitimacy by referring to ancestral memory. Crossing disciplinary, methodological, and temporal boundaries, Mesoamerican Memory advances our understanding of collective memory in Mexico and Guatemala. Through diverse sources—pictorial and alphabetic, archaeological, archival, and ethnographic—readers gain a glimpse into indigenous remembrances that, without the research exhibited here, might have remained unknown to the outside world.

Mesoamerican Archaeology

Mesoamerican Archaeology PDF Author: Lisa Overholtzer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119160928
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
A unique and wide-ranging introduction to the major prehispanic and colonial societies of Mexico and Central America, featuring new and revised material throughout Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice, Second Edition, provides readers with a diverse and well-balanced view of the archaeology of the indigenous societies of Mexico and Central America, helping students better understand key concepts and engage with contemporary debates and issues within the field. The fully updated second edition incorporates contemporary research that reflects new approaches and trends in Mesoamerican archaeology. New and revised chapters from first-time and returning authors cover the archaeology of Mesoamerican cultural history, from the early Gulf Coast Olmec, to the Classic and Postclassic Maya, to the cultures of Oaxaca and Central Mexico before and after colonization. Presenting a wide range of approaches that illustrate political, socio-economic, and symbolic interpretations, this textbook: Encourages students to consider diverse ways of thinking about Mesoamerica: as a linguistic area, as a geographic region, and as a network of communities of practice Represents a wide spectrum of perspectives and approaches to Mesoamerican archaeology, including coverage of the Postclassic and Colonial periods Enables readers to think critically about how explanations of the past are produced, verified, and debated Includes accessible introductory material to ensure that students and non-specialists understand the chronological and geographic frameworks of the Mesoamerican tradition Discusses recent developments in the contemporary theory and practice of Mesoamerican archaeology Presents new and original research by a team of internationally recognized contributors Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice, Second Edition, is ideal for use in undergraduate courses on the archaeology of Mexico and Central America, as well as for broader courses on the archaeology of the Americas.

Indigenous Elites and Creole Identity in Colonial Mexico, 1500–1800

Indigenous Elites and Creole Identity in Colonial Mexico, 1500–1800 PDF Author: Peter B. Villella
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107129036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
This book explores colonial indigenous historical accounts to offer a new interpretation of the origins of Mexico's neo-Aztec patriotic identity.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology PDF Author: Deborah L. Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195390938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 996

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies—from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations—and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

Memory Traces

Memory Traces PDF Author: Laura M. Amrhein
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1457196336
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
"In Memory Traces, art historians and archaeologists come together to examine the nature of sacred space in Mesoamerica. Through five well-known and important centers of political power and artistic invention in Mesoamerica—Tetitla at Teotihuacan, Tula Grande, the Mound of the Building Columns at El Tajín, the House of the Phalli at Chichén Itzá, and Tonina—contributors explore the process of recognizing and defining sacred space, how sacred spaces were viewed and used both physically and symbolically, and what theoretical approaches are most useful for art historians and archaeologists seeking to understand these places.Memory Traces acknowledges that the creation, use, abandonment, and reuse of sacred space has a strongly recursive relation to collective memory and meanings linked to the places in question, and reconciles issues of continuity and discontinuity of memory in ancient Mesoamerican sacred spaces. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Mesoamerican studies and material culture, art historians, architectural historians, and cultural anthropologists."

Houses in a Landscape

Houses in a Landscape PDF Author: Julia A. Hendon
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391724
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
In Houses in a Landscape, Julia A. Hendon examines the connections between social identity and social memory using archaeological research on indigenous societies that existed more than one thousand years ago in what is now Honduras. While these societies left behind monumental buildings, the remains of their dead, remnants of their daily life, intricate works of art, and fine examples of craftsmanship such as pottery and stone tools, they left only a small body of written records. Despite this paucity of written information, Hendon contends that an archaeological study of memory in such societies is possible and worthwhile. It is possible because memory is not just a faculty of the individual mind operating in isolation, but a social process embedded in the materiality of human existence. Intimately bound up in the relations people develop with one another and with the world around them through what they do, where and how they do it, and with whom or what, memory leaves material traces. Hendon conducted research on three contemporaneous Native American civilizations that flourished from the seventh century through the eleventh CE: the Maya kingdom of Copan, the hilltop center of Cerro Palenque, and the dispersed settlement of the Cuyumapa valley. She analyzes domestic life in these societies, from cooking to crafting, as well as public and private ritual events including the ballgame. Combining her findings with a rich body of theory from anthropology, history, and geography, she explores how objects—the things people build, make, use, exchange, and discard—help people remember. In so doing, she demonstrates how everyday life becomes part of the social processes of remembering and forgetting, and how “memory communities” assert connections between the past and the present.

Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala

Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala PDF Author: Prudence M. Rice
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 160732668X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala is the first exhaustively detailed and thorough account of the Itzas—a Maya group that dominated much of the western lowland area of tropical forest, swamps, and grasslands in Petén, Guatemala. Examining archaeological and historical evidence, Prudence Rice and Don Rice present a theoretical perspective on the Itzas’ origins and an overview of the social, political, linguistic, and environmental history of the area; explain the Spanish view of the Itzas during the Conquest; and explore the material culture of the Itzas as it has been revealed in recent surveys and excavations. The long but fragmented history of the Petén Itzas requires investigation across multiple periods and regions. Chapters in this six-part overview interweave varying data pertaining to this group—archaeological, artifactual, indigenous textual, Spanish historical—from multiple languages and academic fields, such as anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, ecology, and history. Part I introduces the lowland Itzas, northern and southern, with an emphasis on those of the central Petén lakes area. Part II discusses general Itza origins and identities in the Epiclassic period, while part III reviews Spanish perceptions and misconceptions of the Petén Itzas in their Contact-period writings. With these temporal anchors, parts IV and V present the archaeology and artifacts of the Petén Itzas, including pottery, architecture, and arrow points, from varied sites and excavations but primarily focusing on the island capital of Tayza/Nojpetén. Part VI summarizes key data and themes of the preceding chapters for a new understanding of the Petén Itzas. A companion volume to The Kowoj—a similar treatment of the Petén Itzas’ regional neighbors—Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Itzas of Petén, Guatemala demonstrates the unique physical, cultural, and social framework that was home to the Petén Itza, along with their backstory in northern Yucatán. Archaeologists, historians, art historians, and geographers who specialize in the Maya and the Postclassic, Contact, and Colonial periods will find this book of particular interest. Contributors: Mark Brenner, Leslie G. Cecil, Charles Andrew Hofling, Nathan J. Meissner, Timothy W. Pugh, Yuko Shiratori

Annals of Native America

Annals of Native America PDF Author: Camilla Townsend
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190628995
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Old stories in new letters (1520s-1550s) -- Becoming conquered (the 1560s) -- Forging friendship with Franciscans (1560s-1580s) -- The riches of twilight (circa 1600) -- Renaissance in the East (the seventeenth century) -- Epilogue: Postscript from a golden age -- Appendices -- The texts in Nahuatl -- Historia Tolteca Chichimeca -- Annals of Tlatelolco -- Annals of Juan Bautista -- Annals of Tecamachalco -- Annals of Cuauhtitlan -- Chimalpahin, seventh relation -- Don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza

Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and His Legacy

Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and His Legacy PDF Author: Galen Brokaw
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816533687
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl is one of the most controversial and provocative Mexican chroniclers from the colonial period. A descendant of both the famous Prehispanic poet-king Nezahualcoyotl and Hernán Cortés’s ally Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, he penned chronicles that rewrote Prehispanic and colonial history. Traditionally known as a Europeanized historian of Tetzcoco, he wrote prolifically, producing documents covering various aspects of pre- and postconquest history, religion, and literature. His seventeenth-century writings have had a lasting effect on the understanding of Mexican culture and history from the colonial period to the present. But because Alva Ixtlilxochitl frequently used Tetzcocan oral traditions and pictorial codices of his ancestors’ heroic achievements, scholars have long said that his writings exhibit a Tetzcocan bias that distorts representations and understandings of Prehispanic Mexican history and culture. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and His Legacy is a collection of essays providing deeper perspective on the life, work, and legacy of Alva Ixtlilxochitl. The contributors revise and broaden previous understandings of Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s racial and cultural identity, including his method of transcribing pictorial texts, his treatment of gender, and his influence on Mexican nationalism. Chapter authors coming from the fields of anthropology, history, linguistics, and literature offer valuable new perspectives on the complexities of Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s life and his contributions to the history and scholarship of Mexico.