Author: Marina DelVecchio
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1647423384
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Kathy is a virgin in her twenties trying to navigate the blurred lines between sex and love even as outside forces attempt to detach her from her sexual autonomy. At home, her adoptive mother’s eyes investigate her body for evidence of sexual promiscuity and, despite her protests, she is called a putana—a whore—for her perceived sexual debauchery. At work, meanwhile, she is sexually harassed by male managers who slap her butt, tell her they want Greek for lunch (wink, wink), and fill out recommendation forms about her sexy qualities. A young girl on the cusp of womanhood, she encounters a version of herself as men experience her: hypersexualized and objectified. As if this is not enough, Kathy enters the dating scene in search of love only to find herself fending off young men who want her just for sex. In each relationship, Kathy uncovers her own strength and conviction as she fights for the kind of sex she wants instead of the kind of empty sex boys seem to require of girls. The more demands they make, the more determined she is to hold out for love—even if it means losing a guy or going home single and alone. Raw and empowering, The Virgin Chronicles sends the message that love is worth waiting for and sex is better when it’s paired with self-actualization.
The Virgin Chronicles
Author: Marina DelVecchio
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1647423384
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Kathy is a virgin in her twenties trying to navigate the blurred lines between sex and love even as outside forces attempt to detach her from her sexual autonomy. At home, her adoptive mother’s eyes investigate her body for evidence of sexual promiscuity and, despite her protests, she is called a putana—a whore—for her perceived sexual debauchery. At work, meanwhile, she is sexually harassed by male managers who slap her butt, tell her they want Greek for lunch (wink, wink), and fill out recommendation forms about her sexy qualities. A young girl on the cusp of womanhood, she encounters a version of herself as men experience her: hypersexualized and objectified. As if this is not enough, Kathy enters the dating scene in search of love only to find herself fending off young men who want her just for sex. In each relationship, Kathy uncovers her own strength and conviction as she fights for the kind of sex she wants instead of the kind of empty sex boys seem to require of girls. The more demands they make, the more determined she is to hold out for love—even if it means losing a guy or going home single and alone. Raw and empowering, The Virgin Chronicles sends the message that love is worth waiting for and sex is better when it’s paired with self-actualization.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1647423384
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
Kathy is a virgin in her twenties trying to navigate the blurred lines between sex and love even as outside forces attempt to detach her from her sexual autonomy. At home, her adoptive mother’s eyes investigate her body for evidence of sexual promiscuity and, despite her protests, she is called a putana—a whore—for her perceived sexual debauchery. At work, meanwhile, she is sexually harassed by male managers who slap her butt, tell her they want Greek for lunch (wink, wink), and fill out recommendation forms about her sexy qualities. A young girl on the cusp of womanhood, she encounters a version of herself as men experience her: hypersexualized and objectified. As if this is not enough, Kathy enters the dating scene in search of love only to find herself fending off young men who want her just for sex. In each relationship, Kathy uncovers her own strength and conviction as she fights for the kind of sex she wants instead of the kind of empty sex boys seem to require of girls. The more demands they make, the more determined she is to hold out for love—even if it means losing a guy or going home single and alone. Raw and empowering, The Virgin Chronicles sends the message that love is worth waiting for and sex is better when it’s paired with self-actualization.
The Virgin Romance Novelist
Author: Meghan Quinn
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781508829508
Category : Authors
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Rosie's two best friends encourage her to gain some real life experience through online dating sites and blind dates before she writes her romance novel.
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781508829508
Category : Authors
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
Rosie's two best friends encourage her to gain some real life experience through online dating sites and blind dates before she writes her romance novel.
The Virgin in the Ice
Author: Ellis Peters
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497671205
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
A monk embarks on a dangerous quest to find a trio of missing travelers in this medieval mystery by an Edgar Award–winning author. The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael’s tranquil life in Shrewsbury with the most disturbing of events. Raging civil war has sent refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two orphans from a noble family, a boy of thirteen and an eighteen-year-old girl of great beauty, and their companion, a young Benedictine nun. The trio never reaches Shrewsbury, having disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside. Cadfael is afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the church of Saint Mary. A wounded monk, found naked and bleeding by the roadside, will surely die without Cadfael’s healing arts. Why this holy man has been attacked and what his fevered ravings reveal soon give Brother Cadfael a clue to the fate of the missing travelers. Now Cadfael sets out on a dangerous quest to find them. The road will lead him to a chill and terrible murder and a tale of passion gone awry. And at journey’s end awaits a vision of what is best, and worst, in humankind.
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497671205
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
A monk embarks on a dangerous quest to find a trio of missing travelers in this medieval mystery by an Edgar Award–winning author. The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael’s tranquil life in Shrewsbury with the most disturbing of events. Raging civil war has sent refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two orphans from a noble family, a boy of thirteen and an eighteen-year-old girl of great beauty, and their companion, a young Benedictine nun. The trio never reaches Shrewsbury, having disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside. Cadfael is afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the church of Saint Mary. A wounded monk, found naked and bleeding by the roadside, will surely die without Cadfael’s healing arts. Why this holy man has been attacked and what his fevered ravings reveal soon give Brother Cadfael a clue to the fate of the missing travelers. Now Cadfael sets out on a dangerous quest to find them. The road will lead him to a chill and terrible murder and a tale of passion gone awry. And at journey’s end awaits a vision of what is best, and worst, in humankind.
Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin
Author: Nicole Hardy
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1401342906
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
When Nicole Hardy's eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy's essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of thirty-five, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Nicole had held absolute conviction in her Mormon faith during her childhood and throughout her twenties. But as she aged out of the Church's "singles ward" and entered her thirties, she struggled to merge the life she envisioned for herself with the one the Church prescribed, wherein all women are called to be mothers and the role of homemaker is the emphatic ideal. Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin chronicles the extraordinary lengths Nicole went to in an attempt to reconcile her human needs with her spiritual life--flying across the country for dates with LDS men, taking up salsa dancing as a source for physical contact, even moving to Grand Cayman, where the ocean and scuba diving provided some solace. But neither secular pursuits nor LDS guidance could help Nicole prepare for the dilemma she would eventually face: a crisis of faith that caused her to question everything she'd grown up believing. In the tradition of the memoirs Devotion and Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin is a mesmerizing and wholly relatable account of one woman's hard-won mission to find love, acceptance, and happiness--on her own terms.
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1401342906
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
When Nicole Hardy's eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy's essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of thirty-five, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Nicole had held absolute conviction in her Mormon faith during her childhood and throughout her twenties. But as she aged out of the Church's "singles ward" and entered her thirties, she struggled to merge the life she envisioned for herself with the one the Church prescribed, wherein all women are called to be mothers and the role of homemaker is the emphatic ideal. Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin chronicles the extraordinary lengths Nicole went to in an attempt to reconcile her human needs with her spiritual life--flying across the country for dates with LDS men, taking up salsa dancing as a source for physical contact, even moving to Grand Cayman, where the ocean and scuba diving provided some solace. But neither secular pursuits nor LDS guidance could help Nicole prepare for the dilemma she would eventually face: a crisis of faith that caused her to question everything she'd grown up believing. In the tradition of the memoirs Devotion and Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin is a mesmerizing and wholly relatable account of one woman's hard-won mission to find love, acceptance, and happiness--on her own terms.
Royce's Fate
Author: Darlene Tallman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 96
Book Description
Sometimes fate steps in...RoyceI'd asked for certain things from my surrogate. Beauty and brains. The higher her education, the better. I was willing to pay extra for them to find someone with those qualifications, but the clinic messed it up. She's barely out of high school, and from her grades, it's clear she's not anything like what I requested. However, she's everything I never thought I'd find. The woman needs a 'Daddy', even if she doesn't know it yet. NarinaI wasn't what he wanted. What else is new? I'm used to being a disappointment to people, but for some reason, it hurt more coming from the man who's baby I'm carrying. I might not be a genius, but I've got a good heart. That should count for something, right? Thanks to a mix up at the clinic, I've got the world's grumpiest billionaire's baby growing in me, and now he wants me to call him Daddy. I shouldn't, but I want to.**This is a short, hot, and sweet DD/LG story that will melt your kindle.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 96
Book Description
Sometimes fate steps in...RoyceI'd asked for certain things from my surrogate. Beauty and brains. The higher her education, the better. I was willing to pay extra for them to find someone with those qualifications, but the clinic messed it up. She's barely out of high school, and from her grades, it's clear she's not anything like what I requested. However, she's everything I never thought I'd find. The woman needs a 'Daddy', even if she doesn't know it yet. NarinaI wasn't what he wanted. What else is new? I'm used to being a disappointment to people, but for some reason, it hurt more coming from the man who's baby I'm carrying. I might not be a genius, but I've got a good heart. That should count for something, right? Thanks to a mix up at the clinic, I've got the world's grumpiest billionaire's baby growing in me, and now he wants me to call him Daddy. I shouldn't, but I want to.**This is a short, hot, and sweet DD/LG story that will melt your kindle.
Jesus the Virgin-Born
Author: Edgar Nutt
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 1602662282
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
"Jesus the Virgin-Born" is an investigation and evaluation of all scriptural texts, both positive and negative, that are relevant to the origin of Jesus, together with the peripheral issues of the extent of Mary's virginity and the relationship of Jesus with his "brethren". The method with each text involves an examination of its basis in its original language and proceeds with an analysis of its meaning, implication, and value as testimony in terms of Jesus' origin. While a familiarity with Hebrew and Greek is helpful it is not a necessity. Along the way issues that are treated include prophecy, Isaiah 7:14, the nature of Luke's line of Jesus' ancestry and his basis for its placement, and the literary independence of each of the synoptic Gospels. Although evenhandedness is intended throughout, the resulting evidence demonstrates that the scriptural record with regard to Jesus' origin is both integral and credible. Edgar Alan Nutt lived in New Jersey before entering Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, and for two summers he worked on a New Hampshire farm as a teamster. Before graduation he enlisted in the Navy serving as a Pharmacist's Mate. In 1950 he graduated from Dartmouth College and in 1953 from the Episcopal Church's Virginia Theological School leading to ordinations as deacon and priest. During his ministry in Diocese of Newark parishes he married and subsequently moved with his wife and two children to New England where he served parishes in the Dioceses of New Hampshire and Vermont. While contending against his Church's growing liberalism he was deposed in 1989 without benefit of due process; however in 1990 he was consecrated a bishop to serve disenfranchised Episcopalians in the north-east. Bishop Nutt is now retired, dividing his time between two New Hampshire homes where he enjoys doing research, writing, and gardening.
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 1602662282
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
"Jesus the Virgin-Born" is an investigation and evaluation of all scriptural texts, both positive and negative, that are relevant to the origin of Jesus, together with the peripheral issues of the extent of Mary's virginity and the relationship of Jesus with his "brethren". The method with each text involves an examination of its basis in its original language and proceeds with an analysis of its meaning, implication, and value as testimony in terms of Jesus' origin. While a familiarity with Hebrew and Greek is helpful it is not a necessity. Along the way issues that are treated include prophecy, Isaiah 7:14, the nature of Luke's line of Jesus' ancestry and his basis for its placement, and the literary independence of each of the synoptic Gospels. Although evenhandedness is intended throughout, the resulting evidence demonstrates that the scriptural record with regard to Jesus' origin is both integral and credible. Edgar Alan Nutt lived in New Jersey before entering Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, and for two summers he worked on a New Hampshire farm as a teamster. Before graduation he enlisted in the Navy serving as a Pharmacist's Mate. In 1950 he graduated from Dartmouth College and in 1953 from the Episcopal Church's Virginia Theological School leading to ordinations as deacon and priest. During his ministry in Diocese of Newark parishes he married and subsequently moved with his wife and two children to New England where he served parishes in the Dioceses of New Hampshire and Vermont. While contending against his Church's growing liberalism he was deposed in 1989 without benefit of due process; however in 1990 he was consecrated a bishop to serve disenfranchised Episcopalians in the north-east. Bishop Nutt is now retired, dividing his time between two New Hampshire homes where he enjoys doing research, writing, and gardening.
Get Real!
Author: Mike Walker
Publisher: Phoenix Books
ISBN: 1614670048
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
In the olden days.... Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions! Gladiators battled to the death! Mayans sacrificed virgins! Witches were burned at the stake! Today? We’ve got REALITY TV! The hot, new genre that suddenly snuck up and captured our imagination as: • Cops put us in prowl cars to pursue loonies, thugs and druggies! • Survivor trapped us on an island with naked, flaming fattie Richard Hatch! • American Idol gobbled up American TV—and spat out the bones! How did reality programming “hijack” TV? Read the eye-popping exposé that takes you straight to Reality Hell. Sex…Drugs…Dirty Tricks…and Scandals! Giggle as Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie get barf-y in the sticks and hump-y with the hicks…. Boggle at never-before-revealed secrets behind Simon Cowell’s manly man-boobs…. Gasp as wee Mini-Me takes a public pee…. And much, much more. REALITY TV! The Super Bowl of Voyeurism…. But JENNIFER ANISTON hates it! “I have no interest in that ‘Idol’ shit,” snarls Jen—who sneers that “humiliation and degradation” make contestants look like monkeys playing in poop. Jennifer’s disgust is a touchstone for this book—which is actually dedicated to her by the author. REALITY TV! Love it or hate it…. You know you want to watch!
Publisher: Phoenix Books
ISBN: 1614670048
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
In the olden days.... Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions! Gladiators battled to the death! Mayans sacrificed virgins! Witches were burned at the stake! Today? We’ve got REALITY TV! The hot, new genre that suddenly snuck up and captured our imagination as: • Cops put us in prowl cars to pursue loonies, thugs and druggies! • Survivor trapped us on an island with naked, flaming fattie Richard Hatch! • American Idol gobbled up American TV—and spat out the bones! How did reality programming “hijack” TV? Read the eye-popping exposé that takes you straight to Reality Hell. Sex…Drugs…Dirty Tricks…and Scandals! Giggle as Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie get barf-y in the sticks and hump-y with the hicks…. Boggle at never-before-revealed secrets behind Simon Cowell’s manly man-boobs…. Gasp as wee Mini-Me takes a public pee…. And much, much more. REALITY TV! The Super Bowl of Voyeurism…. But JENNIFER ANISTON hates it! “I have no interest in that ‘Idol’ shit,” snarls Jen—who sneers that “humiliation and degradation” make contestants look like monkeys playing in poop. Jennifer’s disgust is a touchstone for this book—which is actually dedicated to her by the author. REALITY TV! Love it or hate it…. You know you want to watch!
The Virgin Birth Myth
Author: Gerald Sigal
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 147976602X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The author of the Gospel of Matthew sought to portray alleged events in the life of Jesus as fulfillments of biblical passages. Ample evidence has shown that there is no validity to his claims. Lukes author merely states that a virginal conception took place. Both present a story their readers can relate to from the familiar Hellenistic worldview: a god impregnates a virgin thereby sending his hybrid son into the world to do a certain task. Matthew and Luke are not the originators of the core belief that a virginal conception took place. According to the Gospels, Mary conceived as a divinely impregnated virgin betrothed to a Davidic descendant named Joseph. If there was no biological relationship between Joseph and the child Mary bore, the story presented is not pertinent to the claim that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah on the basis of Josephs lineage. That Matthew and Luke solely through Joseph trace Jesus lineage in two variant forms becomes a meaningless exercise. As it became clear that attempts to connect Jesus to David through Joseph were futile, efforts were made to make the connection through Mary by claiming one or the other genealogy was really hers. It is to no avail. This too has failed. What most Christians do now is live in a theological state of denial maintaining that there are no real problems only unbelievers quibbling over minor points. Alas! What else can Christian believers do, but hide their heads in a theological sand box and blame quibblers?
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 147976602X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
The author of the Gospel of Matthew sought to portray alleged events in the life of Jesus as fulfillments of biblical passages. Ample evidence has shown that there is no validity to his claims. Lukes author merely states that a virginal conception took place. Both present a story their readers can relate to from the familiar Hellenistic worldview: a god impregnates a virgin thereby sending his hybrid son into the world to do a certain task. Matthew and Luke are not the originators of the core belief that a virginal conception took place. According to the Gospels, Mary conceived as a divinely impregnated virgin betrothed to a Davidic descendant named Joseph. If there was no biological relationship between Joseph and the child Mary bore, the story presented is not pertinent to the claim that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah on the basis of Josephs lineage. That Matthew and Luke solely through Joseph trace Jesus lineage in two variant forms becomes a meaningless exercise. As it became clear that attempts to connect Jesus to David through Joseph were futile, efforts were made to make the connection through Mary by claiming one or the other genealogy was really hers. It is to no avail. This too has failed. What most Christians do now is live in a theological state of denial maintaining that there are no real problems only unbelievers quibbling over minor points. Alas! What else can Christian believers do, but hide their heads in a theological sand box and blame quibblers?
The Virgin Warrior
Author: Larissa Juliet Taylor
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300161298
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
“A fresh and provocative biography of La Pucelle . . . her transformation from a naive girl to a strong-willed, bold, and gifted captain of war.”—Frederic J. Baumgartner, author of France in the Sixteenth Century France’s great heroine and England’s great scourge: whether a lunatic, a witch, a religious icon, or a skilled soldier and leader, Joan of Arc’s contemporaries found her as extraordinary and fascinating as the legends that abound about her today. But her life has been so endlessly cast and recast that we have lost sight of the remarkable girl at the heart of it—a teenaged peasant girl who, after claiming to hear voices, convinced the French king to let her lead a disheartened army into battle. In the process she changed the course of European history. In The Virgin Warrior, Larissa Juliet Taylor paints a vivid portrait of Joan as a self-confident, charismatic and supremely determined figure, whose sheer force of will electrified those around her and struck terror into the hearts of the English soldiers and leaders. The drama of Joan’s life is set against a world where visions and witchcraft were real, where saints could appear to peasants, battles and sieges decided the fate of kingdoms and rigged trials could result in burning at the stake. Yet in her short life, Joan emboldened the French soldiers and villagers with her strength and resolve. A difficult, inflexible leader, she defied her accusers and enemies to the end. From her early years to the myths and fantasies that have swelled since her death, Taylor “goes deep into Joan of Arc’s heart and soul and shows us the maiden, the warrior and the heroine” (Kate Williams, New York Times bestselling author)./
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300161298
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
“A fresh and provocative biography of La Pucelle . . . her transformation from a naive girl to a strong-willed, bold, and gifted captain of war.”—Frederic J. Baumgartner, author of France in the Sixteenth Century France’s great heroine and England’s great scourge: whether a lunatic, a witch, a religious icon, or a skilled soldier and leader, Joan of Arc’s contemporaries found her as extraordinary and fascinating as the legends that abound about her today. But her life has been so endlessly cast and recast that we have lost sight of the remarkable girl at the heart of it—a teenaged peasant girl who, after claiming to hear voices, convinced the French king to let her lead a disheartened army into battle. In the process she changed the course of European history. In The Virgin Warrior, Larissa Juliet Taylor paints a vivid portrait of Joan as a self-confident, charismatic and supremely determined figure, whose sheer force of will electrified those around her and struck terror into the hearts of the English soldiers and leaders. The drama of Joan’s life is set against a world where visions and witchcraft were real, where saints could appear to peasants, battles and sieges decided the fate of kingdoms and rigged trials could result in burning at the stake. Yet in her short life, Joan emboldened the French soldiers and villagers with her strength and resolve. A difficult, inflexible leader, she defied her accusers and enemies to the end. From her early years to the myths and fantasies that have swelled since her death, Taylor “goes deep into Joan of Arc’s heart and soul and shows us the maiden, the warrior and the heroine” (Kate Williams, New York Times bestselling author)./
The Virgin's Children
Author: William Madsen
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477301305
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
An absorbing account of the descendants of the ancient Aztecs and of the survival of their culture into the twentieth century in the Valley of Mexico is presented in this fascinating volume. Focusing on San Francisco Tecospa—a village of some eight hundred Indians who still spoke Nahuatl, whose lives were dominated by supernaturalism, and who observed with only slight modification much of their Aztec heritage—this story bears out the anthropological principle that innovations are most likely to be accepted when they are useful, communicable, and compatible with established tradition. Nowhere is the Indian genius for combining the old and the new better exemplified than in the story of how the Virgin of Guadalupe came to fulfill the role formerly played by the pagan goddess Tonantzin and of how Christian saints replaced the Aztec gods. At the time of this study, the Tecospans still called the Catholic Virgin Tonantzin, but their concept of the mother goddess had changed profoundly since Aztec times. Tonantzin the Pagan, a hideous goddess with claws on her hands and feet and with snakes entwining her face, wore a necklace of hearts, hands, and skulls to represent her insatiable appetite for corpses. Tonantzin the Catholic—also called Guadalupe—is a beautiful and benevolent mother deity who repeatedly stays God’s anger against her Mexican children and answers the prayers of the poorest Indian, with no thought of return. In Tecospa the road to social recognition lay in the performance of religious works, and the neglect of ritual obligation subjected both the individual and the community to the anger of supernaturals who punished with illness or other misfortune. Religion was inextricably a part of every phase of life, and it is the whole life of the Aztecan that is recorded here: fiesta, clothing, food, agricultural practices, courtship, marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, death, witchcraft and its cures, medical practices and attitudes, houses and home life, ethics, and the hot-cold complex that classifies everything in the Tecospan universe from God to Bromo-Seltzer. With a marked simplicity of style and language William Madsen has produced a profoundly significant anthropological study that is delightful reading from the first sentence to the last. The drawings, the work of a ten-year-old Tecospan lad, are remarkable for their penetrating insight into the culture.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477301305
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
An absorbing account of the descendants of the ancient Aztecs and of the survival of their culture into the twentieth century in the Valley of Mexico is presented in this fascinating volume. Focusing on San Francisco Tecospa—a village of some eight hundred Indians who still spoke Nahuatl, whose lives were dominated by supernaturalism, and who observed with only slight modification much of their Aztec heritage—this story bears out the anthropological principle that innovations are most likely to be accepted when they are useful, communicable, and compatible with established tradition. Nowhere is the Indian genius for combining the old and the new better exemplified than in the story of how the Virgin of Guadalupe came to fulfill the role formerly played by the pagan goddess Tonantzin and of how Christian saints replaced the Aztec gods. At the time of this study, the Tecospans still called the Catholic Virgin Tonantzin, but their concept of the mother goddess had changed profoundly since Aztec times. Tonantzin the Pagan, a hideous goddess with claws on her hands and feet and with snakes entwining her face, wore a necklace of hearts, hands, and skulls to represent her insatiable appetite for corpses. Tonantzin the Catholic—also called Guadalupe—is a beautiful and benevolent mother deity who repeatedly stays God’s anger against her Mexican children and answers the prayers of the poorest Indian, with no thought of return. In Tecospa the road to social recognition lay in the performance of religious works, and the neglect of ritual obligation subjected both the individual and the community to the anger of supernaturals who punished with illness or other misfortune. Religion was inextricably a part of every phase of life, and it is the whole life of the Aztecan that is recorded here: fiesta, clothing, food, agricultural practices, courtship, marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, death, witchcraft and its cures, medical practices and attitudes, houses and home life, ethics, and the hot-cold complex that classifies everything in the Tecospan universe from God to Bromo-Seltzer. With a marked simplicity of style and language William Madsen has produced a profoundly significant anthropological study that is delightful reading from the first sentence to the last. The drawings, the work of a ten-year-old Tecospan lad, are remarkable for their penetrating insight into the culture.