The Maya and Catholicism : an encounter of worldviews / John D. Early.

ISBN:

9780813040028

Title:

Author:

Early, John D.

Personal Author:

Early, John D.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 311 pages) : illustrations, map

Contents:

The research -- The saints, their homes, and their servants -- Mayan festivals for the saints -- Mayan insistence on the mass performed by a Catholic priest -- Traditional Mayan worldview -- The worldview of the Spanish crown at the beginning of the sixteenth century -- Spanish victories and their impact on the Mayan worldview -- The goals of evangelization -- The strategy for communicating the doctrina -- Problems facing the friars -- The secular clergy -- The necessity of the saints in the Mayan worldview -- The necessity of the mass, baptism, and the Catholic priest in the Mayan worldview -- The fiscal -- The mass of the talking saints -- Questions raised by the research.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Corporate Subject:

Catholic Church -- Missions -- Latin America -- History.

Église catholique -- Missions -- Amérique latine -- Histoire.

Subject Term:

Mayas -- Religion.

Mayas -- Rites and ceremonies.

Maya cosmology.

Indian Catholics -- Latin America -- History.

Christianity and culture -- Latin America.

Christianity and other religions -- Latin America.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2006

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
261.297842 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-long speculation about why the ritual calendars of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala and the regions of Chiapas and Yucatan in Mexico revolve around festivals in honor of the Catholic saints.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Early, professor emeritus of anthropology at Florida Atlantic Univ., was in younger times a Catholic priest. While doing his dissertation fieldwork among Mayas of southern Mexico back in the early 1960s, he occasionally assisted the local cleric in saying mass and performing baptisms. Over the decades, his research followed other paths, but in this book, Early returns to a question that has nagged him since those days in Mexico. Mayas clearly were not orthodox Christians. They had they own shamans who propitiated their own gods. Why, then, do they also worship the Europeans' god and saints and insist that to honor those supernaturals properly, services must be said by outside, non-Indian priests, not by Maya holy men and women? To answer that question, Early in this engaging essay ranges widely across the history and ethnography of Maya lands. He shows how conquest impressed upon Indians the power of foreign gods, how Christian missionizing conveyed the formulas but not the substance of the new religion, and how to this day, Mayas believe the foreign-derived deities require strict observance of those ritual formulas under the guidance of white priests. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. P. R. Sullivan independent scholar