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Painted Words: Nahua Catholicism, Politics, and Memory in the Atzaqualco Pictorial Catechism
Contributor(s): Boone, Elizabeth Hill (Author), Burkhart, Louise M. (Author), Tavárez, David (Author)
ISBN: 0884024180     ISBN-13: 9780884024187
Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection
OUR PRICE:   $69.25  
Product Type: Paperback
Published: January 2017
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Christianity - Catechisms
- Religion | Christianity - Catholic
- History | Latin America - Mexico
Dewey: 238.208
LCCN: 2016007375
Series: Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology Studies
Physical Information: 1" H x 7.7" W x 10.5" (2.30 lbs) 400 pages
Themes:
- Religious Orientation - Catholic
- Religious Orientation - Christian
- Cultural Region - Latin America
- Cultural Region - Mexican
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Painted Words presents a facsimile, decipherment, and analysis of a seventeenth-century pictographic catechism from colonial Mexico, preserved as Fonds Mexicain 399 at the Biblioth que Nationale de France. Works in this genre present the Catholic catechism in pictures that were read sign by sign as aids to memorization and oral performance. They have long been understood as a product of the experimental techniques of early evangelization, but this study shows that they are better understood as indigenous expressions of devotional knowledge.

In addition to inventive pictography to recount the catechism, this manuscript features Nahuatl texts that focus on don Pedro Moteuczoma, son of the Mexica ruler Moteuczoma the Younger, and his home, San Sebasti n Atzaqualco. Other glosses identify figures drawn within the manuscript as Nahua and Spanish historical personages, as if the catechism had been repurposed as a dynastic record. The end of the document displays a series of Nahua and Spanish heraldic devices.

These combined pictorial and alphabetic expressions form a spectacular example of how colonial pictographers created innovative text genres, through which they reimagined pre-Columbian writing and early evangelization--and ultimately articulated newly emerging assertions of indigenous identity and memorialized native history.


Contributor Bio(s): Tavarez, David: - David Tavárez is Professor of Anthropology at Vassar College.Boone, Elizabeth Hill: - Elizabeth Hill Boone is Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Art at Tulane University.Burkhart, Louise M.: - Louise M. Burkhart is Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York, Albany.