Download or read book The Title of Totonicap n written by Allen J. Christenson and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is the first English translation of the complete text of the Title of Totonicapán, one of the most important documents composed by the K’iche’ Maya in the highlands of Guatemala, second only to the Popol Vuh. The original document was completed in 1554, only a few decades after the Spanish Conquest of the K’iche’ people in 1524. This volume contains a wholly new translation from the original K’iche’ Maya text, based on the oldest known manuscript copy, rediscovered by Robert Carmack in 1973. The Title of Totonicapán is a land title written by surviving members of the K’iche’ Maya nobility, a branch of the Maya that dominated the highlands of western Guatemala prior to the Spanish invasion in 1524, and it was duly signed by the ruling lords of all three major K’iche’ lineages—the Kaweqib’, the Nijayib’, and the Ajaw K’iche’s. Titles of this kind were relatively common for Maya communities in the Guatemalan highlands in the first century after the Spanish Conquest as a means of asserting land rights and privileges for its leaders. Like the Popol Vuh, the Title of Totonicapán is written in the elevated court language of the early Colonial period and eloquently describes the mythic origins and history of the K’iche’ people. For the most part, the Title of Totonicapán agrees with the Popol Vuh’s version of K’iche’ history and cosmology, providing a complementary account that attests traditions that must have been widely known and understood. But in many instances the Totonicapán document is richer in detail and departs from the Popol Vuh’s more cursory description of history, genealogy, and political organization. In other instances, it contradicts assertions made by the authors of the Popol Vuh, perhaps a reflection of internal dissent and jealousy between rival lineages within the K’iche’ hierarchy. It also contains significant passages of cosmology and history that do not appear in any other highland Maya text. This volume makes a comprehensive and updated edition of the Title of Totonicapán accessible to scholars and students in history, anthropology, archaeology, and religious studies in Latin America, as well as those interested in Indigenous literature and Native American/Indigenous studies more broadly. It is also a stand-alone work of Indigenous literature that provides additional K’iche’ perspectives, enhancing the reading of other colonial Maya sources.
Download or read book Rewriting Maya Religion written by Garry G. Sparks and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rewriting Maya Religion Garry Sparks examines the earliest religious documents composed by missionaries and native authors in the Americas, including a reconstruction of the first original, explicit Christian theology written in the Americas—the nearly 900-page Theologia Indorum (Theology for [or of] the Indians), initially written in Mayan languages by Friar Domingo de Vico by 1554. Sparks traces how the first Dominican missionaries to the Maya repurposed native religious ideas, myths, and rhetoric in their efforts to translate a Christianity and how, in this wake, K’iche’ Maya elites began to write their own religious texts, like the Popol Vuh. This ethnohistory of religion critically reexamines the role and value of indigenous authority during the early decades of first contact between a Native American people and Christian missionaries. Centered on the specific work of Dominicans among the Highland Maya of Guatemala in the decades prior to the arrival of the Catholic Reformation in the late sixteenth century, the book focuses on the various understandings of religious analyses—Hispano-Catholic and Maya—and their strategic exchanges, reconfigurations, and resistance through competing efforts of religious translation. Sparks historically contextualizes Vico’s theological treatise within both the wider set of early literature in K’iche’an languages and the intellectual shifts between late medieval thought and early modernity, especially the competing theories of language, ethnography, and semiotics in the humanism of Spain and Mesoamerica at the time. Thorough and original, Rewriting Maya Religion serves as an ethnohistorical frame for continued studies on Highland Maya religious symbols, discourse, practices, and logic dating back to the earliest documented evidence. It will be of great significance to scholars of religion, ethnohistory, linguistics, anthropology, and Latin American history.
Download or read book The Americas First Theologies written by Domingo de Vico and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains facsimiles of original document, along with trancriptions in quichâe and corresponding translations into English.
Download or read book The Myth of Quetzalcoatl written by Enrique Florescano and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002-11-29 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive study, Enrique Florescano traces the spread of the worship of the Plumed Serpent, and the multiplicity of interpretations that surround him, by comparing the Palenque inscriptions (ca. A.D. 690), the Vienna Codex (pre-Hispanic Conquest), the Historia de los Mexicanos (1531), the Popul Vuh (ca. 1554), and numerous other texts. He also consults and reproduces archeological evidence from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, demonstrating how the myth of Quetzalcoatl extends throughout Mesoamerica.
Download or read book Parallel Worlds written by Kerry M. Hull and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite recent developments in epigraphy, ethnopoetics, and the literary investigation of colonial and modern materials, few studies have compared glyphic texts and historic Maya literatures. Parallel Worlds examines Maya writing and literary traditions from the Classic period until today, revealing remarkable continuities across time. In this volume, contributions from leading scholars in Maya literary studies examine Maya discourse from Classic period hieroglyphic inscriptions to contemporary spoken narratives, focusing on parallelism to unite the literature historically. Contributors take an ethnopoetic approach, examining literary and verbal arts from a historical perspective, acknowledging that poetic form is as important as narrative content in deciphering what these writings reveal about ancient and contemporary worldviews. Encompassing a variety of literary motifs, including humor, folklore, incantation, mythology, and more specific forms of parallelism such as couplets, chiasms, kennings, and hyperbatons, Parallel Worlds is a rich journey through Maya culture and pre-Columbian literature that will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, ethnography, Latin American history, epigraphy, comparative literature, language studies, indigenous studies, and mythology.
Download or read book In the Language of Kings written by Miguel Leon-Portilla and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2002-09 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first anthology in any language to represent the full trajectory of this remarkable literature.
Download or read book Approaches to World Literature written by Joachim Küpper and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-12-20 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume introduces new considerations on the topic of “World Literature”, penned by leading representatives of the discipline from the United States, India, Japan, the Middle East, England, France and Germany. The essays revolve around the question of what, specifically in today's rapidly globalizing world, may be the productive implications of the concept of World Literature, which was first developed in the 18th century and then elaborated on by Goethe. The discussions include problems such as different script systems with varying literary functions, as well as questions addressing the relationship between ethnic self-description and cultural belonging. The contributions result from a conference that took place at the Dahlem Humanities Center, Freie Universität Berlin, in 2012.
Download or read book Rabinal Achi written by Dennis Tedlock and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-04 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is one of the most important surviving works of pre-Columbian civilization, Rabinal Achi, a Mayan drama set a century before the arrival of the Spanish, produced by the translator of the best selling Popol Vuh. The first direct translation into English from Quiché Maya, based on the original text, Rabinal Achi is the story of city-states, war, and nobility, of diplomacy, mysticism, and psychic journeys. Cawek of the Forest People has been captured by Man of Rabinal, who serves a ruler named Lord Five Thunder. Cawek is a renegade, a warrior who has inflicted much suffering on Rabinal. Yet he is also the son of the lord of the allied city of Quiché--a noble who once fought alongside Man of Rabinal. The drama presents the confrontation between the two during the trial of Cawek, who defies his captors and proudly accepts death by beheading. Dennis Tedlock's translation is clear and vivid; more than that, it is rooted in an understanding of how the play is actually performed. Despite being banned for centuries by Spanish authorities, it survived in actual practice, and is still performed in the town of Rabinal today. Tedlock's photographs and diagrams accompany the text, capturing nuances not apparent in the dialogue alone. He also provides an introduction and commentary that explain the historical events compressed into the play, the Spanish influence on the Mayan dramatic tradition, and the cultural and religious world preserved in this remarkable play. Rabinal Achi ranks as a classic of Mayan literature--and a rare window on a world that had yet to be invaded by Europeans. Dennis Tedlock brings this drama to life in all its richness.
Download or read book National Narratives in Mexico written by Enrique Florescano and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If history is written by the victors, then as the rulers of a nation change, so too does the history. Mexico has had many distinct periods of history, demonstrating clearly that the tale changes with the writer. In National Narratives in Mexico, Enrique Florescano examines each historical vision of Mexico as it was interpreted in its own time, revealing the influences of national or ethnic identity, culture, and evolving concepts of history and national memory. Florescano shows how the image of Mexico today is deeply rooted in ideas of past Mexicos—ancient Mexico, colonial Mexico, revolutionary Mexico—and how these ideas can be more fully understood by examining Mexico’s past historians. An awareness of the historian’s cultural perspective helps us to understand which types of evidence would be considered valid in constructing a national narrative. These considerations are important in modern Mexican historiography, as historians begin to question the validity of Mexico’s “collective memory.” Enhanced by more than two hundred drawings, photographs, and maps, National Narratives in Mexico offers a new vision of Mexico’s turbulent history.
Download or read book Where in the Americas Are the Lands of the Book of Mormon written by Eldon V. Guymon and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2018-06-20 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of Mormon was published in 1830. This book tells us that Lehi and his family sailed from the cost of Arabia after 600 BC. Supposedly, Lehi landed in Peru, and his descendants colonized Columbia and later moved northward through a narrow pass. The Isthmus of Panama has been assumed to be the narrow pass. The land to the north of Panama was supposed to be the land of Desolation. Warfare was common between two groups—Nephites and Lamanites. Roughly AD 400, the Lamanites destroyed the Nephites at the Hill Cumorah, which is said to be in New York, USA. Historic “church” leaders are quoted to support the historic theories. However, the church today has no position on the location of the lands in question, so one may choose for himself where the lands were located. Quoting historic “church” leaders proves nothing. Scientists associated with the historic Archaeological Department of Brigham Young University have presented Mesoamerica as the lands of the book. Mormon told us that the river Sidon ran north to the sea (1981, B of M Index p. 730). The Mississippi runs south and is not the river Sidon. Mormon also told us that the people of Zarahemla (Mulekites) crossed a salt ocean landing at the land of Desolation. Hence, the land of Desolation bordered a salt ocean (Alma 22:30 and 63:5). These facts discount several theories, including the heartland theory and great lakes theories. However, historians quote early “church” leaders as prophets and continue to hold to traditional beliefs. The Book of Mormon is the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The lands in question must fit with this book regardless of traditions. The book fits in Mesoamerica. Because people in 1830 had little or no knowledge of the cultures of Mesoamerica, Joseph Smith could not have stolen the book from other authors and the early Mormons could not have written the book. Read Where in the Americas are the Lands of the Book of Mormon” to find out what the Book of Mormon tells us about the lands in question.
Download or read book Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians Volume 3 written by Victoria Reifler Bricker and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sixteen-volume Handbook of Middle American Indians, completed in 1976, has been acclaimed the world over as the single most valuable resource ever produced for those involved in the study of Mesoamerica. When it was determined in 1978 that the Handbook should be updated periodically, Victoria Reifler Bricker, well-known cultural anthropologist, was elected to be general editor. This third volume of the Supplement is devoted to the aboriginal literatures of Mesoamerica, a topic receiving little attention in the original Handbook. According to the general editor, "This volume does more than supplement and update the coverage of Middle American Indian literatures in the Handbook. It breaks new ground by defining the parameters of a new interdisciplinary field in Middle American Indian studies." The aim of the present volume is to consider literature from five Middle American Indian languages: Nahuatl, Yucatecan Maya, Quiche, Tzotzil, and Chorti. The first three literatures are well documented for both the Classical and Modern variants of their languages and are obvious candidates for inclusion in this volume. The literatures of Tzotzil and Chorti, on the other hand, are oral, and heretofore little has been written of their genres and styles. Taken together, these essays represent a substantial contribution to the Handbook series, with the volume editor's introduction placing in geographic perspective the five literatures chosen as representative of the Middle American literary tradition.
Download or read book Proof sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians written by James Constantine Pilling and published by . This book was released on 1885 with total page 1238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Literature written by David Damrosch and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-06-20 with total page 1789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LITERATURE A WORLD HISTORY An exploration of the history of the world’s literatures and the many varieties of literary expression Literature: A World Historyencompasses all the world’s major literary traditions, emphasizing the interrelationship of local and national cultures over time. Spanning global literature from the beginnings of recorded history to the present day, this expansive four-volume set examines the many varieties of the world’s literatures in their social and intellectual contexts. Its four volumes are devoted to literature before 200 CE, from 200 to 1500, from 1500 to 1800, and from 1800 to 2000, with four dozen contributors providing new insights into the art of literature, and addressing the situation of literature in the world today. Organized throughout in six broad regions—Africa, the Americas, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and West and Central Asia—Literature: A World History offers readers a clear and consistent treatment of diverse forms of literary expression across time and place. Throughout the text, particular emphasis is placed on literary institutions within different regional and linguistic cultures and on the relations between literature and a spectrum of social, political, and religious contexts. Features work by an international panel of leading scholars from around the globe, in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and the United States Provides a balanced overview of national and global literature from all major regions of the world from antiquity to the present Highlights the specificity of regional and local cultures throughout much of literary history, together with cross-cutting essays on topics such as different writing systems, court cultures, and utopias Literature: A World History is an invaluable reference work for undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars looking for a wide-ranging overview of global literary history.
Download or read book Second Witness Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon written by Brant A. Gardner and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stop looking for the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica and start looking for Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon! Second Witness, a new six-volume series from Greg Kofford Books, takes a detailed, verse-by-verse look at the Book of Mormon. It marshals the best of modern scholarship and new insights into a consistent picture of the Book of Mormon as a historical document. Taking a faithful but scholarly approach to the text and reading it through the insights of linguistics, anthropology, and ethnohistory, the commentary approaches the text from a variety of perspectives: how it was created, how it relates to history and culture, and what religious insights it provides. The commentary accepts the best modern scholarship, which focuses on a particular region of Mesoamerica as the most plausible location for the Book of Mormon’s setting. For the first time, that location—its peoples, cultures, and historical trends—are used as the backdrop for reading the text. The historical background is not presented as proof, but rather as an explanatory context. The commentary does not forget Mormon’s purpose in writing. It discusses the doctrinal and theological aspects of the text and highlights the way in which Mormon created it to meet his goal of “convincing . . . the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.”
Download or read book The Indian Christ the Indian King written by Victoria Reifler Bricker and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-03-07 with total page 579 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victoria Bricker shows that "history" sometimes rests on mythological foundations and that "myth" can contain valid historical information. Her book, which is a highly original critique of postconquest historiography about the Maya, challenges major assumptions about the relationship between myth and history implicit in structuralist interpretations. The focus of the book is ethnic conflict, a theme that pervades Maya folklore and is also well documented historically. The book begins with the Spanish conquest of the Maya. In chapters on the postconquest history of the Maya, five ethnic conflicts are treated in depth: the Cancuc revolt of 1712, the Quisteil uprising of 1761, the Totonicapan rebellion of 1820, the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901), and the Chamulan uprising in 1869. Analytical chapters consider the relationship between historical events and modern folklore about ethnic conflict. Bricker demonstrates that myths and rituals emphasize structure at the expense of temporal and geographical provenience, treating events separated by centuries or thousands of miles as equivalent and interchangeable. An unexpected result of Bricker's research is the finding that many seemingly aboriginal elements in Maya folklore are actually of postconquest origin, and she shows that it is possible to determine precisely when and, more important, why they become part of myth and ritual. Furthermore, she finds that the patterning of the accretion of events in folklore over time provides clues to the function, or meaning, of myth and ritual for the Maya. Bricker has made use of many unpublished documents in Spanish, English, and Maya, as well as standard synthetic historical works. The appendices contain extensive samples of the oral traditions that are explained by her analysis.
Download or read book Justo Rufino Barrios written by Paul Burgess and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Independence in Central America and Chiapas 1770 1823 written by Aaron Pollack and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central America was the only part of the far-reaching Spanish Empire in continental America not to experience destructive independence wars in the period between 1810 and 1824. The essays in this volume draw on new historical research to explain why, and to delve into what did happen during the independence period in Central America and Chiapas. The contributors, distinguished scholars from Central America, North America, and Europe, consider themes of power, rebellion, sovereignty, and resistance throughout the Kingdom of Guatemala beginning in the late eighteenth century and ending with independence from Spain and the debate surrounding the decision to join the Mexican Empire. Their work reveals that a “conflict-free” separation from Spain was more complex than is usually understood, and shows how such a separation was crucial to late-nineteenth-century developments. These essays tell us how different groups seized on the political instabilities of Spain to maximize their interests; how Latin American elites prepared elaborate rituals to legitimize power dynamics; why the Spanish military governor Bustamante’s role in Central America should be reconsidered; how Indian and popular uprisings had more to do with tax burdens than with independence rhetoric; how the scholastic thought of Thomas Aquinas played a role in political thinking during the independence period; and why Mexico’s Plan de Iguala, the independence program promoted by Agustín de Iturbide, finally broke Central American elites’ ties to Spain. Focusing on regional and small-town dynamics as well as urban elites, these essays combine to offer an unusually broad and varied perspective on and a new understanding of Central America in the period of independence.
