Description
Book SynopsisProvides a cultural history of the missionary enterprise in sixteenth-century Mexico. This work addresses the enculturation of Catholic sacraments and sacramentals into an Aztec worldview in visual and material terms. It offers insights on the development of sacramental practice, popular piety, catechetical drama, and parish politics.
Trade Review" . . . a superb study that will benefit by being read in conjunction with the author's previous book, City, Temple Stage: Eschatological Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain. . . . In enthralling detail, Lara makes it clear that the indigenous Christian culture that emerged from this interaction was neither a covert survival of pre-Hispanic paganism nor a pessimistic surrender to conquest. Rather, it was a marvelously spontaneous outpouring, fed by the imagination of a group of remarkable mendicant friars who, Lara tells us, 'dared to use the metaphors, symbols, and values of the peoples of MesoamericaÆ to bring about a 'rich transfusion of the message into the very blood of a sophisticated culture.'"—Times Literary Supplement
