Colonial saints : discovering the holy in the Americas, 1500-1800 / edited by Allan Greer and Jodi Bilinkoff.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Greer, Allan.

Bilinkoff, Jodi, 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian saints--Cult--America--History.

Christian saints.

Christian hagiography.

Church history.

Christian saints--Cult.

History.

America--Church history.

America.

Physical Description:

xxii, 317 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2003.

Summary:

When Europeans conquered the New World they brought with them their "heroes," the saints, as well as their swords. They soon became aware that indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans had their own experiences of the holy. This exciting new anthology demonstrates the value of texts and images about saints as a window on issues of race, gender, politics, and colonial identity. In a period of dynamic change, missionaries vied for influence with shamans in Paraguay, West African traditions fused with Catholicism in Haiti, and the age-old devotion to the Virgin Mary was both adopted and transformed by the native peoples of Mexico. These fourteen original essays shed light on both the "spiritual conquest" of the Americas, and the American "conquest" of Christianity. Unique for its interdisciplinary approach and trans-Atlantic and inter-American scope, Colonial Saints deepens our understanding not only of the saints, but also their believers, the peoples of the Americas, in all their complexity and humanity.

Contents:

Part 1 Cultural Mixing 1

1. St. Anne Imagery and Maternal Archetypes in Spain and Mexico / Charlene Villasenor Black 3

2. Querying the Spirit: The Rules of the Haitian Lwa / Joan Dayan 31

3. Diego de Ocana's Hagiography of New and Renewed Devotion in Colonial Peru / Kenneth Mills 51

4. Old Bones and Beautiful Words: The Spiritual Contestation between Shaman and Jesuit in the Guarani Missions / Dot Tuer 77

5. St. Anthony in Portuguese America: Saint of the Restoration / Ronaldo Vainfas 99

Part 2 Holy Women, Holy Men 113

6. Francisco Losa and Gregorio Lopez: Spiritual Friendship and Identity Formation on the New Spain Frontier / Jodi Bilinkoff 115

7. In the Shadow of the Cloister: Representations of Female Holiness in New France / Dominique Deslandres 129

8. Isaac Jogues: From Martyrdom to Sainthood / Paul Perron 153

9. Martyred by the Saints: Quaker Executions in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts / Carla Gardina Pestana 169

10. St. Palafox: Metaphorical Images of Disputed Sainthood / Antonio Rubial Garcia 193

Part 3 The Uses of the Sacred 209

11. Writing a Relic: The Uses of Hagiography in New France / Julia Boss 211

12. Iroquois Virgin: The Story of Catherine Tekakwitha in New France and New Spain / Allan Greer 235

13. "Redeemer of America": Rosa de Lima (1586-1617), the Dynamics of Identity, and Canonization / Kathleen Ann Myers 251

14. Mexico's Virgin of Guadalupe in the Seventeenth Century: Hagiography and Beyond / William B. Taylor 277.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-304) and index.

ISBN:

0415934958

0415934966

OCLC:

50695328