Taken from the lips : gender and eros in Mesoamerican religions / by Sylvia Marcos ; with a foreword by Catherine Keller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marcos, Sylvia.

Series:

Religion in the Americas series 1542-1279 ; v. 5.

Religion in the Americas series, 1542-1279 ; v. 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indians of Mexico--Religion.

Indians of Mexico.

Indians of Mexico--Rites and ceremonies.

Indian women--Mexico--Historiography.

Indian women.

Human body--Symbolic aspects--Mexico.

Human body.

Sex role--Mexico.

Sex role.

Human body--Symbolic aspects.

Historiography.

Mexico--Social life and customs.

Mexico.

Manners and customs.

Mexico--Religious life and customs.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 146 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2006.

Summary:

This volume deals with the world of women in Mesoamerica, with special attention to the religious and ritual aspects of gender. As its sources it draws upon colonial documents of the period of contact with European cultures, on testimonies of subjugated indigenous people from the colonial period, as well as on contemporary ethnographic studies. The book opens with an analysis of healing rituals in contemporary Mexico, focusing on the appropriation of ancient beliefs and practices. It then moves spiral-like between pre-hispanic and colonial pasts and diverse presents. The section on "orality" comprises a methodological proposal for the study of indigenous religious traditions. The book is illustrated with reproductions of ancient codices.

As an epistemological study based on ancient chronicles and stories, hymns and ritual discourses, epics and poetics, as well as upon contemporary ethnographic studies of Mesoamerica, Taken from the Lips will be of interest not only to students of its designated cultures, but to a wide interdisciplinary spectrum of women's studies, religious studies, American studies, theories of eros and sexuality, and postcolonialism. It intertwines themes of gender fluidity, eroticism linked to religion, permeable corporeality, embodied thought and oral thought.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Curing and Cosmology 1

Chapter 2 Duality, Fluidity, and Equilibrium 13

Chapter 3 The Sacred Earth of the Nahuas 31

Chapter 4 Gender and Healing Rituals 41

Chapter 5 Fusion with the Sacred: Perceptions of Women Healers 51

Chapter 6 Corporeality Religious Metaphor, and Narrative 63

Chapter 7 Indigenous Eroticism and Colonial Morality: The Confession Manuals of New Spain 77

Chapter 8 Scattering of Jades: Gendered Moral Discourses of the Wise Old Women and Men 93

Chapter 9 Beyond Mesoamerica: the Hermeneutics of Orality 107.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [125]-136) and index.

ISBN:

9004148906

OCLC:

68629680

Publisher Number:

9789004148901