Death and dying in colonial Spanish America / edited by Martina Will de Chaparro and Miruna Achim.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Achim, Miruna.

Will de Chaparro, Martina, 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Burial--Social aspects--Latin America--History.

Burial.

Burial--Social aspects--New Spain--History.

Funeral rites and ceremonies--Latin America--History.

Funeral rites and ceremonies.

Funeral rites and ceremonies--New Spain--History.

Latin America--Social life and customs.

Latin America.

Mexico--History--Spanish colony, 1540-1810.

Mexico.

New Spain--Social life and customs.

New Spain.

Spain--Colonies--America--Administration.

Spain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 276 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Tucson : University of Arizona Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When the Spanish colonized the Americas, they brought many cultural beliefs and practices with them, not the least of which involved death and dying. The essays in this volume explore the resulting intersections of cultures through recent scholarship related to death and dying in colonial Spanish America between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The authors address such important questions as: What were the relationships between the worlds of the living and the dead? How were these relationships sustained not just through religious dogma and rituals but also through everyday practices? How was unnatural death defined within different population strata? How did demo-graphic and cultural changes affect mourning? The variety of sources uncovered in the authors' original archival research suggests the wide diversity of topics and approaches they employ: Nahua annals, Spanish chronicles, Inquisition case records, documents on land disputes, sermons, images, and death registers. Geographically, the range of research focuses on the viceroyalties of New Spain, Peru, and New Granada. The resulting records--both documentary and archaeological--offer us a variety of vantage points from which to view each of these cultural groups as they came into contact with others. Much less tied to modern national boundaries or old imperial ones, the many facets of the new historical research exploring the topic of death demonstrate that no attitudes or practices can be considered either "Western" or universal.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

From the Here to the Hereafter: An Introduction to Death and Dying - Martina Will de Chaparro and Miruna Achim

1. Noble Nahuas, Faith, and Death: How the Indigenous Elite of the Colonial Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley Prepared to Perish - Erika Hosselkus

2. Reading the (Dead) Body: Histories of Suicide in New Spain - Zeb Tortorici

3. The Autopsy of Fray García Guerra: Corporal Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Mexico - Miruna Achim

4. The Death of the Monarch as Colonial Sacrament - James Flaks

5. Exemplary Punishment in Colonial Lima: The 1639 Auto de Fe - Ana E. Schaposchnik

6. Angelic Death and Sacrifice in Early Modern Hispanic America - Andrew Redden

7. Medicine and the Dead: Conflicts over Burial Reform and Piety in Lima, 1808-1850 - Adam Warren

Notes

Select Bibliography

About the Contributors

Illustration Credits

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-299-19179-7

0-8165-2108-5

OCLC:

802049107