Kay Almere Read - Böcker

An excellent resource, Handbook of Mesoamerican Mythology introduces readers to the mythology of Mexico and Central America. Its chief focus is on Mexican Highland and Maya areas, as they were, and are, of utmost importance to Mesoamerican history.An extensive and edifying introduction defines the nature of myth, the Mesoamericans as a people, and the cultural worldview that informed Mesoamerican mythology. The Handbook presents historical and mythological timelines, with each time period and cultural group fully defined. Also featured is a quick geographical and historical survey of Mesoamerica from the Paleoindian Era to the present, as well as a discussion of some of the challenges and possibilities that structure Mesoamerican studies. Moreover, an extensive reference list and a glossary of cultural and mythological terms are included, and pronunciation guides are given throughout. With an annotated bibliography that ranges from film to websites, fiction to poetry, and from introductory to scholarly works, the book is an all-embracing portal to its subject.

This introduction to the imaginative world of the Mexica (or Aztec) explores sacrifice in the richly textured life of 16th-century Mexico. Kay Almere Read describes a universe in which every object was timed by a given lifespan and in which sacrifice was the mechanism by which time functioned. This book makes a convincing case for what sacrifice meant religiously and for how it came to be that human sacrifice of staggering proportions could be accepted, matter-of-factly, by the Mexica people.