Early Americas: History and Culture – serie

The Mixtec civilization (of Oaxaca, Mexico) is one of the most interesting to survive from pre-colonial Mesoamerica. Among its characteristic products were highly artistic pictographic codices depicting the history and dynasties of its city-states. This handbook surveys and describes the illustrated Mixtec manuscripts that survive in Europe, the United States and Mexico, outlines the history of their decipherment, current questions, discussions and methodologies relating to readings, social organisation, religion and historical drama, and surveys the six centuries of Mixtec history covered in the texts.

The Spanish colonization dramatically interrupted the autonomous development of ancient Mesoamerican culture. Nevertheless, indigenous societies learnt to live with the conquest. It was not only a time of crisis, but also an extraordinarily creative time period in which material culture reflected indigenous peoples’ varied responses and adaptations to the changing circumstances. This work presents insights into the process of cultural continuity and change in the indigenous world by focusing on pottery technology in the Nahua (Aztec) region of Central Mexico. The late pre-colonial, early colonial and present-day characteristics of this industry are explored in order to come to a renewed understanding of its long-term development. with a contribution by Iliana Yunuen Caloca Rhi

The historical narratives of the Inca dynasty, known to us through Spanish records, present several discrepancies that scholarship has long attributed to the biases and agendas of colonial actors. Drawing on a redefinition of royal descent and a comparative literary analysis of primary sources, this book restores the pre-Hispanic voices embedded in the chronicles. It identifies two distinctive bodies of Inca oral traditions, each of which encloses a mutually conflicting representation of the past that, considered together, reproduces patterns of Cuzco’s moiety division. Building on this new insight, the author revisits dual representations in the cosmology and ritual calendar of the ruling elite. The result is a fresh contribution to ethnohistorical works that have explored native ways of constructing history.

Calendars of Mesoamerican civilisations are subjected to what is categorised as “ritual practices of time”. This book is a comparative explication of rituals of time of four calendars: the Long Count calendar, the 260-day calendar, the 365-day calendar and the 52-years calendar. Building upon a comparative analytical model, the book contributes new theoretical insights about ritual practices and temporal philosophies. This comprehensive investigation analyses how ritual practices are represented and conceptualised in intellectual systems and societies. The temporal ritual practices are systematically analysed in relation to calendar organisation and structure, arithmetic, cosmogony and chronometry, spatial-temporality (cosmology), natural world, eschatology, sociology, politics, and ontology. It is argued that the 260-day calendar has a particular symbolic importance in Mesoamerican temporal philosophies and practices.

In Time and the Ancestors: Aztec and Mixtec Ritual Art, Maarten Jansen and Aurora Pérez present new interpretations of enigmatic masterpieces from ancient Mexico. Combining iconographical analysis with the study of archaeological contexts, historical sources and living cultural traditions, they shed light on central symbols and values of the religious heritage of indigenous peoples, paying special attention to precolonial perceptions of time and the importance of ancestor worship. They decipher the meaning of the treasure deposited in Tomb 7 at Monte Albán (Oaxaca) and of artworks such as the Roll of the New Fire (Selden Roll), the Aztec religious sculptures and, last but not least, the mysterious chapter of temple scenes from the Book of Night and Wind (Codex Borgia).

In Painted Pottery of Honduras Rosemary Joyce describes the development of the Ulua Polychrome tradition in Honduras from the fifth to sixteenth centuries AD, and critically examines archaeological research on these objects that began in the nineteenth century. Previously treated as a marginal product of Classic Maya society, this study shows that Ulua Polychromes are products of the ritual and social life of indigenous societies composed of wealthy farmers engaged in long-distance relationships extending from Costa Rica to Mexico.Drawing on concepts of agency, practice, and intention, Rosemary Joyce takes a potter's perspective and develops a generational workshop model for innovation by communities of practice who made and used painted pottery in serving meals and locally meaningful ritual practices.

In Chilam Balam of Ixil Laura Caso Barrera translates for the first time a Yucatec Maya document that resulted from the meticulous reading by the Colonial Maya of various European texts such as the Bible and the Poem of the Mío Cid, as well as various studies on astronomy, astrology, calendars, and medicine.The Maya, showing considerable astuteness and insight, appropriated this knowledge. With this study and facsimile, experts can further their knowledge of Mayan calendars or traditional medicine; and Mayan enthusiasts can discover more about the culture’s world view and history.En el Chilam Balam de Ixil Laura Caso Barrera traduce por primera vez un documento en maya yucateco, que resultó de la minuciosa lectura que realizaron los mayas coloniales de distintos textos europeos como la Biblia o el Cantar del Mío Cid, así como de diversos estudios de astronomía, astrología, calendarios y medicina.Con astucia y perspicacia, los mayas hicieron propio ese saber. Con esta edición, los expertos podrán ahondar en las anotaciones calendáricas o la medicina tradicional maya; y los amantes de esta cultura conocerán otros aspectos de su pensamiento e historia.

Mesoamerican Manuscripts: New Scientific Approaches and Interpretations brings together a wide range of modern approaches to the study of pre-colonial and early colonial Mesoamerican manuscripts. This includes innovative studies of materiality through the application of non-invasive spectroscopy and imaging techniques, as well as new insights into the meaning of these manuscripts and related visual art, stemming from a post-colonial indigenous perspective.This cross- and interdisciplinary work shows on the one hand the value of collaboration of specialists in different field, but also the multiple viewpoints that are possible when these types of complex cultural expressions are approached from varied cultural and scientific backgrounds.Contributors are: Omar Aguilar Sánchez, Paul van den Akker, Maria Isabel Álvarez Icaza Longoria, Frances F. Berdan, David Buti, Laura Cartechini, Davide Domenici, Laura Filloy Nadal, Alessia Frassani, Francesca Gabrieli, Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen, Rosemary A. Joyce, Jorge Gómez Tejada, Chiara Grazia, David Howell, Virginia M. Lladó-Buisán, Leonardo López Luján, Raul Macuil Martínez, Manuel May Castillo, Costanza Miliani, María Olvido Moreno Guzmán, Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez, Araceli Rojas, Aldo Romani, Francesca Rosi, Antonio Sgamellotti, Ludo Snijders, and Tim Zaman. See inside the book.

Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas brings together 15 case studies focusing on the early colonial history and archaeology of indigenous cultural persistence and change in the Caribbean and its surrounding mainland(s) after AD 1492. With a special emphasis on material culture and by foregrounding indigenous agency in shaping the diverse outcomes of colonial encounters, this volume offers new perspectives on early modern cultural interactions in the first regions of the ‘New World’ that were impacted by European colonization. The volume contributors specifically investigate how foreign goods were differentially employed, adopted, and valued across time, space, and scale, and what implications such material encounters had for indigenous social, political, and economic structures.Contributors are: Andrzej T. Antczak, Ma. M. Antczak, Oliver Antczak, Jaime J. Awe, Martijn van den Bel, Mary Jane Berman, Arie Boomert, Jeb J. Card, Charles R. Cobb, Gérard Collomb, Shannon Dugan Iverson, Marlieke Ernst, William R. Fowler, Perry L. Gnivecki, Christophe Helmke, Shea Henry, Gilda Hernández Sánchez, Corinne L. Hofman, Menno L.P. Hoogland, Rosemary A. Joyce, Floris W.M. Keehnen, J. Angus Martin, Clay Mathers, Maxine Oland, Alberto Sarcina, Russell N. Sheptak, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Robyn Woodward.

This volume explores how visual arts functioned in the indigenous pre- and post-conquest New World as vehicles of social, religious, and political identity. Twelve scholars in the field of visual arts examine indigenous artistic expressions in the American continent from the pre-Hispanic age to the present. The contributions offer new interpretations of materials, objects, and techniques based on a critical analysis of historical and iconographic sources and argue that indigenous agency in the continent has been primarily conceived and expressed in visual forms in spite of the textual epistemology imposed since the conquest. Contributors are: Miguel Arisa, Mary Brown, Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Elena FitzPatrick Sifford, Alessia Frassani, Jeremy James George, Orlando Hernández Ying, Angela Herren Rajagopalan, Keith Jordan, Lorena Tezanos Toral, Marcus B. Burke, and Lawrence Waldron.

This book presents the transcriptions and annotated translations of fifteen key historical documents concerning the Tapuia indigenous people written just before and during the Dutch occupation of northeastern Brazil. The selected documents vary widely in type, including letters, descriptions, reports, first-person declarations, diaries, and transcripts of interrogations, thereby showcasing different perspectives and audiences. Some of the documents were authored by European writers, while others register indigenous voices somewhat more directly in the form of interviews or declarations.These texts provide important first-hand information about the Tapuia and other indigenous peoples during the Dutch conquest, revealing their cultural practices and knowledge while also detailing their strategic engagements with each other and with different European colonizers.

What is the role of local Caribbean individuals and communities in creating and perpetuating archaeological heritage? How has archaeological knowledge been integrated into education plans in different countries? This book aims to fill a gap in both archaeological scholarship and popular knowledge by providing a platform for local Caribbean voices to speak about the archaeological heritage of their region. To achieve this, each chapter of the book focuses on identifying and developing strategies that academics, heritage practitioners, and non-scholars from the insular Caribbean can adopt to stimulate a necessary dialogue on how archaeological heritage is used and produced on various academic, political, and social levels.Contributors are: Zara Ali, Arlene Álvarez, Lisette Roura Alvarez, Irvince Nanichi Auguiste, Victoria Borg O’Flaherty, Lornadale L. Charles, Eldris Con Aguilar, Raymundo A.C.F. Dijkhoff, Matthieu Ecrabet, Kevin Farmer, Cameron Gill, Eduardo Herrera Malatesta, Katarina Jacobson, Joseph Sony Jean, Debra Kay Palmer, Harold Kelly, Wilhelm Londoño Díaz, Stacey Mac Donald, Jerry Michel, Ashleigh John Morris, Andrea Richards, Kara M. Roopsingh, Pierre Sainte-Luce, Tibisay Sankatsing Nava, and Laurent Christian Ursulet.