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Renewing the Maya World : Expressive Culture in a Highland Town / / Garrett W. Cook.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Austin : : University of Texas Press, [2010]Copyright date: ©2000Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780292798243
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 972.81/8100497415 22/eng/20230216
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Narratives -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- PART 1. THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT -- 2. Religious Sodalities of Momostenango: The Communal Cult Institutions -- 3. Traveling Saints -- PART 2. THE RITUAL SYMBOLS AND THEIR MEANINGS -- 4. Cosmogonic Tree Raisings and Sunrises -- 5. Secrets and Ordeals of Holy Week -- 6. Continuity in the Quichean Expressive Culture Tradition -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibiliography -- Index
Summary: Each year in the Highland Guatemala town of Santiago Momostenango, Maya religious societies, dance teams, and cofradías perform the annual cycle of rituals and festivals prescribed by Costumbre (syncretized Maya Christian religion), which serves to renew the cosmic order. In this richly detailed ethnography, Garrett Cook explores how these festivals of Jesucristo and the saints derive from and reenact three major ancient Maya creation myths, thus revealing patterns of continuity between contemporary expressive culture and the myths, rituals, and iconography of the Classic and Postclassic Maya. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the 1970s and renewed in the 1990s, Cook describes the expressive culture tradition performed in and by the cofradías and their dance teams. He listens as dancers and cofrades explain the meaning of service and of the major ritual symbols in the cults of the saints and Jesucristo. Comparing these symbols to iconographic evidence from Palenque and myths from the Popol Vuh, Cook persuasively argues that the expressive culture of Momostenango enacts major Maya creation myths-the transformative sunrise, the representation of the year as the life cycle of anthropomorphized nature, and the erection of an axis mundi. This research documents specific patterns of continuity and discontinuity in the communal expression of Maya religious and cosmogonic themes. Along with other recent research, it demonstrates the survival of a basic Maya pattern-the world-creating vegetative renewal cycle-in the highland Maya cults of the saints and Jesucristo.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780292798243

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Narratives -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- PART 1. THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT -- 2. Religious Sodalities of Momostenango: The Communal Cult Institutions -- 3. Traveling Saints -- PART 2. THE RITUAL SYMBOLS AND THEIR MEANINGS -- 4. Cosmogonic Tree Raisings and Sunrises -- 5. Secrets and Ordeals of Holy Week -- 6. Continuity in the Quichean Expressive Culture Tradition -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibiliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Each year in the Highland Guatemala town of Santiago Momostenango, Maya religious societies, dance teams, and cofradías perform the annual cycle of rituals and festivals prescribed by Costumbre (syncretized Maya Christian religion), which serves to renew the cosmic order. In this richly detailed ethnography, Garrett Cook explores how these festivals of Jesucristo and the saints derive from and reenact three major ancient Maya creation myths, thus revealing patterns of continuity between contemporary expressive culture and the myths, rituals, and iconography of the Classic and Postclassic Maya. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the 1970s and renewed in the 1990s, Cook describes the expressive culture tradition performed in and by the cofradías and their dance teams. He listens as dancers and cofrades explain the meaning of service and of the major ritual symbols in the cults of the saints and Jesucristo. Comparing these symbols to iconographic evidence from Palenque and myths from the Popol Vuh, Cook persuasively argues that the expressive culture of Momostenango enacts major Maya creation myths-the transformative sunrise, the representation of the year as the life cycle of anthropomorphized nature, and the erection of an axis mundi. This research documents specific patterns of continuity and discontinuity in the communal expression of Maya religious and cosmogonic themes. Along with other recent research, it demonstrates the survival of a basic Maya pattern-the world-creating vegetative renewal cycle-in the highland Maya cults of the saints and Jesucristo.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)