Religious images in Tuapuria Huichol ceremonialism, western Mexico, 1590 to 2000
Description
This dissertation is a study of innovation and appropriation in local ceremonialism in the Huichol region of western Mexico, beginning around 1590. In my ethnohistoric chapters, I employ archival documents and historical narratives to reconstruct Colonial- and Independence-period processes of religious indoctrination in the Indian communities of Fronteras de Colotlan, a sector of the Nueva Galicia frontier. My ethnographic research was based in the Tuapuria district of Huichol territory, located in the modern state of Jalisco, Mexico. In my ethnographic chapters, I explore modern (1992 to 2000) Tuapuria Huichol ritual specialists' methods and training, interdependence and transaction between Huichols and deities, cycles of sacrifice and pilgrimage, indigenous and Spanish ritual architecture and landscape, and the roles of seven religious images housed in a Tuapuria church. I draw on my study of modern Huichol ritual space, landscape, and architecture to reconstruct Colonial-period Indians' reconfiguration of Spanish religious architecture, landscape, and religious images in accordance with local patterns and purposes. I argue that indigenous ritual experts appropriated 'Catholic' religious personages and reconfigured mission churches to access sources of Spanish power, contradict priests' claims to exclusive spiritual authority, ensure the continuity of local patterns of ceremonial practice, and secure their ascendant social roles