IBERO-AMERICANA PRAGENSIA
IBERO-AMERICANA PRAGENSIA

Ibero-Americana Pragensia is a professional peer-reviewed journal, originally a yearbook, which has been published twice a year since 2017. The magazine focuses on the history and culture of Latin America, as well as on relations between the Western world and Latin America. It publishes scholarly studies, short articles, essays, annotated archival materials and reports on conferences as well as reviews of specialized literature and cultural events. All the published texts are authorial. Scholarly studies and essays are subject to review. The journal publishes texts of various methodological and thematic focus (e.g., history, literary science, linguistics, ethnology, political science, art history, translation studies, etc.), as well as annotated archival materials related to Latin American studies. It puts emphasis on primary research and is intended primarily for the professional public. The texts are published in Spanish, Portuguese and English. The objective of the journal is to raise public awareness of Latin American studies as a field, to profile it and to serve as a professional communication platform for controversies and discussions and, at the same time, what is happening in Latin America and its international relations and, hence, to contribute to a more detailed understanding of this region, its history and its culture.

The yearbook Ibero-Americana Pragensia was founded in 1967 as the first periodical published in the Spanish language in Central and Eastern Europe. The yearbook has gradually gained considerable prestige and since the early 1990s has been regularly mentioned in one of the most respected bibliographic journals, the Revista Interamericana de Bibliografía, published by the Organization of American States. The yearbook has been registered by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic as a reviewed title since 2008, and since 2017 has been peer-reviewed and published twice a year. The director of the magazine is Prof. PhDr. Josef Opatrný, CSc., the editor-in-chief PhDr. Simona Binková, CSc., and the executive editor Mgr. Monika Brenišínová, Ph.D. The magazine is led by the executive editor together with an editorial collective composed of scholars from Czech universities. The scholarly and professional level of the journal is further supervised by an international advisory board, which consists of academics from leading foreign universities.

Scholarly studies, short articles and essays are published after the double-blind peer review procedure and acceptance by the editorial board. Professional reviewers are scholars from domestic and foreign universities. The journal is open to cooperation and welcomes scholarly studies, short articles and essays, as well as reports from conferences and projects and reviews. Please send texts to email: monika.brenisinova@ff.cuni.cz.

Ibero-Americana Pragensia es una revista profesional bajo el sistema de revisión por pares, originalmente un anuario, que se publica dos veces al año desde 2017. La revista se centra en la historia y la cultura de América Latina, así como en las relaciones entre el mundo occidental y América Latina. Publica artículos y estudios breves especializados, fuentes y referencias, así como  informes de conferencias o reseñas tanto de libros como de eventos culturales. Todos los textos publicados pertenecen a sus autores. Los artículos de expertos y los estudios breves están sujetos a revisión. Se pone énfasis en investigaciones primarias. La revista publica textos de diversos enfoques metodológicos y temáticos (historia, ciencia literaria, lingüística, etnología, ciencias políticas, historia del arte, estudios de traducción, etc.), así como fuentes relacionadas con la temática iberoamericana. Está destinada principalmente al público profesional. Los textos se publican en español, inglés y portugués. El objetivo de la revista es dar a conocer la Iberoamericanística como disciplina científica, perfilarla y servir como plataforma de comunicación y discusión, dar a conocer lo que está sucediendo en América Latina y las relaciones internacionales con la región para contribuir así a un conocimiento más profundo de esta región, su historia y cultura.

El anuario Ibero-Americana Pragensia fue fundado en 1967 como la primera publicación periódica en español en Europa Central y Oriental. El anuario, publicado como un título revisado por pares académicos, ganó gradualmente un prestigio considerable y desde principios de la década de los noventa del siglo XX ha sido mencionado regularmente en una de las revistas bibliográficas más respetadas, Revista Interamericana de Bibliografía, publicada por la Organización de los Estados Americanos. Desde 2008, el anuario ha sido registrado por el Ministerio de Cultura de la República Checa como revista científica. En 2017, la revista comenzó a publicarse dos veces al año y los estudios profesionales se someten a la revisión anónima bajo la metodología de doble ciego. El director de la revista es el prof. PhDr. Josef Opatrný, CSc., la jefa de la redacción es PhDr. Simona Binková, CSc., y la redactora ejecutiva es Mgr. Monika Brenišínová, Ph.D. La revista está dirigida por la editora ejecutiva junto con el consejo de redacción, que actúa como un órgano asesor más amplio y está compuesto por expertos nacionales de las principales universidades checas. El nivel profesional de la revista es supervisado, además, por un consejo asesor, que está formado por expertos de prestigiosas universidades extranjeras.

Los artículos especializados se publican después de la revisión anónima por parte de dos evaluadores con la aceptación por parte del consejo de redacción. Los evaluadores son expertos de universidades nacionales y extranjeras. La revista está abierta a la cooperación y acepta tanto artículos profesionales como estudios breves, así como informes de congresos, proyectos y reseñas. Los textos deben enviarse al correo electrónico: monika.brenisinova@ff.cuni.cz.

IBERO-AMERICANA PRAGENSIA, Vol 49 No 1 (2021), 53–68

Maya Crosses Dressed, Fed, Alive. A Case Study on Maya Animism

Jan Kapusta

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/24647063.2024.3
published online: 22. 07. 2024

abstract

Maya crosses have always inspired a sense of wonder in the modern observer, because they have been considered animate persons with whom people establish and maintain intersubjective relationships and whom they cherish and nurture. In this study, drawing on my ethnography of “dressing the cross”, an Easter ceremony, I suggest that what separates Maya traditionalism from globalizing modern Maya Spirituality is a particular form of “hierarchical animism”.

keywords: cross; popular religiosity; spirituality; animism; ethnography; the Maya; Guatemala

references (51)

1. ÅRHEM, Kaj - SPRENGER, Guido (eds.), Animism in Southeast Asia, New York: Routledge, 2016. CrossRef

2. ASTOR-AGUILERA, Miguel A., The Maya World of Communicating Objects. Quadripartite Crosses, Trees, and Stones, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010.

3. BIRD-DAVID, Nurit, "ʻAnimismʼ Revisited. Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology", Current Anthropology 40 (= Supplement 1), 1999, pp. 67-91. CrossRef

4. BRENIŠÍNOVÁ, Monika, Del convento al hombre. El significado de la arquitectura conventual y su arte en la Nueva España del siglo XVI, (Tesis de Doctorado), Praga: Universidad Carolina, 2017.

5. BRENIŠÍNOVÁ, Monika, "Picturing Monasteries. 16th Century New Spain Monastic Architecture as Site of Religious Processions", in: idem ed., (Trans)missions: Monasteries as Sites of Cultural Transfers, Oxford: Archaeopress, 2022, pp. 60-77. CrossRef

6. CARO BAROJA, Julio, La estación del amor. Fiestas populares de mayo a San Juan, Madrid: Taurus, 1979.

7. CEN MONTUY, María Jesús, "La fiesta de las Siete Cruces de Tixméhuac", Estudios de Cultura Maya 34, 2009, pp. 115-143. CrossRef

8. CHRISTENSON, Allan J., The Burden of the Ancients. Maya Ceremonies of World Renewal from the Pre-Columbian Period to the Present, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016.

9. CHRISTENSON, Allen J., Art and Society in a Highland Maya Community. The Altarpiece of Santiago Atitlan, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

10. COOK, Garrett W. - OFFIT, Thomas A. - TAUBE, Rhonda, Indigenous Religion and Cultural Performance in the New Maya World, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013.

11. CSORDAS, Thomas J. (ed.), Transnational Transcendence. Essays on Religion and Globalization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. CrossRef

12. DE LA TORRE, Renée - GUTIÉRREZ ZÚÑIGA, Cristina - JUÁREZ HUET, Nahayeilli B. (eds.), New Age in Latin America. Popular Variations and Ethnic Appropriations, Leiden: Brill, 2016.

13. DESCOLA, Philippe, Beyond Nature and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. CrossRef

14. DEUSS, Krystyna, Shamans, Witches, and Maya Priests. Native Religion and Ritual in Highland Guatemala, London: Guatemalan Maya Centre, 2007.

15. FARAHMAND, Manéli, "Current Faces of Maya Shamanic Renewals in Mexico", International Journal of Latin American Religions 4, 2020, pp. 48-74. CrossRef

16. FREDDI, Andrea, "ʻAhora también pedimos por nuestra gente en el Norte.ʼ Las chimanes de Todos Santos (Guatemala) entre migración, desarrollo y mayanización", Itinerarios 33, 2021, pp. 167-187. CrossRef

17. GALINIER, Jacques - MOLINIÉ, Antoinette, The Neo-Indians. A Religion for the Third Millenium, Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2013. CrossRef

18. HALBMAYER, Ernst, "Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America. Some Reflections on the Dead, Metamorphosis, and Religious Specialists", The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 24, 2019, pp. 13-31. CrossRef

19. HALLOWELL, A. Irving, "Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View", in: Graham HARVEY (ed.), Readings in Indigenous Religions, London: Continuum, 2002 (1960), pp. 17-49.

20. HANEGRAAFF, Wouter J., New Age Religion and Western Culture. Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Leiden: Brill, 1996. CrossRef

21. HARRISON-BUCK, Eleanor - HENDON, Julia A. (eds.), Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology, Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 2018. CrossRef

22. HARVEY, Graham, Animism. Respecting the Living World, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

23. INGOLD, Tim, "Being Alive to a World without Objects", in: Graham HARVEY (ed.), The Handbook of Contemporary Animism, London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 213-225.

24. INGOLD, Tim, "On Human Correspondence", Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23, 2016, pp. 9-27. CrossRef

25. INGOLD, Tim, "Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought, Ethnos 71, 2006, pp. 9-20. CrossRef

26. KAPUSTA, Jan, "Indigenizace globálního spirituálního diskursu. O jednom setkání západní a mayské spirituality", Český lid 110, 2023, pp. 303-321. CrossRef

27. KAPUSTA, Jan, "Saint on the Run. The Dynamics of Homemaking and Creating a Sacred Place", Traditiones 47, 2018, pp. 27-49. CrossRef

28. KAPUSTA, Jan, "The Pilgrimage to the Living Mountains. Representationalism, Animism, and the Maya", Religion, State & Society 50, 2022, pp. 182-198. CrossRef

29. KAPUSTA, Jan, Oběť pro život. Tradice a spiritualita dnešních Mayů, Praha: Argo, 2020.

30. KAPUSTA, Jan - KOSTIĆOVÁ, Zuzana Marie, "From the Trees to the Wood. Alternative Spirituality as an Emergent ʻOfficial Religionʼ?", Journal of Religion in Europe 13, 2020, pp. 187-213. CrossRef

31. KOSTIĆOVÁ, Zuzana Marie, Náboženství Mayů, Praha: Karolinum, 2018.

32. KOVÁČ, Milan, "The Worshipers of Stones. Lacandon Sacred Stone Landscape", Ethnologia Actualis 20, 2020, pp. 1-27. CrossRef

33. LA FARGE, Oliver - BYERS, Douglas, The Year Bearer's People, New Orleans: The Tulane University of Louisiana, 1931.

34. MACKENZIE, C. James, "Judas Off the Noose. Sacerdotes Mayas, Costumbristas, and the Politics of Purity in the Tradition of San Simón in Guatemala", Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 14, 2009, pp. 355-381. CrossRef

35. MACKENZIE, C. James, "Politics and Pluralism in the Círculo Sagrado. The Scope and Limits of Pan-Indigenous Spirituality in Guatemala and Beyond", International Journal of Latin American Religions 1, 2017, pp. 353-375. CrossRef

36. MACKENZIE, C. James, Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds. Religion and Modernity in a Transnational K'iche' Community, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2016. CrossRef

37. MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA, Isidro, "Los Mayos y las fiestas de primavera", Zenizate 1, 2001, pp. 31-53.

38. MOLESKY-POZ, Jean, Contemporary Maya Spirituality. The Ancient Ways are Not Lost, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.

39. PIEDRASANTA HERRERA, Ruth, Los Chuj. Unidad y rupturas en su espacio, Ciudad de Guatemala: ARMAR, 2009.

40. PITARCH RAMÓN, Pedro, "The Two Maya Bodies. An Elementary Model of Tzeltal Personhood", Ethnos 77, 2012, pp. 93-114. CrossRef

41. PUGH, Timothy W., "Maya Sacred Landscapes at Contact", in: Leslie G. CECIL - Timothy W. PUGH (eds.), Maya Worldviews at Conquest, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2009, pp. 317-334.

42. SAHLINS, Marshall, "On the Ontological Scheme of ʻBeyond Nature and Cultureʼ", Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4, 2014, pp. 281-290. CrossRef

43. STOCKING, George W., "Animism in Theory and Practice. E. B. Tylor's Unpublished ʻNotes on Spiritualismʼ", Man 6, 1971, pp. 88-104. CrossRef

44. STRATHERN, Marilyn, The Gender of the Gift. Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. CrossRef

45. TAUBE, Karl A., "Flower Mountain. Concepts of Life, Beauty, and Paradise among the Classic Maya", Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 45, 2004, pp. 69-98. CrossRef

46. TYLOR, Edward B., Primitive Culture. Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom, London: John Murray, 1903 (1871).

47. VAIL, Gabrielle - LOOPER, Matthew G., "World Renewal Rituals among the Postclassic Yucatec Maya and Contemporary Ch'orti' Maya", Estudios de Cultura Maya 45, 2015, pp. 121-140. CrossRef

48. VIVEIROS DE CASTRO, Eduardo, "Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism", The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4, 1998, pp. 469-488. CrossRef

49. VIVEIROS DE CASTRO, Eduardo, "Exchanging Perspectives. The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies", Common Knowledge 10, 2004, pp. 463-484. CrossRef

50. VOGT, Evon Z., Tortillas for the Gods. A Symbolic Analysis of Zinacanteco Rituals, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

51. ZAMORA CORONA, Alonso, "Coyote Drums and Jaguar Altars. Ontologies of the Living and the Artificial among the K'iche' Maya", Journal of Material Culture 25, 2020, pp. 324-347. CrossRef

Creative Commons License
Maya Crosses Dressed, Fed, Alive. A Case Study on Maya Animism is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

157 x 230 mm
periodicity: 2 x per year
print price: 160 czk
ISSN: 0536-2520
E-ISSN: 2464-7063

Download