Ritual economy among the Nahua of Northern Veracruz, Mexico

Alan R. Sandstrom

A chapter in Dimensions of Ritual Economy, 2008, pp 93-119 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: Nahua ritual specialists of northern Veracruz, Mexico, portray spirit entities by cutting their images from paper. Paper cutting is an ancient craft in Mesoamerica that traces back to the pre-Hispanic era. The impetus to materialize the spirits in this way is the result of the highly abstract and pantheistic nature of the Nahua religious system. In pantheistic thought, the cosmos itself is the deity and all apparent diversity can be seen as different aspects or manifestations of a seamless sacred unity. The Nahua ritual specialist places the paper figures on elaborate altars where he or she dedicates special offerings to them. The fundamentally economic nature of Nahua ritual exchange is revealed – with the aid of ritual economy – through examination of multiple factors: the symbolic meanings of sacred chanting and altar construction, the role of religion in constituting Nahua ethnic identity in the face of domination by mestizo elites, and the ecological context that renders life precarious for indigenous horticulturalists of this region of Mexico.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.101 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.101 ... 0190-1281(08)00005-X
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.101 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:reanzz:s0190-1281(08)00005-x

DOI: 10.1016/S0190-1281(08)00005-X

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Research in Economic Anthropology from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().