Mesoamerican Rituals and the Solar Cycle

Elena Mazzetto and Élodie Dupey García : Introduction - Rites and Myths in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica - Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos: Tezcatlipoca and the Maya Gods of Abundance: The Feast of Toxcatl and the Question of Homologies in Mesoamerican Religion - Guilhem Olivier: The Re-enactment of the Birth of the Gods in Mexica Veintena Celebrations: Some Observations - Élodie Dupey García: Quetzalcoatl in Nahua Myths and Rituals: Discreet or Omnipresent Protagonist? - Johannes Neurath: Beyond Nature and Mythology: Relational Complexity in Contemporary and Ancient Mesoamerican Rituals - Ritual Actors and Activities in the Veintena Festivals - Gabrielle Vail: Haab' Festivals among the Postclassic Maya: Evidence from Ethnohistoric Sources and the Madrid Codex - Elena Mazzetto: Maize and Flaying in Aztec Rituals - John F.Schwaller: The Toxcatl and Panquetzaliztli Figurines - Sylvie Peperstraete: Myths, Rites, and the Agricultural Cycle: The Huixtotin Priests and the Veintenas - Pre-Columbian Categories, Colonial Interpretations - Mirjana Danilovic: Dance and Sacrificial Rituals in the Veintena Ceremonies - Andrea B.Rodríguez Figueroa, Mario Cortina Borja, and Leopoldo Valiñas Coalla: Ritual and Religious Practices Described in the Florentine Codex: Ritual Unit as a Structural Concept - Sergio Botta: An Augustinian Political Theology in New Spain: Towards a Franciscan Interpretation of the Veintenas - Rossend Rovira-Morgado: Bright Plumages, Teary Children, and Blessed Rains: Possible Reminiscences of Atlcahualo during the Indigenous Ceremonial Pomp of Saint Francis in Post-Conquest Mexico City - Danièle Dehouve: Epilogue - Notes on Contributors - Index.

Élodie Dupey García is a tenured Professor and Researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She holds a PhD in History of Religions from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (France). She has received a fellowship in Pre-Columbian Studies from Dumbarton Oaks and a Scholar Grant from the Getty Research Institute. She is the editor of Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl and the volume Painting the Skin. Pigments on Bodies and Codices in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (2018).

"This volume is an innovative analysis of the Mesoamerican veintena festivals and the gods to whom they were dedicated. Each chapter is authoritative, very well written, and easy to follow. Readers will appreciate the multi-disciplinary focus that also draws on studies of colonial and contemporary indigenous beliefs and performances to demonstrate a remarkable continuity with the Pre-Columbian past. The volume is provocative and will surely stimulate new debate on the relationship of the fixed and moveable feasts of ancient Mesoamerica calendars that is long past due." -John M.D. Pohl, Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History, UCLA