Religious Syncretism and its Consequences in Mayan Society Essay

Religious Syncretism and its Consequences in Mayan orderlinessWhen Spaniards first set foot on Mesoamerican shores in the primal sixteenth century, they encountered not the godless mass of natives they believed they found, scarce a mass whose rich eldritch traditions shaped and sustained them for thousands of years. These diverse spiritual practices legitimized intimately every aspect of Mesoamerican daily life, from science and architecture to artistry and politics (Carmack 295), in many of the same ways Catholicism did in Spain. The collision of these cultures in the Great Encounter and the eventing Spanish colonial acres mixed not solely two incompatible peoplesIndian and Spanishbut thousands of variants elites and slaves, peasant farmers and traders, priests and traders, organized and local spiritual usages, all with different degrees of diversity in their respective religious practices. This diversity set the wooden leg for the syncretic religious traditions that e merged in Mayan society and remain a decisive part of that culture today.Syncretic refers to the nature of ideas, deities, and practices that derive from historically different traditions that become re interpret and transformed in situations of a cultural encounter (Carmack 303). The cultural encounter between Mesoamericans and the Catholic Church was a natural result of mutual needs. The Indians needed protection from the cruelties inflicted by Spanish colonists, and the Church in many ways fought for their basic human rights the Church needed nation and support for their missions, and the Indians provided provisions and labor in much the same air as they had been giving tribute to ruling elites for thousands of years (Fash). This arrangement gave missionaries attack not only to the Indians bodiesin the form of sweat and laborbut also their hearts and souls.The introduction of Christianity to native Mesoamericans, however, expressed itself in ways unexpected to the Catholic m issionaries. For example, the concept of Jesus Christboth in colonial Mesoamerica and today in thousands of Indian communitiesbecame one of the several manifestations of the temperateness god (Carmack 304). The Virgin of Guadalupe, today the patron saint of Mexico, was and is embraced by Indians who interpreted her and the myth surrounding her 1531 appearance to Juan Diego in traditional spiritual custom she is depicted as a d... ...storical documents such as Altar Q at Copn and the codexes.Other religious practices that resulted from the blending of ancient Mesoamerican and Catholic cultures in the diversity of colonial life include the social system of churches and cathedrals on or near ancient temple sites the ritual affair of a fermented drink in spiritual practices (pulque and wine) public worship thurify bundle cults and many other little traditions (Carmack 304).Myriad syncretic spiritual forms evolved during the era of colonial Mesoamerica, expressing both public devoti onal practices and private class rituals that many times were veiled from Church scrutiny (Carmack 308). These rituals, born in indigenous culture and adapted to the drastically changed socio-economic and political landscape of colonial life, represent some of the few remaining links to the regions spiritual and historical past.BibliographyCarlsen, Robert. The War for the Heart & Soul of a highland(prenominal) Maya Town. Austin University of Texas Press, 1997.Carmack, Robert, Janine Grasco, and Gary Gossen. The Legacy of Mesoamerica History and Culture of a Native American Civilization. New York Prentice Hall, 1996.