In communities in and around Cobán, Guatemala, a small but steadily growing number of members of the Q’eqchi’ Maya Roman Catholic parish of San Felipe began self-identifying as members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Their communities dramatically split as mainstream and charismatic Catholic parishioners who had been co-congregants came to view each other as religiously distinct and problematic “others.” In Guarded by Two Jaguars, Eric Hoenes del Pinal tells the story of this dramatic split and in so doing addresses the role that language and gesture have played in the construction of religious identity. Drawing on a range of methods from linguistic and cultural anthropology, the author examines how the introduction of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in the parish produced a series of debates between parishioners that illustrate the fundamentally polyvocal nature of Catholic Christianity. This work examines how intergroup differences are produced through dialogue, contestation, and critique. It shows how people’s religious affiliations are articulated not in isolation but through interaction with each other. Although members of these two congregations are otherwise socially similar, their distinct interpretations of how to be a “good Catholic” led them to adopt significantly different norms of verbal and nonverbal communication. These differences became the idiom through which the two groups contested the meaning of being Catholic and Indigenous in contemporary Guatemala, addressing larger questions about social and religious change.

Osamu Tanaka is a young Japanese Salary man who traveling to Mexico City to a business meeting, but before making the trip has a little accident that causes him to remember his past life in 1613 when he was a samurai who was part of the General Hasekura men who traveled on the ship San Juan Bautista to New Spain landed in the present port of Acapulco. In his journey he meets his Senpai, Yokho Katsura, who visit various tourist destinations of Mexico like Acapulco, Malinalco, Chalma, Teotihuacan, etc. But in his dreams Osamu will realize that this same route traveled 400 years ago, so his trip will be both past and present of Mexico, and remember to have met a beautiful Azteca woman who had to escape along with her village of the Spanish conquerors who sought even Moctezuma's treasure at all costs. So discover an adventure full of action and romance in a tourist and historical journey that will captivate.

Pre-Columbian Andean and Mesoamerican cultures have inspired a special fascination among historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, as well as the general public. As two of the earliest known and studied civilizations, their origin and creation mythologies hold a special interest. The existing and Pre-Columbian cultures from these regions are particularly known for having a strong connection with the natural landscape, and weaving it into their mythologies. A landscape approach to archaeology in these areas is uniquely useful shedding insight into their cultural beliefs, practices, and values. The ways in which these cultures imbued their landscape with symbolic significance influenced the settlement of the population, the construction of monuments, as well as their rituals and practices. This edited volume combines research on Pre-Columbian cultures throughout Mesoamerica and South America, examining their constructed monuments and ritual practices. It explores the foundations of these cultures, through both the creation mythologies of ancient societies as well as the tangible results of those beliefs. It offers insight on specific case studies, combining evidence from the archaeological record with sacred texts and ethnohistoric accounts. The patterns developed throughout this work shed insight on the effect that perceived sacredness can have on the development of culture and society. This comprehensive and much-needed work will be of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists focused on Pre-Columbian studies, as well as those in the fields of cultural or religious studies with a broader geographic focus.

When her brother, Theo, becomes lost in a book, Rosemary and her new friend Peter embark on a life-or-death quest into the Land of Fiction to save Theo with the help of their guide Puck, a faerie shape-shifter.

Hunters of the Ice Age At the dawn of time, a proud people battled for survival, at one with the harsh beauty of the land and its primal rhythms. Broken Promise Among the warring tribes, the Jaguars were the mightiest, and the hunter called Falcon was feared like no other. Once headman of his clan, he had suffered a great loss that turned him against man and Great Spirit. But in a world both deadly and treacherous, a mere woman would teach Falcon that he could not live by brute strength alone. Her people destroyed, her promised husband enslaved, Star found herself at Falcon’s mercy. And even though she was separated from everything she loved, the tall proud Badger woman would not give up hope. With courage and cunning, the beautiful maiden would survive in a rugged new land, win the heart of her captor and make a glorious future from the shell of a… Broken Promise

In Maya theology, everything from humans and crops to gods and the world itself passes through endless cycles of birth, maturation, dissolution, death, and rebirth. Traditional Maya believe that human beings perpetuate this cycle through ritual offerings and ceremonies that have the power to rebirth the world at critical points during the calendar year. The most elaborate ceremonies take place during Semana Santa (Holy Week), the days preceding Easter on the Christian calendar, during which traditionalist Maya replicate many of the most important world-renewing rituals that their ancient ancestors practiced at the end of the calendar year in anticipation of the New Year’s rites. Marshaling a wealth of evidence from Pre-Columbian texts, early colonial Spanish writings, and decades of fieldwork with present-day Maya, The Burden of the Ancients presents a masterfully detailed account of world-renewing ceremonies that spans the Pre-Columbian era through the crisis of the Conquest period and the subsequent colonial occupation all the way to the present. Allen J. Christenson focuses on Santiago Atitlán, a Tz’utujil Maya community in highland Guatemala, and offers the first systematic analysis of how the Maya preserved important elements of their ancient world renewal ceremonies by adopting similar elements of Roman Catholic observances and infusing them with traditional Maya meanings. His extensive description of Holy Week in Santiago Atitlán demonstrates that the community’s contemporary ritual practices and mythic stories bear a remarkable resemblance to similar cultural entities from its Pre-Columbian past.

A study of a major piece of modern Mayan religious art.