Dangerous Speech is the first systematic treatment of blasphemous speech in colonial Mexico. This engaging social history examines the representation of blasphemy as a sin and a crime, and its repression by the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish colonists viewed blasphemy not only as an insult against God but also as a dangerous misrepresentation of the deity, which could call down his wrath in a ruinous assault on the imperial enterprise. Why then, asks Villa-Flores, did Spaniards dare to blaspheme? Having mined the period’s moral literature—philosophical works as well as royal decrees and Inquisition treatises and trial records in Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. archives and research libraries—Villa-Flores deftly interweaves images of daily life in colonial Mexico with vivid descriptions of human interactions to illustrate the complexity of a culture profoundly influenced by the Catholic Church. In entertaining and sometimes horrifying vignettes, the reader comes face to face with individuals who used language to assert or manipulate their identities within that repressive society. Villa-Flores offers an innovative interpretation of the social uses of blasphemous speech by focusing on specific groups—conquistadors, Spanish settlers, Spanish women, and slaves of both genders—as a lens to examine race, class, and gender relations in colonial Mexico. He finds that multiple motivations led people to resort to blasphemy through a gamut of practices ranging from catharsis and gender self-fashioning to religious rejection and active resistance. Dangerous Speech is a valuable resource for students and scholars of colonialism, the social history of language, Mexican history, and the changing relations of gender, class, and ethnicity in colonial Latin America.

Soon after the fall of the Aztec empire in 1521, missionaries began teaching Latin to native youths in Mexico. This initiative was intended to train indigenous students for positions of leadership, but it led some of them to produce significant writings of their own in Latin, and to translate a wide range of literature, including Aesop's fables, into their native language. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.

Disenchanted with biomedicine and dismayed by its cost, increasing numbers of people are seeking alternative therapies such as the healing plants discussed in this book. Plant medicine is a billion-dollar business: health food stores, small yerberias, and even giant grocery store chains carry hundreds of medicinal herbs. By one estimate, up to one-third of the U.S. population uses alternative medicine—generally in addition to conventional therapy and commonly without telling their doctors. The heart of this volume is a complete description of 100 plants commonly used today, often for the same purposes reported by chroniclers of the Aztecs or eighteenth-century European explorers. Information for each plant includes botanical and common plant names, history, contemporary uses, a description of how the plant is prepared and administered, and brief phytochemical data. Discussions of folk efficacy and folk properties—beliefs in how and why the herb heals—help to explain the continued use of each plant into the present day. Are any of these plants dangerous, and do any of them really work? Where did they come from, and where are they available now? How can health-care practitioners gain the confidence of their patients to learn whether they are using alternative medicines for specific illnesses, symptoms, or injuries? Perhaps most intriguing, which of these plants might be waiting to take the place of known antibiotics as pathological organisms become increasingly resistant to modern miracle drugs? Answers to these and other questions will pique the interest of general readers and will be an invaluable resource for health-care providers—especially nurses and other primary-care providers, who often must find an interface between biomedical and more traditional therapies. For all readers, the book opens a window into many ethnic cultures of the region—Mexican American communities, desert Pima, coastal Seri, and others. Here is the fascinating saga of how their healing plants from prehistoric times melded with Old World herbs brought by the Europeans to create the unique pharmacopoeia available today here and in other parts of the world. Plants included: Acacia (Cassie, Acacia) Achillea (Yarrow) Agastache (Giant Hyssop) Agave (Century Plant) Allium (Garlic, Onion) Aloe (Aloe) Ambrosia (Ragweed) Anemopsis (Yerba Mansa) Arctostaphylos (Bearberry, Uva Ursi) Argemone (Prickly Poppy) Aristolochia (Bithwort, Snakeroot) Arracacia (Arracacha) Artemisia (Wormwood, Mugwort, Western Mugwort, Sagebrush) Asclepias (Milkweed) Baccharis (Desert Broom, Seep Willow) Bocconia (Tree Celandine) Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) Bursera (Elephant Tree) Caesalpinia (Mexican Bird-of-Paradise) Cannabis (Marijuana) Capsicum (Chili) Carnegiea (Saguaro) Casimiroa (Zapote) Cassia (Senna) Cereus (Cactus) Chenopodium (Goosefoot, Wormseed) Citrus (Lemon, Lime, Orange) Datura (Jimson Weed) Ephedra (Mormon Tea) Equisetum (Horsetail) Eryngium (Eryngo, Button Snakeroot) Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus) Euphorbia (Spurge) Eysenhardtia (Kidneywood) Gnaphalium (Everlasting, Cudweed) Guaiacum (Lignum Vitae) Guazuma (Guazuma) Gutierrezia (Turpentine Bush) Haematoxylon (Logwood) Haplopappus (Jimmyweed) Heterotheca (Telegraph Plant, Falso Arnica) Hintonia (Copalqu¡n) Ibervillea (Coyote Melon) Jacquinia (Jacquinia) Jatropha (Limberbush) Juniperus (Juniper) Karwinskia (Coffeeberry) Kohleria (Tree Gloxinia) Krameria (Ratany) Lantana (Lantana) Larrea (Creosote Bush, Greasewood) Ligusticum (Lovage) Lippia (Oregano) Lysiloma (Featherbush) Malva (Mallow) Mammillaria (Pincushion Cactus) Mascagnia (Mascagnia) Matricaria (Chamomile) Mentha (Mint) Nicotiana (Tobacco) Ocimum (Basil) Opuntia (Cholla, Prickly Pear) Perezia (Perezia) Persea (Avocado) Phaseolus (Bean) Phoradendron, Stru