Early Evangelical Drama Earliest baptisms, beginning of 16th century  from Teatro Mexicano: historia y dramaturgia, ed. Armando Partida, Consego Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993, p. 13 Colonial Religious Music  Singers and musicians with drums and rattles.  from Sagahún, Florentine Codex  Evidences of Resistance/Survial of Pre-Columbian Practices Dancers at a celebration of the foundation of the  community of Tlalpan in Mexico City August 1996 (Photo by Cathlyn Harris) Between God and Man:  Sor Juana and  The Divine Narcissus     Useful Bibliography Links Colonial Influences Archive compiled by Cathlyn A. Harris

Colonial Influences on Mexica Culture     There seems to be little doubt that the "conquest" of the Mexica relied nearly as heavily on theater as it did on military might to accomplish its aims.  Both sides, the Spanish and the indigenous, relied heavily on highly staged militaristic and political encounters with the O/other to prove their strength, from Moctezuma's elaborate ritualistic greetings of the Spaniards, complete with showers of flowers and gifts (Broken Spears, 62), to Cortés' equally theatrical shows of military might and religious superiority (such as slaying Moctezuma before his people).  Religion, arriving along with the military, was from the first imbricated in both the violence and the spectacularity of the military campaign.  If gold and gain served as the justification for the military violence, then so did the salvation of the "heathen" justify the religious project, which could be viewed as no less forgiving in its tactics.  Like the military conquest of Mexico, which drew strength from pre-existing factions, tensions, and political structures, so too, did the spiritual conquest of Mexico find initial roots in prior forms of religious worship and custom.  Early religious leaders integrated indigenous music, costuming, and performance norms into early theatrical works aimed at converting large numbers of "Indians."  This superimposed structure, while possibly resourceful on the part of early friars faced with the monumental task of converting a whole continent, merely heightened the parallels between the Catholic faith and  sacrifice-driven pre-Columbian beliefs.  What began as an imposition over (and above) indigenous beliefs, while aimed at their eradication, eventually collapsed into them, creating a new religion, and a new culture, that was neither indigenous nor European, and neither wholly pre-Columbian nor Catholic, but rather a continually shifting mixture of both. This website explores some of the "tools" used by religious leaders throughout the first few hundred years of colonialism in Mexico, and also explores ways in which the pre-Columbian resists and invades or bleeds into Christianity. I have also, just becuase I had them on hand, included pictures of Teotihuacan, to demonstrate the vast performance space dominated by the religious aspects of pre-Columbian life. Early Evangelical Drama Colonial Religious Music Evidences of Resistance/Survial of Pre-Columbian Practices Between God and Man:  Sor Juana and The Divine Narcissus Useful Bibliography Links  Top

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