Pharo-ConceptReligionMesoamerican-2007

The Concept of "Religion" in Mesoamerican Languages

Abstract

• The article explores whether Mesoamerican languages contain words corresponding to the European concept of "religion."
• Despite advanced writing systems, pre-Columbian inscriptions lack words for "religion."
• The study analyzes six indigenous lexemes translated as "religion" in colonial dictionaries (16th-18th centuries).
• It argues that these native terms were constructed by Spanish missionaries to promote evangelization.
• The article suggests "religion" can be an etic notion for analyzing Mesoamerican cultures and proposes a linguistic/philological examination to define "religion" as a cultural analytical category based on Max Weber's "ideal type."

Introduction

The Complicated Concept of "Religion"

• The article aims to determine if indigenous Mesoamericans acknowledged a dichotomy between "religion" and the "non-religious."
• It questions whether they had corresponding terms in their languages and cognitive systems.
• It also explores if the concept of "religion" can be applied to analyze Mesoamerican cultures even without detectable evidence in their languages.
• The term "religion" originates from the Latin religio, possibly from religare ("to bind fast") or relegere ("to re-read").
• Defining "religion" is challenging, with scholars disagreeing on its significance, resulting in no undisputed definition.
• Gavin Flood emphasizes that the definition of "religion" is crucial as it influences research strategies and practices within religious studies.
• The article advocates for its value as a cultural analytical category within Max Weber's "ideal type."
• It posits that language suggests a strategy for defining "religion"; Mesoamerican languages indicate that the belief that phenomena are totally different from human experiences constitutes the fundamental aspect of "religion."
• The concept of "religion" differentiates human character from the preternatural (non-human or non-natural).
• Non-human elements belong to the "religious" domain, influencing world views and experiences in myths, rituals, social organization, institutions, economy, judicial systems, and concepts of time.

Mesoamerica

• "Mesoamerica" is a defined cultural-geographical region including north-western, central, and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western parts of Honduras and El Salvador.
• From c. 1000 BC-1521 AD, peoples like the Maya, Aztecs, Olmecs, Zapotecs, Toltecs, Tlapanecs, Teotihuacanos, Tarascas, Otomís, Mixtecs, etc., lived in urban "high cultures" in this area.
• Archaeologists divide Mesoamerican history before the Spanish conquest (1521 AD) into three periods: Pre-Classic (c. 2000 BC-c. 200 AD), Classic (c. 200-c. 910 AD), and Post-Classic (c. 910-1521 AD).
• The Colonial period dates from the Spanish conquest to Mexico's independence in 1821.
• Despite distinct traditions and languages, Mesoamerican ethnic groups shared cultural and religious traits through contact (migrations, trade, war).
• Shared elements included a 260-day and a 365-day calendar which together form a 52-year cycle called the Calendar Round, a vigesimal counting system, codices, writing principles, a ball game, monumental architecture, religious symbols, rituals, and myths.
• These "Mesoamerican" elements were not homogeneous, and a general identity was doubtful.
• Scholars analyze "Mesoamerica" as one religious and cultural system, designating it as an "ideal type."
• Mesoamerican religion is comparable to "world religions."
• Millions of indigenous descendants exist today, with Mesoamerican traditions influenced by Catholic Christianity (introduced by Spanish missionaries), African religions, and Protestant Christianity.
• Rather than syncretism, modern indigenous religious conceptions are better categorized as "Nahuasation," "Mayasation," etc., of Christianity.
• Languages, histories, religions, and traditions are essential to the Mesoamerican people's threatened identity and their fight for rights.

Written Primary Sources of the Pre-Columbian Period

• The article questions if Mesoamerican writing systems contained a notion synonymous with the European concept of "religion" and if they outlined a particular ideological system as "religious."

• After the 16th-century invasion, the Spanish prohibited Mesoamerican phonetic writing systems, destroying many sources with "heathen" conceptions.

• Indigenous aristocracy members were taught to read and write in the Latin alphabet in monastery schools.

• Despite destruction and climate damage, written information remains on ceramics, architecture, stelae, altars, caves, portable objects, and codices.

• These texts describe history, myths, cosmology, rituals, trade, war, diplomacy, politics, and ruling dynasties.

• The article examines if Mesoamerican writing systems could express abstract concepts like "religion."

• Logosyllabic writing systems emerged during the late Pre-Classic period.

• The Classic Maya had a nearly fully deciphered corpus of texts in a logosyllabic system which was decoded in the 1980s and 1990s.

• Accounts of Spanish clerics and archaeological remains were primary sources until recently, when a primary source to Mayan and Mesoamerican religion, culture, and history was discovered (similar to those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and China).

• Linguist Alfonso Lacadena argues the pre-Columbian Aztecs used a logosyllabic writing system, though more research is needed.

• There are three designations for phonetic (glottographic) writing systems:

  1. "Alphabetic": signs represent single letters or sounds (e.g., English, Spanish, Sanskrit).
  2. "Syllabic": signs represent syllables or sound combinations (e.g., Cherokee, Linear B).
  3. "Logosyllabic": also called "hieroglyphic," incorporates word signs (logograms) and phonetic syllables/vowel signs, with logograms representing concrete or abstract concepts.

• Logograms can be lexicographic (referring to objects, concepts, actions) or grammatical (grammatical forms).

• Phonetic signs incorporate vowels or syllables, usually consonant-vowel (CV) or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) structures.

• Logosyllabic writing allows for expressing abstract ideas.

• Spanish missionary Toribio de Benavente Motolinia noted Aztecs confessing sins in writing after the conquest.

• Despite expressing abstract representations like "sin," extant Mesoamerican inscriptions lack words translated as "religion."

Words for "Religion" Written Down in Dictionaries of Spanish Ethnographer-Missionaries

• Attention is directed to descriptions by Spaniards in the 16th and 18th centuries to find preserved words for "religion" in indigenous languages.
• After the Spanish invasion in the early 16th century, Spanish monastic orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians) began evangelizing indigenous people under Carlos I of Spain.
• The first missionaries were twelve Spanish Franciscans who arrived the following year.
• The Dominicans and the Augustinians followed the Franciscans
• Spanish monks systematically described the languages, history, and cultures of Mesoamericans to ease conversion from "pagan" conceptions to Christianity.
• Missionaries wrote dictionaries, grammars, and ethnographic monographs of modes of living and traditions.
• Many contemporary accounts of indigenous culture, language, and history were written by these Spanish evangelicals, called "ethnographer-missionaries."
• Numerous records were made of Aztec or Nahua culture in the Valley of Mexico because the Aztecs dominated much of Mesoamerica before the Spanish.
• Nahuatl, the Aztec language, was a lingua franca like Latin and Greek in the Roman Empire.
• Spanish officials promoted Nahuatl as an administrative language in the early colonial period.
• Thus, no dictionaries were written exclusively by the natives.
• Ethnographer-missionaries applied native informants and assistants to gather information.
• The dictionaries the evangelical Spaniards wrote between the 16th and 18th centuries must be examined.
• The ethnographer-missionaries produced quite many dictionaries and grammars.
• Over a hundred books in or about Mesoamerican languages were published only during the fifty years after the Spanish conquest.
• The Spanish-Indigenous section of the dictionaries must be explored in search of a translated word for "religion."
• The term religion in Spanish is equivalent to English "religion."
• A cardinal problem of this philological method must be considered.
• The Jesuits worked in the northern part of Mexico where their mission met with tough resistance from the natives in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• In Benito Rinaldini's book, Arte de la lengua tepeguana, he translates "religion" as: Religion, Papali Viajammoe.Religioso, Pali.Religioso, hazerfe, Anean inpalite, in paliteanta
• Since there isn't a Tepeguana-Spanish section we cannot analyze further.
• A possibility is to use modern dictionaries based on data collected by linguists in the 20th and 21st centuries, however, this is complicated since the languages have undergone a change and development where several indigenous words have gone out of use (especially terms describing the deities, ceremonies and faith of the Mesoamericans which were actively counteracted by the Mission and later prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition).
• A linguistic/philological analysis of the indigenous term for "religion" in dictionaries containing both a Spanish-Indigenous and an Indigenous-Spanish section is needed.
• Fortunately, scores of Spanish ethnographer-missionary dictionaries comprise two parts, the Mesoamerican language translated into Spanish and Spanish translated into the Mesoamerican language.
• Examples of indigenous lexemes for "religion" have been found in dictionaries of Mixtec, Zapotee, Nahuatl, Tarasca/Michoacá, and the two Maya languages, Yucatec and Tzotzil.

The Terms for "Religion" in Mixtec

• The Mixtecs, known as Nuu Savi ("people of the rain"), are known for their illustrated manuscripts (post-Classic period).
• They live in Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero, Mexico City, Baja California Norte, and the west coast/rural south of the US.
• Approximately half a million people speak Mixtec today.
• Fray Francisco de Alvarado's (1558-1603) dictionary, Vocabulario en Lengua Mixteca (1593), translates "religion" as:
  • Religion, sacaa sanuhu, sayyo sanuhu, sasica, huaha.
  • Religioso, dzutu sasica huaha, sasi caij, sasica, sasinuhu.
  • Religioso Sacerdote, dzutu sandidzo nuhu.
• Alfonso Caso reconstructed a word list from Fray Antonio de los Reyes' Arte en lengua Mixtee (1603).
• Nuhu is translated by Reyes as "God" ("dios") and "earth" ("tierra").
• The prefix sa- conveys a "quality" ("cualidad").
• Sacca means "where is it" ("dónde está").
• Huahu is rendered as "good" ("bueno").
• Religion or sacaa sanuhu, sayyo sanuhu, sasica, huaha can therefore be translated into English as "where there is a divine quality, a good(?) divine quality".
• The Mixtecs associated "religion" with deities/divinity and goodness, according to Alvarado.

The Concept of "Religion" in Zapotec

• The Zapotecs (Benizaa/Vinizaa - "cloud people") live in Oaxaca, Mexico.
• More than 500,000 people speak a Zapotec language.
• Fray Juan de Córdova's Spanish-Zapotec dictionary Vocabulario en lengua zapoteco was published in 1578.
• Cordova's relationship to Zapotee is ambivalent, participating in Inquisition processes but complaining about Spanish civilian's abuse of the Zapotees.
• The dictionary by Córdova contains 30,000 entries from various Zapotec dialects.(Whitecotton and Whitecotton 1993)
• Dominicans taught Christian dogma in Zapotec, not Spanish.
• Cordova translates "religion" as:
  • Religion por culto. Xiquela chijnapit?o. Xiquela huey?nap?t?o.
  • Religion o orden, Vide orden. Que la copapit?o.
  • Religioso o frayle. Copapit?o.
• There are no Zapotec-Spanish dictionaries from the Colonial period.
• Joseph W. Whitecotton and Judith Bradely Whitecotton have written a Zapotec-Spanish dictionary reconstructed from Colonial Spanish-Zapotec word-books.
• Zapotec incorporates several dialects with assorted grammatical forms and spellings, and it was never - like Spanish in the 16th century - standardized as a written language.
• The Whitecottons rendering has Xiguela as the central lexeme for religion:
  • Xiguelachi?ayuutoo, culto divino.
  • Xiquelahueyanabitoo, religi?n, el culto.
• Xiguela can be translated as "being" or "essence."
• Xiguelachijna is rendered as "power" and "authority" or "life," "way of life."
• Bitoo means "God" ("dios").
• Copa is rendered as "protector" or "defender."
• Hueyana can be translated as "religious specialist" ("ministrador ",/ ministro").
• Xiquela chijna (Xiguelachinayuutoo)pit?o. Xiquela huey?na p?t?o (Xiquela hueyanabitoo), can accordingly tentatively be paraphrased as "Gods authority or Gods being, Gods religious specialist" and Que la copa pit?o, "protector of God."

"Teyotica Nemiliztli" as a N?huatl Designation for "Religion"

• The Aztecs (Mexica) were a Nahuatl-speaking tribe founded in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).
• From 1345 to 1521 AD, they form an Empire in central and northern Mexico.
• Millions of descendants of the Nahua, who formed the Aztec Empire, are living in Mexico, with more than 1.5 million people speaking N?huatl today.
• The earliest word-book in Classic N?huatl is Fray Alonso de Molina's Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana Y Mexicana Y Mexicana y Castellana (1555-1571).
• Molina, who had grown up in Mexico, was one of two or three Spaniards with complete mastery of N?huatl.
• Molina translates the Spanish term "religion" with the N?huatl word Teoyotica Nemiliztli (Molina 1977: 103).
• Teoyotica can be rendered as "spiritual."
• Teyotl designates something "spiritual" or "divine."
• The root of the adjective is teotl or teutl, which Molina renders as "God."
• Simeon's Diccionario de la lengua N?huatl o mexicana (1885) renders Nemiliztli as "vida, conducta, manera de vivir" and Teoyotica Nemiliztli as "religion, vida religiosa."
• Nemi-liz can also signify "continence, chastity, or a clean life".
• Teoyotica Nemiliztli thus denotes that an individual is leading a religious, i.e. a spiritual or divine pure life.

"Dioseo Cez Hangua" as a Tarasca/ Michoac?n word for "religion"

• The Tarascan realm was, after the Aztec, the greatest empire in Mesoamerica in 1522.
• From 1450 to 1521 AD, it was in continuous military conflict with the Aztecs.
• Tarascan comprised a large part of the west central highlands of Mexico and the modern state of Michoac?n.
• The Spaniards called the dominating ethnic group, who spoke the language Michoac?n or Tarasca, "Tarascan. "
• This people call themselves Tarascan or Pur?pecha ("commoners") today.
• Modern Tarasca is spoken in large parts of the state of Michoac?n, particularly in Quer?taro and Guanajuato.
• The Tarascans had all the symptoms of an urban culture, and their capital, Tzintzuntzan, incorporated around 35,000 inhabitants.
• The evangelical mission to this region was first lead by the Franciscans from 1526 and later by the Augustinians from 1537.
• The diocese of Michoac?n was founded in 1536.
• The conquest entailed not only a socio-political, but a cultural revolution as well since members of the dynasty and the high aristocracy of Tarascan married Spaniards within the first decade of the colonial period.
• R.P.Fr. Maturino Gilberti(1498-1585) was a Franciscan priest who worked in Michoac?n.
• He wrote the Diccionario de la Lengua Tarasca o Michoaca in 1559.
• Gilberti rendered "religion" as dioseo cez hangua (Gilberti 1962:463).
• Dios is Spanish for "God", while -eo can be a Tarasca suffix, maybe corresponding to -yo in N?huatl
• Hangua means "life".
• "Divine or spiritual life" is thus the translation of this concept which, according to Gilberti, is synonymous with the term "religion. "

"Okol K'u/Ocul Kuu" and "Ch'uul Xanbal, Utzil Xanbal" as Terms for "Religion" in Maya Languages

• The Maya were not organised in a large empire in the pre-Columbian period.
• The Classic and post-Classic Maya cultures were principally organised in cities and city states.
• The term "Maya" comprises around seven million people who speak a Mayan language today.
• The assorted contemporary Mayan peoples are ethnic and linguistic minorities in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucat?n and Quintana Roo, in Belize, in Guatemala, and in the western parts of El Salvador and Honduras.
• The language situation of the Maya is thus more complicated than in other Mesoamerican cultures.
• I have found two lexemes which have been translated as "religion" by Spanish ethnographer-missionaries.
• Those two terms, which have no relation, derive from the Maya languages Yucatec and Tzotzil.

"Okol K'u/Ocul Kuu" in Yucatec

• Yucatec is spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, in northern Belize and in parts of Guatemala by 750,000 people.
• The earliest recognised dictionary of the Maya languages is by Don Juan Pío Pérez, attributed to Fray Antonio de Ciudad Reals(1551-1617), Calepino de Motul. Diccionario Maya-Español.
• The author of this six volume word-book is not much known.
• Okol K'u or Ocul kuu is in the Calepino de Motul. Diccionario Maya-Español noted as the lexeme for "religion" in Yucatec.
• Ocol kuu is rendered as "chastity and abstinence" and Okol k'u as "to demonstrate grief " or "to wear cloths of grief ".
• Thus (?h) Okol k'u signifies "chaste, pure, abstinent, penitent, hermit", while Okol K'utah is translated as "ayunar o abstenerse de coito aunque sea de su mujer," i.e. one who fasts and abstains from sexual activities even if it is with his own wife
• In the Diccionario de San Francisco, from the manuscript of Don Juan Pío Pérez (1798-1859), "religion" is not an entry in the Spanish-Maya section.
• But Ocol ku is rendered as "luto, tener luto, enlutarse" and Ocol ku; num ocolku, num coy cab, "castidad, abstinencia", i.e. to demonstrate sorrow or dress in clothes of grief, chastity, and abstinence
• "Religion" is hence associated with morality, discipline, to act with grief, abstinence, and chastity in the Yucatec culture.
• Abstinence and chastity are not only Christian values. Segments of the aristocracy of the K'iche' Maya of Highland Guatemala are for instance outlined in the Popol Wuj as abstinent, fasting and chaste towards their deities.
• Again, we have an example of a compound word. Okol, "enter" and K'u, "God".
• In a straight translation, Okol K'u can mean "to enter God. " This can refer to phenomena of mysticism where the believer becomes a part of the divine.

"Ch'uulXanbal, UtzilXanbal" in Tzotzil

• The Tzotzil Maya live in the highland of Chiapas, Mexico.

• There are c. 230,000 Tzotzil Maya, whose language is their foremost hallmark of common identity.

• The Tzotzil dictionary, The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantán from the city of Zinacantán, Chiapas, Mexico is an edited edition by the North-American linguist Robert M. Laughlin of a manuscript collected by an anonymous Dominican monk, probably at the end of the 16th century.

• The original disappeared after the Mexican revolution, but a copy of 351 pages comprising 11,000 Spanish-Tzotzil words was copied by the Bishop of Chiapas Franscisco Orozco y Jiménez in 1906.

• There are assorted examples of Tzotzil words paraphrased as "religion":

  • Religi?n, ch'uulxanbal, utzilxanbal.
  • Utz Xanbal, "religion, virtue. "

• Ch'uul is Tzotzil for "sacred, spiritual" ;

• Xan means "to go," "to travel";

• Utz can be rendered as "correct, good, sacred, faithful."

• The lexemes marked in the cultural categories constructed by Laughlin in the Thesaurus of the English-Tzotzil dictionary are:

  • Religion, utzil xanbal (good life or walk), ch'uul xanbal (holy life or walk).

• (Ch'uul) Utz Xanbal can accordingly be said to convey a (sacred) righteous, correct way of life, metaphors for "belief, practices, and sacraments"

The Strategic Constructions of the Ethnographer-Missionaries

• A rather large number of Mesoamerican words for "religion" have a quite general meaning in the Spanish dictionaries.
• "Religion" is associated with "deities or something divine," "something which implies good things" (Mixtec); "God's authority or Gods being, Gods religious specialist" and "protector of God" (Zapotec); a "divine or spiritual life" (Tarasca/Michoacá); "to lead a religious, i.e. a spiritual or divine pure life" (Nahuatl); "a (sacred) upright, correct way of life" (Tzotzil).
• "Religion" is also connected with "morality, discipline, to act with grief, abstinence and chastity" among the Yucatec, values highly regarded in Mesoamerica before the Spanish invasion.
• These translations do not convey distinctive features associated either with Mesoamerican ideology nor with Catholic Christianity.
• Elements separating Mesoamerican beliefs and practices from Catholic Christianity cannot be recognized.
• Linguists are today working in America recording indigenous languages in dictionaries and grammars.
• Frequently, no other than the Spanish loanword "religion" is recorded in a phonetic spelling, like in Itzaj Maya (Mexico).
• The Ixil of San Gaspar Chajul, a Maya language of Guatemala, translates "religion" as:
  • Religion uk'e'ybal (sustantivo derivado)
  • Ukeybal (sustantivo derivado), doctrina; religion; catequismo.
• Huaxalinguillo is a modern dialect of N?huatl spoken by about 400 people in the village of Huautla in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico.
  • Religion is rendered in this language as: tioyotlin in this language where Tiotl, teotl, "god"
• Otomi (Central Mexico), where the linguistic material was collected in the 1980s, translates "religion" as nzokw? (ar).
• These are notable examples since secularised modern linguists cannot be suspected of creating a concept of religion which was not already present in the indigenous language.
• The concepts may have been constructed under the influence of former ethnographer-missionaries, as translations of "doctrine" ("doctrina"), "catechism" ("catequismo"), "church" ("iglesia") and "God" ("dios") indicate.
• The indigenous people can also have created these words themselves during and after the colonial period.
• The existence of Mesoamerican notions of "religion" cannot be determined from contemporary dictionaries.
• A direct rendition of Okol K'u in Yucatec (translated by the ethnographer-missionaries as "morality, discipline, to act with grief, abstinence, and chastity") connotes "to enter into God. " (an indigenous concept of religion).
• The dictionaries distinguished between "true" and "false" religion (between Catholic Christianity and indigenous religion).
• The dictionaries were produced mainly for Christian evangelical mission among the indigenous people.
• By using these native terms, pointing out acceptable or correct belief and practice, the Spanish missionaries wanted to convert the Mesoamericans to Catholic Christianity.
• In his Chiapaneca lexicon, "religion" {Nacumbu?) is distinguished from "true religion" {Nacumbu? ndmbue), and "Catholic religion" {Nacumbu?cat?lica). Does this convey that the Chiapaneca had an original (pre-Columbian) concept of religion called Nacumbu?? This leads to the question of the original meaning of the words which the ethnographer-missionaries collected from Mesoamerican languages, before they were translated into "religion" .
• The scholar is totally dependent on Catholic Christian interpretations in analyzing a compound word for "religion" of indigenous languages.Locating the semantics of these terms as they were understood by the people who spoke the languages demands an investigation of the words within contexts of accounts by the natives.But unfortunately, not many texts where the local terms for "religion" are rendered are left in Mesoamerica.
• In his N?huatl dictionary, Molina characterises "religion" as "Religion falsa," 'yztlaca teoyotica nemiliztli.
• The Tzotzil dictionary has "Religi?n falsa, Pak'tayej ch'uul xanbal" and identifies "the false religion" with non-Christian belief and practice.It is classified as "Role-playing, imitation, secrecy, decei.
• The sources are best for N?huatl, but again only within a Catholic Christian framework.
• The word originates from teoyotl, which is the abstract noun teotl and the instrumental suffix ~(ti) ca
• The word originates from teoyotl, which is the abstract noun teotl (divinity or sacred object) and the instrumental suffix ~(ti) ca
• This notion was applied by the ethnographer-missionaries to describe a distinct spiritual sphere different from the human world (Burkhart 1989:214).
• Teoyotica was used by Spanish clerics in other frames of reference as well.
• The sacred {teoyotica) is hence separated by its purity in the hymns (Burkhart 1989:122; 125-26,128).
• The concept of "religion," teyotica nemiz, of the Nahua is consequently describing a holy or sacred practice or way of living.
• Teoyotica Nemiliztli is, however, not an entry in the N?huatl-Spanish section of the dictionary of Molina.
• This is an indication that it was a constructed compound word so that the Spanish monks could set the "true" "religion," Catholic Christianity, apart from the "false" indigenous "religion" in order to serve their evangelical objectives.
• Some Spanish words were used where the indigenous language did not contain the appropriate equivalent notion, especially proper connotation of a term.
• Their ambition was hence a translation to promote the Christian gospel and not a philological or linguistic scientific investigation of the languages of Mesoamerica.
• There are examples of missionary efforts where the ethnographer missionaries acknowledged that language was not a sufficient strategy
• The ethnographer-missionaries preferred simple words instead of poetical metaphors and a complicated rhetoric which could conceal a non Christian content. It was their pedagogical aspiration to write in an unsophisticated and a straightforward manner.

The Accounts and Interpretations of Mesoamerican Cultures by the Ethnographer-Missionaries (1500-1700)

• The ethnographic-missionaries defined Mesoamerican "religion," not only through dictionaries, but in their accounts of history and culture as well.

• They composed a large material outlining the culture, geography, economy, belief, ritual practice, institutions and history of the Mesoamericans

• The ethnographer-missionaries were more involved in documenting "religious" ritual practices than mythology in order to expose "heathen" customs.

• Nearly all the literature of the ethnographer-missionaries is written in Spanish instead of in the native languages.

• The Dominican Fray Diego Duran (1537-1588) is an essential source to the history, rituals and calendars of the Aztecs but does not utilize Teoyotica Nemiliztli or any other N?huatl word for "religion" in his books.

• The most distinguished book written by an ethnographer-missionary in America is Fray Bernandino de Sahagún's encyclopaedical The Florentine Codex, copied in Mexico City c. 1578-1580.

• His own work had to outline, within a historical and ethnographical perspective, the ancient traditions in N?huatl, in order to reveal potentially dangerous (i.e. "demonic" or "diabolical") customs.

• Sahagún commented that Aztecs had to be indoctrinated in Christian service / catechisms/ confessions, in their own language, in order for missionaries to communicate the gospel

• The Florentine Codex is an extraordinary book, not only because the data were collected and composed shortly after the European invasion.

• Sahagún collaborated with indigenous assistants and applied standardised questionnaires during interviews with native informants.

• Sahagún wrote both in the indigenous language, N?huatl, and in Spanish.

• His method was before his time.Sahagún is therefore, perhaps not without merit, called "the father of modern ethnography"

• Sahagún assistants comprised a small group of trilingual (N?huatl, Spanish and Latin) sons of the ancient indigenous aristocracy educated at the Colegio de Santa Cruz founded in 1536 in Tlatelolco, not far from Mexico City.

• Sahagún and his assistants made interviews with anonymous survivors of the Aztec realm of Tepepolco (Hidalgo), Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan about their history and culture. This indicates that the Nahua had indeed a strong influence upon what was recorded by Sahagún.

• The Florentine Codex comprises twelve books with a prologue to each book.Every book treats a specific subject: the gods; the ceremonies; the origin of the gods; the soothsayers; the omens; rhetoric and moral philosophy; the sun, moon, and the binding of the years; the kings and the lords; the merchants; the people; earthly things and the conquest of Mexico.In his organisation of The Florentine Codex, Sahagún does not emphasise the Spanish (or an indigenous word) for "religion" in his narration of the beliefs, institutions and ritual system of the Nahua.

• Sahagún, whose knowledge of N?huatl was excellent, hence does not employ "religion" or Teoyotica Nemiliztli as a particular analytical category to delineate and explain the cultural system of the Aztecs.

• "Religious" themes are, however, included in the books where especially deities, calendars and the ritual practices are meticulously well treated.

• The ethnographer-missionaries made accounts about deities, mythology, rituals and symbols.

• The ethnographer-missionaries distinguish "religion," i.e. the Spanish word "religi?n," as an individual category primarily for a condemnation of native mythology, rituals, deities and institutions (but also as a denomination of Catholic Christianity).

• The strategy and objective of the Spanish mission were to substitute the native "diabolic faith" with Christianity.

• There are, however, examples where anonymous natives and missionaries together made narratives of the pre-Columbian deities, faith, rituals, cosmology and mythology founded upon Mesoamerican books (codices), shortly after the conquest.

• These books describe lost manuscripts surrendered to the missionaries by the Mesoamericans.

The Ideal Type of "Religion" as a Cultural Analytical Concept

• The concept "religion" has two fundamental perspectives: an outsider, or "etic," and an insider, or "emic," one.

• This model can be employed for the assorted perceptions of the concept of "religion" in Mesoamerica:

  1. The understanding of the concept of "religion" by the believers of the indigenous culture, as long as they had or have such a notion.
  2. The definition and "missionised" appliance of the concept of "religion" by the Spanish ethnographer-missionaries.
  3. The cultural analytical definition and utilization of the concept of "religion" by the historian of religions in the study of the cultures and history of Mesoamerica.

• The first item is an insider's while items two and three are outsider's perspectives on the notion of "religion" in Mesoamerica.

• Two conceptions of "religion": the emic and the etic.

  • Emic : from the view of an insider of a particular group.
  • Etic : from the view of an outsider.

• There is not an emic Mesoamerican concept of religion is found in written accounts, either in European translations of Mesoamerican languages.

• Examples extracted from Alberta Elders' Cree Dictionary say western emic "religious" terms don't reflect Cree tribe vocabulary and motions

• "Religion" is a European cultural category within a tradition where a secularised conception has been developed of "religion" as a distinct cultural phenomenon.

• To apply notions like "religion," "culture," "history," "literature," "politics," "art" etc. implies making reflections and commentaries about one's own way of life and ideology. These terms are incorporated into a meta-language.

• A meta-language is a language which describes another language.

• The history of religions, like other scientific disciplines, contains a meta-language or a terminology which aims to produce a general interpretation and analysis of religious systems. "Religion" is a comparative or trans-cultural analytic concept where indigenous theological terms are translated into and explained by meta-language of the history of religions.

• The scholar faces a problem of translation in the study of religious contexts, and must use strategic conception to create valuable etic