Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico

Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico
Author:
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1986
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780806119748

This volume presents ancient Mexican myths and sacred hymns, lyric poetry, rituals, drama, and various forms of prose, accompanied by informed criticism and comment. The selections come from the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs of Oaxaca, the Tarascans of Michoacan, the Otomís of central Mexico, and others. They have come down to us from inscriptions on stone, the codices, and accounts written, after the coming of Europeans, of oral traditions. It is Miguel León-Portilla’s intention "to bring to contemporary readers an understanding of the marvelous world of symbolism which is the very substance of these early literatures." That he has succeeded is obvious to every reader.

Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico

Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico
Author: Miguel León Portilla
Publisher: Norman : University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1969
Genre: Folk literature, Indian
ISBN:

This volume presents ancient Mexican myths and sacred hymns, lyric poetry, rituals, drama, and various forms of prose, accompanied by informed criticism and comment. The selections come from the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs of Oaxaca, the Tarascans of Michoacan, the Otomis of central Mexico, and others. They have come down to us from inscriptions on stone, the codices, and accounts written, after the coming of Europeans, of oral traditions. It is Miguel Leon-Portilla's intention "to bring to contemporary readers an understanding of the marvelous world of symbolism which is the very substance of these early literatures." That he has succeeded is obvious to every reader.

In the Language of Kings

In the Language of Kings
Author: Miguel Leon-Portilla
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 762
Release: 2002-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780393324075

The first anthology in any language to represent the full trajectory of this remarkable literature.

1493

1493
Author: Charles C. Mann
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307265722

More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together--and marked the beginning of an extraordinary exchange of flora and fauna between Eurasia and the Americas.

The Ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru

The Ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru
Author: Margaret Towle
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351303945

All of man's life is in some way associated with the plant world, from his food and shelter to his art, religion and language. The study of this all-pervading relationship between man and the plant world is called ethnobotany. This book provides a systematic reconstruction of the ethnobotany of one of the hearths of American civilization, in the prehistoric cultures of the Peruvian Central Andes.As we learn more about the rise and spread of New World agriculture, it becomes evident that Peru was one of the sources of its development. Plants were cultivated here at least 2,000 years before the beginning of the Christian era. Village life was intimately bound up with this cultivation, later civilizations rested upon it as a foundation, and from Peru agriculture was diffused to other parts of the Americas.Towle bases her work on the evidence of plant remains found in archeological sites, surveys of botanical and ethnological literature, and field studies of modern plant utilization. After a methodological and historical introduction, she proceeds to a systematic listing of plant species, each fully described. She then presents the ethnobotanical data for each of the cultural-geographic divisions of the area, giving a chronological picture of the use of wild and cultivated plants against a background of the cultures of which they were part. A summary of the evolutionary trends in the region as a whole is followed by a full bibliography and index. The book contains fifteen pages of plates.Margaret A. Towle (1902-1985) received her doctorate from Columbia University in 1958 and was research fellow in ethnobotany in the Botanical Museum of Harvard University.

Pre-Columbian Landscapes of Creation and Origin

Pre-Columbian Landscapes of Creation and Origin
Author: John Staller
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2008-03-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0387769102

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.

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles

Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles
Author: Julian Granberry
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2004-08-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 081735123X

A linguistic analysis supporting a new model of the colonization of the Antilles before 1492 This work formulates a testable hypothesis of the origins and migration patterns of the aboriginal peoples of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), the Lucayan Islands (the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the Crown Colony of the Turks and Caicos), the Virgin Islands, and the northernmost of the Leeward Islands, prior to European contact. Using archaeological data as corroboration, the authors synthesize evidence that has been available in scattered locales for more than 500 years but which has never before been correlated and critically examined. Within any well-defined geographical area (such as these islands), the linguistic expectation and norm is that people speaking the same or closely related language will intermarry, and, by participating in a common gene pool, will show similar socioeconomic and cultural traits, as well as common artifact preferences. From an archaeological perspective, the converse is deducible: artifact inventories of a well-defined sociogeographical area are likely to have been created by speakers of the same or closely related language or languages. Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles presents information based on these assumptions. The data is scant—scattered words and phrases in Spanish explorers' journals, local place names written on maps or in missionary records—but the collaboration of the authors, one a linguist and the other an archaeologist, has tied the linguistics to the ground wherever possible and allowed the construction of a framework with which to understand the relationships, movements, and settlement patterns of Caribbean peoples before Columbus arrived.

Indian Life in Pre-Columbian North America Coloring Book

Indian Life in Pre-Columbian North America Coloring Book
Author: John Green
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 52
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0486280470

Forty-two carefully researched illustrations depict prehistoric Indians of the Arctic, woodland cultures in the Northeast, cliff dwellers of the Southwest, many more. Ready-to-color scenes include hunting, food-gathering, ceremonies, games, dances, and numerous other aspects of tribal life before the European arrival. Introduction. Captions. Map.

Mexican Literature

Mexican Literature
Author: David William Foster
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2010-07-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0292786530

Mexico has a rich literary heritage that extends back over centuries to the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. This major reference work surveys more than five hundred years of Mexican literature from a sociocultural perspective. More than merely a catalog of names and titles, it examines in detail the literary phenomena that constitute Mexico's most significant and original contributions to literature. Recognizing that no one scholar can authoritatively cover so much territory, David William Foster has assembled a group of specialists, some of them younger scholars who write from emerging trends in Latin American and Mexican literary scholarship. The topics they discuss include pre-Columbian indigenous writing (Joanna O'Connell), Colonial literature (Lee H. Dowling), Romanticism (Margarita Vargas), nineteenth-century prose fiction (Mario Martín Flores), Modernism (Bart L. Lewis), major twentieth-century genres (narrative, Lanin A. Gyurko; poetry, Adriana García; theater, Kirsten F. Nigro), the essay (Martin S. Stabb), literary criticism (Daniel Altamiranda), and literary journals (Luis Peña). Each essay offers detailed analysis of significant issues and major texts and includes an annotated bibliography of important critical sources and reference works.

Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volumes 10 and 11

Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volumes 10 and 11
Author: Robert Wauchope
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 947
Release: 2015-01-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1477306773

Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica comprises the tenth and eleventh volumes in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979). Volume editors of Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica are Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal. Gordon F. Ekholm (1909–1987) was curator of anthropology at The American Museum of Natural History, New York, and a former president of the Society for American Archaeology. Ignacio Bernal (1910–1992), former director of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, was director of the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico and also a past president of the Society for American Archaeology. Volumes 10 and 11 describe the pre-Aztec and Aztec cultures of Mexico, from central Veracruz and the Gulf Coast, through the Valley of Mexico, to western Mexico and the northern frontiers of these ancient American civilizations. The thirty-two articles, lavishly illustrated and accompanied by bibliography and index, were prepared by authorities on prehistoric settlement patterns, architecture, sculpture, mural painting, ceramics and minor arts and crafts, ancient writing and calendars, social and political organization, religion, philosophy, and literature. There are also special articles on the archaeology and ethnohistory of selected regions within northern Mesoamerica. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.