The remarkable breadth and depth of Lisa Sousa’s cross-cultural study of indigenous women in highland Mesoamerica make it a fine contribution to the growing body of colonial Mexican ethnohistorical and gender and sexuality studies. Weaving together information from an extensive archival, textual, and pictorial source base, Sousa explores the mundane worlds of indigenous women from the 1520s to the mid-eighteenth century. The geographical and thematic scope of her study allows her to identify both similarities and region-specific practices among four major highland groups: the Nahuas of central Mexico and the Mixtec (Ñudzahui), Zapotec (Bènizàa), and Mixe (Auyuc) of Oaxaca.

At the heart of Sousa’s study—indeed, at the heart of Mesoamerican societies—is the household, the institution that linked “public” and “private” spheres and in which women were central actors. Sousa argues that the binary public/private trope is artificial; the household and the community were two interrelated spheres, and women were at...

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