... of agency to an Anglo-American anthropologist, especially since the ascension of priestly women involves a corollary demotion of priestly men: “Landes effectively founded the Brazilian tradition by which a temple’s commitment to excluding men from the possession priesthood became a significant measure...

... persistence of Spanish clerics to win the spiritual conquest and impose economic and political punishment as well as religion on Zapotecs. On the southern cultural frontier of Yucatán, John Chuchiak studies cases of priestly solicitation of Maya men, women, and children in the confessional, showing how...

... major drawbacks. First, there is little discussion of the role astronomical knowledge had in ancient Mexican society. For example, we are told that the 260-day period is close to the growth period for maize. The implication is that a primary role of the priestly establishment was to inform...

... suspension from priestly duties and lengthy incarceration and claims about the existence of “royal quipus,” known best, if not exclusively in his time, by Blas Valera himself (pp. 4–5, 134, 140, 186). These assertions are supported by only two unconvincing external sources. Hyland relies primarily...

... and unpopular. The creation legends and the traits of particular gods are described in some detail and illustrated (by Miguel Covarrubias) after codex paintings. There are sections on calendrical ritual and priestly organization. Aztec religion is analyzed as a fundamental native value governing Indian...

..., scholarly study shows that French influence—piratical and occasionally priestly—began in 1528 and grew stronger during the heyday of the buccaneers. It became political and administrative during the reign of Charles II and cultural under the Bourbons, as Spain itself became “Frenchified.” Venezuela...

... cultures, the decline in priestly recruitment in later centuries, the entrance of Indians and mestizos into the clerical ranks under false designations. This is still an open field for the researcher. One thing is clear, however: from 1591 onward, the letter of the law did not forbid the ordination...

... chronological frames for both ancient and modern religions. The same deities and the same rituals are found in both. The priestly organizations and their role in the society are essentially similar. The cosmological basis is unchanged. The book’s various revelations will appear less revealing to students...

... disappeared or became strictly local priests. Third, there were local priests, healers, and sorcerers, maintained by their clients. They survived the Spanish conquest. The author does not consider the possibility of a priestly hierarchy under the Spaniards, since the model of Andean religion she uses does...

... analysis through extensive comparisons with other codexes; with buildings containing glyphs, stelae, and murals; and with scholarship both ethnographic and academic. Important in the background section is the supposition that the codex was created in Mayapan, a center of priestly study and book production...

... benighted oligarchs have jeopardized the hierarchical, paternalistic order by their total intransigence, priestly voices have always been raised to demand their elimination for the good of the system. In his final chapter Astiz makes a masterful analysis of the forces and factors that seem destined...

... many of his younger contemporaries into becoming his disciples, almost a group of Unamunolatrists, who accepted the master at his own very high self-evaluation. It was only natural that he should also attract enemies. We do not need to speak of his priestly detractors, who attacked him for heterodoxy...

...” of the current Mayan solar year. She dispels the myth that the 260-day calendar is “shamanic” while the solar calendar is “priestly” and seriously questions the use of these terms as polar opposites, pointing out that the Quiché “daykeeper” is better described as a “shamanic priest.” Chapters 5, 6, and 7...

..., the arguments of Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna and his successor, Francisco Manso y Zúñiga, showed the malleability of canon law for defending ecclesiastical prerogatives and invoking for archbishops greater legitimacy, as representatives of the king's priestly character and as depositaries of the apostolic...

... himself, many of Dueñas’s Andean writers attained their literacy skills under the supervision of the Catholic Church. Juan de Cuevas Herrera, an indigenous priest from Charcas, wrote his report on priestly misdoings based on what he himself witnessed during the extirpation campaigns of the early 1600s...

... to live as men of God in Brazil. Pondering their role in shaping a more just world, seminarians began openly to question the need for priestly celibacy. Serbin is at his best when describing the response of seminary faculty and students to the political and social pressures of the 1960s and 1970s...

... of using feather headdresses to symbolize the highest priestly authority, feathers were commonly used in miters worn by those highest in the Catholic Church hierarchy. Understandably the book focuses on featherwork's use in Mexico, but an account of pre-Columbian featherwork in the Andes and a fuller...

.... This rising curve of corregidors’ earnings was matched by increased priestly incomes from the same pool of victims: rural communities were crushed in a financial vice. The communities had frequent recourse to the judicial system, often successfully, but there was a certain hiatus between a favorable judgment...

... at Valladolid (1550), declaring a moratorium on conquest until the judges should declare a winner. Without waiting for their decision, Las Casas published his arguments, In Defense of the Indians . The author treats Las Casas’s thought as an unfolding revelation, as the priestly agitator moved from...