In these pages, for the first time in any language, the author
offers a comprehensive description and analysis of the clothing of
the people pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. It is a highly productive
approach to the culture--and the culture ties--of the Aztecs of
Mexico, the Tlaxcalans, the Tarascans of Michoacan; the Mixtecs of
Oaxaca, the mysterious "Borgia Group," and the lowland Mayas of
Yucatan. These were the "great high cultures" that flourished just
before European contact.
In her book, Patricia Anawalt describes through text and more
than 350 illustrations and charts what the Indians of Middle
America were wearing when Cortes and his conquistadors arrived in
the New World in 1519. The costumes reveal a great deal about those
who wore them. To the peoples of Middle America, dress was
identity; even a god had to don his proper attire. To the Aztecs
and their neighbors, for example, the wearing of appropriate
clothing was strictly controlled by both custom and law. An
individual's attire immediately identified not only culture
affiliation but rank and status as well. Since each group dressed
in a distinctive and characteristic manner, a great deal of
ethnographic and historical information can be gleaned from a study
of what those groups wore.
Of course, the costumes themselves have decayed into the earth
from whose bounty they were created. Unlike Egypt, whose arid
atmosphere helped assure centuries-long preservation, Middle
America, with its moisture and cyclic climate, holds today little
but the durable stone and mineral remains of its great
civilizations.
We do, however, have vivid depictions of the costumes in the
native codices and the conquistadors' accounts. The codices are
histories and calendric and religious documents, executed in
pictographic writing and drawings, that recorded and guided the
people's lives. The conquistadors' accounts were official and
semiofficial reports to their rulers and countrymen in Europe.
Together these bodies of works constitute a priceless heritage of
Mesoamerica. Many of the codices now repose in the great libraries
and museums of Europe.
From twenty-four of these documents, as well as a very few
extant wall murals, the author has compiled, analyzed, and compared
hundreds of clothing examples. She has organized and grouped the
costumes by type of construction and described their practical and
ceremonial purposes. From the many illustrations, some here
faithfully reproduced in the colors of the originals, we gain a
vivid impression of the intimate, day-to-day lives of the men,
women, and children, as well as the rituals and ceremonies around
which their religious and political life centered.
From design and stylistic similarities the author has been able
to identify many cross-cultural ties among the groups--in some
instances providing new documentary evidence of relations between
groups. We know that these native civilizations, far from evolving
in isolation, had many enriching contacts with each other long
before they were scattered and decimated by the armies of the
Conquest.
The wealth of information in these pages makes it an invaluable
contribution to our understanding of the Civilization of the
American Indian of pre-Hispanic Times.
General
Imprint: |
University of Oklahoma Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
The Civilization of the American Indian Series |
Release date: |
September 1990 |
First published: |
September 1990 |
Authors: |
Patricia Rieff Anawalt
|
Foreword by: |
H. B Nicholson
|
Dimensions: |
305 x 229 x 25mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
252 |
Edition: |
New Ed |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8061-2288-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Social sciences >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8061-2288-9 |
Barcode: |
9780806122885 |
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