Translated Christianities. Mark Z. Christensen

see Cline and León-Portilla, Testaments of Culhuacan, and Pizzigoni, Testaments of Toluca. For the Maya, see Roys, Titles of Ebtun, and Restall, Life and Death. For more on testaments as religious texts, see Ramos, Death and Conversion, 114–15; and Christensen, Nahua and Maya Catholicisms, 84, 93–94.

3. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 196.

4. For more on the subject, see Nesvig, Ideology and Inquisition, and Christensen, Nahua and Maya Catholicisms, 57–59.

5. Tavárez, Invisible War, 28–29.

6. “Modo de confesar en lengua maya,” item 26, col. 700, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

7. Códice franciscano, 54. Scholars typically prefer the term “Nahua” over “Aztec” for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the latter term is generally used to represent only the Mexica. On the other hand, “Nahua” represents the Mexica and all other native cultures in central Mexico that shared the common language of Nahuatl.

8. Burkhart, Holy Wednesday, 165; Acuña, “Escritos mayas inéditos,” 168–69; Tavárez, Invisible War, 71–3, 129–58; Nesvig, Ideology and Inquisition, 134–63.

9. Fernández del Castillo, Libros y libreros, 488.

10. Coronel, Discursos predicables, xii–xiii.

11. Gómez de Parada, Constituciones sinodales, 39. See also Francisco Eugenio Domínguez y Argáiz’s opinion in his Pláticas, preliminary leaf, unnumbered.

12. See, for example, the observations of José María Meneses in Ruz, Colección de sermones, 9–10.

13. Although a model of centers and peripheries provides a useful framework when speaking of generalities, its ability to prescribe outcomes is limited by exceptions. Surely there were Mayas who surpassed their Nahua counterparts in religious education despite their peripheral location. In Magistrates of the Sacred, Taylor provides a useful analysis, showing the abilities and limits of such a model (45–46).

14. Thompson, Tekanto, 17.

15. Códice franciscano, 56–57.

16. Indeed, the Códice franciscano records the Franciscan’s displeasure with those who teach indifferently and who raise commoners to be rulers in their towns (55–57).

17. For a general treatment of the matter, see ibid., 55–70, and R. Ricard, Spiritual Conquest, 96–101. For more regarding the Yucatecan schools, see Molina Solís, Historia de Yucatán, 1:321–32; and Hanks, Converting Words, 59–84.

18. Códice franciscano, 57–62.

19. Sahagún, Introductions and Indices, 83–84.

20. Sahagún, Coloquios y doctrina, 75.

21. Sell, “Friars, Nahuas, and Books,” 120; Sell, “Classical Age,” 28; Bautista, prologue to Sermonario, preliminary leaf, unnumbered.

22. Landa, Relación, 45, cited in Karttunen, Between Worlds, 94. For more on Antonio Chi, see Restall, “Gaspar Antonio Chi.”

23. This condition would be modified again by the Second Mexican Provincial Council of 1565. See Lorenzana, Concilios provinciales, 201–2.

24. Ibid., 143–44; Sell, “Friars, Nahuas, and Books,” 121n20. See also Mosquera, “Nahuatl Catechistic Drama,” 58–61.

25. Lockhart, Nahuas After the Conquest, 403.

26. For figures on how many friars were sent to Yucatan and Guatemala-Chiapas, see Early, Maya and Catholicism, 134. Early does an excellent job of documenting the important role of maestros today in their communities.

27. For various examples, see Burkhart and Sell, Nahuatl Theater; Tavárez, Invisible War, 71–73, 129–58; Sánchez de Aguilar, Informe contra idolorum, 153–54, 173; and Chuchiak, “Pre-conquest Ah Kinob.” More detailed studies of the contributions of Maya maestros and their composition of “forbidden” or “unregulated literature” include Hanks, Converting Words, 19, 338–64; Knowlton, Maya Creation Myths, 33–51; Bricker and Miram, Encounter of Two Worlds; and Christensen, Nahua and Maya Catholicisms, 84–88.

28. Burkhart, Holy Wednesday, 165; Acuña, “Escritos mayas inéditos,” 168–69; Coronel, Discursos predicables, xv; Cogolludo, Historia de Yucatán, 192–93; Ruiz de Alarcón, Heathen Superstitions; Sánchez de Aguilar, Informe contra idolorum, 153–54, 173.

29. For some excellent works illustrating the effects of native worldviews on religious texts and evangelization in general, see, for the Nahuas, Burkhart, Slippery Earth; for the Mayas, Knowlton, Maya Creation Myths; for the Mayas in Guatemala, but also in Chiapas and Yucatan, Early, Maya and Catholicism, and Early, Maya and Catholic Cultures.

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       Saint Paul and Saint Sebastian in the “Nahuatl Bible”

      We (Nahua nobles) no longer believe and still we will love those you (Spaniards) do not yet take to be gods; still before our gods we will kill people; it will again be like it was before you came here.

      —“Nahuatl Bible,” before 1560

Religiously trained Nahuas and Mayas composed religious texts under varying degrees of ecclesiastic