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Introduction

Introduction INTRODUCTION KEVIN GOSNER University of Arizona William B. Taylor, in the introduction to his chapter on local religion in Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, wrote: The administrators and their assistants often knew little about local practices and rarely cared to solicit lengthy descriptions from those who knew them well. The colonial record of Indian religious practices is most striking for its patchiness, for how much is missing compared with other aspects of social and political life ... The written record, then, comes mostly in small pieces from particular times and places. Only with many such pieces, evaluated separately and together, can pat- terned tendencies be discerned with much confidence.' In this special issue of the Journal of Early Modern History, each of the contributors, John Chuchiak, David Tavarez, and Rick Warner, grap- ples with the challenge that Taylor has described. Their studies of regional campaigns against Indian idolatry in colonial Mexico explore empirical questions about these events and critically examine debates about conceptual frameworks and historical methodologies. How did Spanish clerics define idolatry? Are their accounts useful for recon- structing the actual practices of native peoples? And how were these accounts shaped by http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Early Modern History Brill

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2002 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1385-3783
eISSN
1570-0658
DOI
10.1163/157006502X00077
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

INTRODUCTION KEVIN GOSNER University of Arizona William B. Taylor, in the introduction to his chapter on local religion in Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, wrote: The administrators and their assistants often knew little about local practices and rarely cared to solicit lengthy descriptions from those who knew them well. The colonial record of Indian religious practices is most striking for its patchiness, for how much is missing compared with other aspects of social and political life ... The written record, then, comes mostly in small pieces from particular times and places. Only with many such pieces, evaluated separately and together, can pat- terned tendencies be discerned with much confidence.' In this special issue of the Journal of Early Modern History, each of the contributors, John Chuchiak, David Tavarez, and Rick Warner, grap- ples with the challenge that Taylor has described. Their studies of regional campaigns against Indian idolatry in colonial Mexico explore empirical questions about these events and critically examine debates about conceptual frameworks and historical methodologies. How did Spanish clerics define idolatry? Are their accounts useful for recon- structing the actual practices of native peoples? And how were these accounts shaped by

Journal

Journal of Early Modern HistoryBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2002

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