Converting Christianity: the Catholic-Indigenous "Dialogue"

Crucified Christ, San Bernardino de Siena, Xochimilco, MX

As strange as it may seem, the indigenous peoples' major difficulty was not in accepting this new god, Jesus Christ.  In their culture it was expectable to take the conqueror's god or gods into the old pantheon.  The way they understood it,  the conquerors had won because their gods were more powerful and given this, why wouldn't they  want the more powerful god on their side? According to their game plan, they got a new god , acquired extra power and kept their old gods as well. But, this was not what the Spanish had in mind.  They expected the indigenous  to immediately see the truth and superiority of Christianity and give up their native gods, customs and beliefs.  

What the Spanish got was resistance- armed uprisings in many places as well as resistance in the form of holding onto idols and concealing them and clandestine practice of old religious rituals and customs.  The Spanish became aggressive and vigilant in their effort to root out the old ways, for instance the tragic burning of the Mayan codices at Mani in 1562.

After a while, the bishops realized that conversion to Christianity was not going to happen over night and altered their policies.  They lengthened their conversion time-table and began to look within the indigenous beliefs and practices for places where they might form connections between the old faith and the new one. The process of conversion slowly changed into a kind of  dialogue in which, as it turned out,  visual elements played a central role.

The friars did not have to search far for points of contact between the two religious systems,  because  sacrifice was a central idea of both- Christ's sacrifice on the cross for Christianity and the centrality of human sacrifice in many Mesoamerican groups.  The indigenous could easily identify with the ideas of eating Christ's body and drinking his blood ( ritual cannibalism had been practiced by some groups), so much so that the Catholic clergy initially put this whole issue on a back burner until they felt their converts were far enough along in the faith to understand it appropriately.   


But, don't get the wrong idea, sacrifice was not the only bond between the two religious systems.  The cross, the central symbol of Christianity, was also a significant symbol in Mesoamerican religions, where it was referred to the Tree of Life, a symbol also found in many religions throughout the world.

Mayan Tree of Life, Palenque, Chiapas, MX

The Christian cross, as it evolved in Mexican christianity, was different than its European counterpart, at least in the early days of the Conquest.  In these early days Christ was never shown hanging on the cross, as would have been the case in the typical crucifix.  This would have been too close to the indigenous experience of human sacrifice and the friars took care to eliminate this comparison.  The early crosses you see in Mexico are unique.

Atrial Cross, Jilotepec

Atrial Cross, Las Monjas, Merida, Yucatan

In both of these atrial crosses (crosses in the atrium or patio or a convent or church), 
you see a head in the center of the cross.  This is the head of Christ, with Christ being in the Cross, not on the Cross, as we discussed previously, to eliminate any comparison between Christ's sacrificial death on the cross and pre-Hispanic sacrifice.  Both of these crosses are covered with the symbols of the Passion (the sequence of events leading up to and including Christ's crucifixion) as a teaching device. Some scholars believe that putting Jesus in the cross is also way of stating that Jesus is within the World Tree, which was center of the universe for the Mesoamerican indigenous peoples. 

The changes in the Cross are just one instance of the adaptations in Spanish Catholicism that were necessary in its encounter with the indigenous and the effort to bring them within the fold.  In fact, one could argue that  the unique visual culture of Mexican Catholicism is a by-product of this encounter,  that it is a record of the process of on-going dialogue between the two faith-systems.  The Christianity that the friars brought to the Americas was  a different one than emerged and we will continue to explore this fascinating topic. 


  

The Friars: Peace Corps 16th century style

Parade during Festival of St. Michael the Archangel (San Miguel d'Allende, 2010)

Friars from the religious orders followed the Conquistadors wherever they went,  beginning

in 1500 with the island of Santo Domingo (Hispaniola).  In 1524 twelve Franciscan friars

called the "twelve apostles of New Spain" (to mirror Jesus' twelve apostles) arrived in Mexico to serve as the spiritual arm of the Conquest.  The message in the photo above is clear: the friar is showing disapproval of the indigenous ritual of sacrifice.  This ritual, odious to us and to the Europeans who observed it five centuries ago, was actually a deep part of the cosmic and religious systems of many of the meso-american peoples.  Within their beliefs it was necessary for the continuation of life and was highly ritualized and regulated and not a  wanton blood-thirst and slaughter. 

These first Franciscans were idealists, utopians.  In the indigenous they saw fresh soil for a Christianity that was pure and unstained by worldly concerns the way it had become in Europe.  Trying to understand these new discovered peoples within a biblical context  (as you recall this was the only context available in the 16th century), some conjectured the  indigenous were a tribe of lost Jews.  In the idealistic hopes of these early Franciscans, they strove to create a new Jerusalem, an Indian Jerusalem.   They faced enormous hardships in this new unsettled land and came at enormous cost to personal comfort and safety and, in general, they were good men who truly believed in what they were doing.   Some, such as Bernardino de Sahagun and Bartolome de las Casas, became champions of the indigenous and their protectors against the abuses of the Spanish settlers, whose aims were often less than spiritual.

Friars' "Job Description"

The photo taken in a church in Campeche, Yucatan,  shows salvation from eternal damnation, the central religious concern of the time. ( Note that a bishop is included among those in the flames, indicating that Hell is inclusive.)  Mary, the Queen of Heaven is lifting souls from the flames.  The job of the friars was to save their indigenous charges from damnation by teaching them the Gospel and leading them to Jesus. This was a job, as we shall see, that turned out to be more difficult than they had imagined.

Within the values  of their times, which I have described more fully in my previous post, "The Mind-set of the Spanish Conquest", the friars believed they were doing the absolutely best thing one could do for another human being, despite how we may perceive their actions within a contemporary framework.   In their day and age, there was no abstract concept of "human rights", everything was bound up with religion.  Within this context, a human's most important and most basic right was the salvation of his/her soul and, given this,  the most altruistic thing the friars knew to do for the indigenous was to offer them this right through the word of Jesus.   In the new and untamed lands, the friars did this at considerable personal risk and sacrifice.   All this has led Prof. Samuel Y. Edgerton to compare them to the Peace Corps volunteers, and this really is a good way to understand their essential mission.  Like the Peace Corps, they wanted to better mankind and save the world and they attempted to do this, as they understood it, with the spiritual tools at their disposal.