Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present
Jennifer Scheper Hughes
Abstract
Mexico is famous for its notoriously graphic and bloody crucifixes depicting the broken and tortured body of Jesus on the cross. Images of Christ’s suffering frequently outnumber images of the Virgin Mary in local and household devotions throughout Latin America. How do we explain the enduring significance of these images for the popular Roman Catholic faith of poor and ordinary Mexicans? Based on original archival and ethnographic research, this book uncovers the diverse and sometimes contradictory meanings that the symbol of the crucifix has held for indigenous and mestizo Mexicans over many ... More
Keywords: art history, Catholic Church, Mexico, liberation theology, evangelization, colonialism, popular religion, indigenous religions, iconography, Christology, material religion
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 | Print ISBN-13: 9780195367065 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2010 | DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367065.001.0001 |
