Performance and Penance
Performance and Penance
The Cristo and Christian Evangelization in New Spain
In the sixteenth century, the Spanish missionary friar, Antonio Roa, employed the Cristo Aparecido as an instrument for the conversion and evangelization of the indigenous Christians of Morelos, Mexico. Like other friars of his day, Roa used penitential practices, physical self-disciplines, to illustrate for the Indians the suffering of Christ. The local indigenous community struggled with Roa to negotiate these religious meanings. Suffering, flayed, and dismembered deities had a place in Aztec religious symbolism and imagery, but these may have done little to help the Indians conceptualize the Christian god.
Keywords: penance, performance, conversion, ritual, emotion, Aztecs, Franciscans, saints and sainthood, relics, sacrifice, mimesis
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