Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Mexico and

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Description

In villages and towns across Spain and its former New World colonies, local performers stage mock battles between Spanish Christians and Moors or Aztecs that range from brief sword dances to massive street theatre lasting a number of days. The festival tradition officially celebrates the triumph of Spanish Catholicism over its enemies, yet this doesn’t provide an explanation for its persistence for more than five hundred years nor its widespread diffusion.

In this insightful book, Max Harris seeks to take into account Mexicans’ “puzzling and enduring passion” for festivals of moros y cristianos. He begins by tracing the performances’ roots in medieval Spain and showing how they came to be superimposed at the mock battles that had been part of pre-contact Aztec calendar rituals. Then the use of James Scott’s distinction between “public” and “hidden transcripts,” he reveals how, within the hands of folk and indigenous performers, these spectacles of conquest became prophecies of the eventual reconquest of Mexico by the defeated Aztec peoples. Even as of late, as full of life descriptions of current festivals make plain, they remain a remarkably sophisticated vehicle for the communal expression of dissent.

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