The Virgin's Children: Life in an Aztec Village Today

Madsen, William (1920-2003) inscribed

Published by University of Texas Press, Austin, 1960

About this Item

xv+248 pages with frontispiece, diagrams, plates, bibliography and index. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6 1/2") issued in yellow cloth with brown lettering to spine. inscribed. 1st edition. An absorbing account of the descendants of the ancient Aztecs and the survival of their culture today in the Valley of Mexico is presented in this work. Focusing on San Francisco Tecospa - a village of some eight hundred Indians who still speak Nahuatl, whose lives are dominated by super-naturalism, and who observe with only slight modification much of their Aztec heritage - this story bears out the anthropological principle that innovations are most likely to be accepted when they are useful, communicable, and compatible with established tradition. Nowhere is the Indian genius of combining the old and the new better exemplified than in the story of how the Virgin of Guadalupe now fulfills the rose formerly played by the pagan goddess Tonantzin and of how Christian saints have replaced the Aztec gods. In Tecospa the road to social recognition lies in the performance of religious works, and the neglect of ritual obligation subjects both the individual and the community to the anger of supernaturals to punish with illness or other misfortune. Religion is inextricably a part of every phase of life, and it is the whole life of the Aztecan that is recorded here: fiesta, clothing, food, agricultural practices, courtship, marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, death, witchcraft and its cures, medical practices and attitudes, house and home life, ethics, and the hot-cold complex that classifies everything in the Tecospan universe from God to Bromo-Seltzer. With a marked simplicity of style and language Madsen has produced a significant anthropological study that is delightful reading. Condition: Remainder mark at heal end pages, Madsen's inscription on front end paper. Jacket edge wear with chips and tears, spine ends chipped, spine age darkened, price clipped else a very good copy in about a very good jacket. Seller Inventory # A6057

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Virgin's Children: Life in an Aztec ...

Publisher: University of Texas Press, Austin

Publication Date: 1960

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition