The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

One of the most important breakthroughs in the study of indigenous religions in the Americas over the past two decades is the identification of the Flower World, a solar and floral spiritual domain that is widely shared in diverse manifestations among prehispanic and contemporary native cultures in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. The Flower World is not simply an ethereal otherworldly domain, but it is a lived experience activated, invoked, and materialized through ritual practices, expressed in verbal and visual metaphors, and embedded in the production and use of material objects. Scholarship by archaeologists, art historians, ethnologists, linguists, and material analysts have emphasized both the antiquity and geographical extent of similar beliefs among a multitude of ethnic and linguistic groups in the New World. While widespread and diverse in representation, this complex was not present among all cultures at all times in these regions. This symposium is the first to bring together scholars whose work directly engages the representation of Flower World in material culture, beliefs, and practices, and its various historical and contemporary manifestations so as to better understand its origin and nature, its dissemination and transformation, and its role in shaping ritual economies, political ideologies, and cross-cultural interactions.

Other Keywords
Iconography and epigraphy • Ritual and Symbolism • Iconography and Art • Highland Mesoamerica: Postclassic • Pueblo • Maya: Classic • Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology • Paleoethnobotany • archaeobotany • Indigenous

Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) • United Mexican States (Country) • Tlaxcala (State / Territory) • Republic of El Salvador (Country) • Republic of Guatemala (Country) • Mesoamerica • Hidalgo (State / Territory) • Colima (State / Territory) • Michoacan (State / Territory) • Mexico (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)
Documents
  • The Casas Grandes Flower World and its Antecedents in Northwest Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Mathiowetz.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the key issues in the study of the Flower World complex is determining the chronology and nature of its transmission from Mesoamerica to the U.S. Southwest. Scholars contend that the most clear material culture and symbolic evidence indicates that the Flower World was present in the...

  • Colors and Chants of the Flower World: The Use of Organic Colors in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican Codex Painting Traditions. (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Davide Domenici.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The performance of non-destructive chemical analyses on Mesoamerican codices has provided an unprecedented understanding of the technological diversity of pre-Hispanic codex-painting traditions, as well as of their patterns of change in early colonial times. One of the most striking results...

  • The Cult of Xochipilli (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Georganne Deen. John Pohl.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Xochipilli, the Flower Prince, was widely revered through various manifestations as the patron god of the noble classes throughout southern Mexico. As such he was credited with patronage over palaces, royal marriages, feasts, wealth finance, and belief in an exclusive elite afterlife and...

  • Flower World Concepts in Hopi Katsina Song Texts (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorothy Washburn.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the idea that the Flower World references the moral imperatives that need to be followed to live the corn lifeway. The Flower World describes the perfect life where people live communally, sharing and caring for each other, and, in turn, the rains come and all life is...

  • The Flower World in Central Mexico After the Collapse of Teotihuacan, AD 600-900 (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew D. Turner.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the tumultuous Epiclassic period (AD 600-900), several smaller polities in Central Mexico and the Gulf Coast rose to prominence in the wake of the collapsed metropolis of Teotihuacan. Although this period is often characterized by rampant militarism, wide-ranging economic activities,...

  • Flower Worlds of the Pacific Coast (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Oswaldo Chinchilla.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the richest repertoires of Mesoamerican flower imagery comes from the Pacific coast of Guatemala. In this paper, I trace the temporal variations in religious beliefs and imagery related to portentous places of beauty known that modern scholars designated as "flower worlds." Lush...

  • Flowers and Floral Imagery in New Spain's Visual Production and Religious Spaces (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Cordova.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Colonial Mexican portraits of priests, nuns, and children donning elaborate floral trappings indicate their subjects’ holiness and connect Euro-Christian and Mesoamerican ideas of sacredness, nobility, and a propitious afterlife. Their rich visual display explicitly highlights the virtuousness...

  • Flowers in the Religious Ideology of Contemporary Nahua of the Southern Huasteca (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alan Sandstrom.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Flowers are a central feature of religious rituals among today's Nahua of the southern Huasteca. They are associated with the sun, growing corn, life-giving water, the bounty of the living cosmos, and ancestors who visit their relatives during Day of the Dead. For the Nahua, flowers are far...

  • The Flowery Places of the Copan Maya and the Species They Used to Create Them (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron L. McNeil.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Clues to the creation of flower-laden spaces in ancient Maya temples, tombs, and palaces lie on the floors of the best-preserved of these structures. The Copan Acropolis has proved to be a particularly good site for the recovery of well-preserved pollen grains from flowers that adorned ritual...

  • Templo Mayor and Representations of the Flower World: agriculture, fire, sacrifice, death, rebirth, and imperialistic agendas (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Angel González López. Lorena Vázquez Vallín.

    This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of our primary sources of descriptive information about the Flower World comes from Central Mexican colonial historical documents. While ethnohistorical accounts have portrayed this world with shared beliefs of the floral paradise, this paper provides a complementary scenario, by...