Indigenizing Catholicism in Colonial New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Spanish colonialism in the American Southwest was at once a military and a missionary project. Consequently, the Indigenous rejection of imposed Catholic traditions was a vital part of many early anti-colonial efforts—notably during the coordinated revolt of 1680, which succeeded in purging the region of both the settlers and their religion for over a decade. But running parallel to this history of resistance was another history filled with creative appropriations of Catholic images, narratives, religious figures, and ceremonies, often in ways that fundamentally transformed Catholicism and redirected its power symbols toward Indigenous ends. In this paper, I examine the history of one of those historical appropriations—the Athapaskan incorporation of cross imagery in the Mountain Spirit tradition—tracing its origins and development during the 18th and 19th centuries as expressed in the rock art of New Mexico.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2022 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology