From moon goddesses to virgins : the colonization of Yucatecan Maya sexual desire
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
From moon goddesses to virgins : the colonization of Yucatecan Maya sexual desire
University of Texas Press, 2000
1st ed
- : hc
- : pbk
Available at 7 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
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  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-310) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hc ISBN 9780292777446
Description
For the pre-conquest Maya, sexuality was a part of ritual discourse and performance, and all sex acts were understood in terms of their power to create, maintain, and destroy society. As post-conquest Maya adapted to life under colonial rule, they neither fully abandoned these views nor completely adopted the formulation of sexuality prescribed by Spanish Catholicism. Instead, they evolved hybridised notions of sexual desire, represented in the figure of the Virgin Mary as a sexual goddess, whose sex acts embodied both creative and destructive components. This highly innovative book decodes the process through which this Colonization of Yucatecan Maya sexual desire occurred. Pete Sigal frames the discussion around a series of texts, including the books of "Chilam Balam" and the "Ritual of the Bacabs", that were written by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Maya nobles to elucidate the history, religion, and philosophy of the Yucatecan Maya communities.
Drawing on the insights of philology, discourse analysis, and deconstruction, he analyses the sexual fantasies, fears, and desires that are presented, often unintentionally, in the "margins" of these texts and shows how they illuminate issues of colonialism, power, ritual, and gender. Pete Sigal is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at California State University, Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
- Contents: Searching for the Moon Goddess
- Religion and Family
- Framing Maya Sexual Desire
- Fornicationg with Priests, Communicationg with Gods
- The Unvirgin Virgin
- Gender, Lineage, and the Blood of Rulers
- Blood, Semen, and Ritual
- Transsexuality and the Floating Phallus
- Ritualized Bisexuality
- Finding the Virgin Mary
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780292777538
Description
For the preconquest Maya, sexuality was a part of ritual discourse and performance, and all sex acts were understood in terms of their power to create, maintain, and destroy society. As postconquest Maya adapted to life under colonial rule, they neither fully abandoned these views nor completely adopted the formulation of sexuality prescribed by Spanish Catholicism. Instead, they evolved hybridized notions of sexual desire, represented in the figure of the Virgin Mary as a sexual goddess, whose sex acts embodied both creative and destructive components.
This highly innovative book decodes the process through which this colonization of Yucatan Maya sexual desire occurred. Pete Sigal frames the discussion around a series of texts, including the Books of Chilam Balam and the Ritual of the Bacabs, that were written by seventeenth and eighteenth century Maya nobles to elucidate the history, religion, and philosophy of the Yucatecan Maya communities. Drawing on the insights of philology, discourse analysis, and deconstruction, he analyzes the sexual fantasies, fears, and desires that are presented, often unintentionally, in the "margins" of these texts and shows how they illuminate issues of colonialism, power, ritual, and gender.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Notes on Transcription and Translation
Searching for the Moon Goddess
To Desire the Moon Goddess
Sexual Desire
Colonial Maya Sexual Acts
Colonial Maya Sexual Ideas
The Historian's Method
Religion and Family
Religion
Family
Revisiting Hybridity
Framing Maya Sexual Desire
Defining the Hybrid Cultural Matrix
Sex,Gender,and War
Colonizing Sin
Performing the Hybrid
Fornicating with Priests, Communicating with Gods
Having Sex in a Church
Strategic Inversions
Excess Sex: Adultery, Rape, and the Commoners
Thinking of Sex
The Unvirgin Virgin
The Moon Goddess
The Appearance of the Virgin Mary
The Moon Goddess and the Virgin
The Language of Virginity
The Resilience of the Moon Goddess
Gender, Lineage, and the Blood of the Rulers
Bodies of Kings
The Blood of the Name
Blood, Naming,and Masculinity
Blood, Semen, and Ritual
Blood of the Vagina
Blood of the Penis
Phallic Motions and Transsexual Bodies
Gendered Blood and Transsexual Bodies
Transsexuality and the Floating Phallus
The Phallus without a Body
Transsexuality
Colonialism, Oedipus, and the Floating Phallus
Ritualized Bisexuality
Sodomites, Homosexuals, Bisexuals
Activity and Passivity
Pedagogy, Pederasty,and Political Power
Sexual Control
Finding the Virgin Mary
Sexual Acts, Symbols, and Desires
Theorizing Hybridity and Sexuality
Notes
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"