This presentation discusses the results of Abelardo de la Cruz’s dissertation project, which focuses on Nahua religion in the region of Chicontepec (northern Veracruz, Mexico), also known as the Huasteca Veracruzana. In this region, there is a select group of people known as motiochihuanih (prayer specialists), whose main labor is to pray Christian prayers and to carry out several rituals associated with the local religion called el costumbre (the custom). De la Cruz will highlight statements and expertise from four prayer specialists related to their contact, experience, and challenges with the Catholic Church’s doctrine. The data presented is the result of Nahuatl-language interviews from ethnographic research conducted in a small Nahua town, analyzed from an anthropological and historical perspective.
Speaker
Abelardo de la Cruz is a Nahua scholar and assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. He has co-authored multiple monolingual Nahuatl books and currently is writing his first monograph titled Motiochihuanih: Catechists and Prayer Specialists as Religious Leaders Brokering ‘el costumbre’ Nahua in Chicontepec, Veracruz.
Co-Sponsorship
Co-sponsored by the Mexican Studies Working Group.