Sacred Consumption; Food and Ritual in Aztec Art and Culture

Morán, Elizabeth

ISBN 10: 147731069X / ISBN 13: 9781477310694

Published by University of Texas Press, 2016

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 125988

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Sacred Consumption; Food and Ritual in Aztec Art and Culture
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 147731069X
• ISBN 13: 9781477310694
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Making a foundational contribution to Mesoamerican studies, this book explores Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptures, as well as indigenous and colonial Spanish texts, to offer the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art.

Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptural works, as well as indigenous and Spanish sixteenth-century texts, were filled with images of foodstuffs and food processing and consumption. Both gods and humans were depicted feasting, and food and eating clearly played a pervasive, integral role in Aztec rituals. Basic foods were transformed into sacred elements within particular rituals, while food in turn gave meaning to the ritual performance.

This pioneering book offers the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art. Elizabeth Morán asserts that while feasting and consumption are often seen as a secondary aspect of ritual performance, a close examination of images of food rites in Aztec ceremonies demonstrates that the presence—or, in some cases, the absence—of food in the rituals gave them significance. She traces the ritual use of food from the beginning of Aztec mythic history through contact with Europeans, demonstrating how food and ritual activity, the everyday and the sacred, blended in ceremonies that ranged from observances of births, marriages, and deaths to sacrificial offerings of human hearts and blood to feed the gods and maintain the cosmic order. Morán also briefly considers continuities in the use of pre-Hispanic foods in the daily life and ritual practices of contemporary Mexico. Bringing together two domains that have previously been studied in isolation, Sacred Consumption promises to be a foundational work in Mesoamerican studies.

About the Author

ELIZABETH MORÁN is an associate professor of art history at Christopher Newport University. She has been a Fulbright-García Robles Scholar.