Overview

This is a masterful study of Tezcatlipoca, one of the greatest but least understood deities in the Mesoamerican pantheon. An enigmatic and melodramatic figure, 'the Lord of the Smoking Mirror' was both drunken seducer and mutilated transgressor and, although he severely punished those who violated pre-Columbian moral codes, he also received mortal confessions. A patron deity to kings and warriors as well as a protector of slaves, Tezcatlipoca often clashed in epic confrontation with his 'enemy brother' Quetzalcoatl, the famed 'Feathered Serpent'. Yet these powers of Mesoamerican mythology collaborated to create the world, and their common attributes hint toward a dual character. In a sophisticated and systematic tour through the sources and problems related to Tezcatlipoca's protean powers and shifting meanings, Olivier guides the reader skilfully through the symbolic names of this great god, from his representation on skins and stones to his relationship to ritual knives and other related deities. Drawing upon iconographic material, chronicles written in both Spanish and the native Nahuatl, and the rich contributions of ethnography, Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God -- like the mirror of Tezcatlipoca in which the fates of mortals were reflected -- reveals an important but obscured portion of the cosmology of pre-Columbian Mexico.

Full Product Details

Author:   Guilhem Olivier ,  Michel Besson
Publisher:   University Press of Colorado
Imprint:   University Press of Colorado
Dimensions:   Width: 20.30cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 25.40cm
Weight:   0.860kg
ISBN:  

9780870819070

ISBN 10:   0870819070
Pages:   420
Publication Date:   31 July 2008
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock  
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Reviews

"""An extraordinarily thorough and meticulous analysis of one of the principal gods of the Aztec pantheon. . . . The book will stand as a major contribution to our understanding of Mesoamerican religion."" --Journal of Latin American Anthropology"

An extraordinarily thorough and meticulous analysis of one of the principal gods of the Aztec pantheon. . . . The book will stand as a major contribution to our understanding of Mesoamerican religion. --Journal of Latin American Anthropology

An extraordinarily thorough and meticulous analysis of one of the principal gods of the Aztec pantheon. . . . The book will stand as a major contribution to our understanding of Mesoamerican religion. <br>-- Journal of Latin American Anthropology

???an extraordinarily thorough and meticulous analysis of one of the principal gods of the Aztec pantheon. . . . The book will stand as a major contribution to our understanding of Mesoamerican religion.

Author Information

Guilhem Olivier is a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma in Mexico City and lecturer at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.

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