The Hispanic Horizon in Yucatan:A model of Franciscan missionization

Abstract

Following the military campaigns of conquest in sixteenth-century Yucatan, the Order of Friars Minor Observant assumed the task of controlling, by culture conversion, the indigenous Yucatec Maya. The fundamental vehicle for this program of social engineering was the built environment of the mission, composed of the chapel, atrium, and friary, and the associated village. Archaeological remains of mission sites are horizon markers for the earliest phases of permanent Hispanic presence on the peninsula, ca. 1545–1572. Mission villages specify locations where the friars reorganized pre-Hispanic Maya settlements according to Spanish sociopolitical norms. Increasing complexity in mission-chapel architecture marks the stages of this reorganization. In this article, I discuss the historical origin of the friars' policies and the context of their implementation in Yucatan; model the spatial, temporal, architectural, and behavioral variables the Franciscans employed to extend and maintain Hispanic hegemony; provide comparative data from seventeenth-century New Mexico and La Florida; and outline a general theory of Franciscan activity in the New World.

Analogy or Erasure? Dialectics of Religious Transformation in the Early Doctrinas of the Colca Valley, Peru

“…In broad terms, there appears to be a transition from what might be called "exterior Andean" to "interior European" architectonic space, beginning with early open chapels that piggybacked on Inka spaces of state ritual to leverage-if not quite coerce-the "corralling" of the unconverted for indoctri- nation. These structures are analogous to the early ramada-type open chapels of Mesoamerica, which accommodated outdoor catechesis and functioned as stage sets for a participatory and performative pastoral approach (Burkhart, 1998;Hanson, 1995;Lara, 2004, pp. 21-39).…”

“…Such direct ritual substitution had historical precedents in Mesoamerica, where mendicant catechumenal architecture was initially adapted to the plaza of teocalli, or temple pyramids (Lara, 2004, p. 19;Morales, 1993). Early open chapels built in these plaza spaces were used as theatrical stagings, as the friars adapted a performative liturgy as a means of conversion through embodied participation (Burkhart, 1998;Hanson, 1995;Lara, 2004, pp. 25-36).…”

Arquitectura colonial temprana en el área maya: Registro material y documentación escrita

“…Horcones a modo de envigado y huano para el techo de la construcción. 34 Hanson, 1996: 18. El autor añade simple para destacar el carácter de provisionalidad y sencillez de estas construcciones tempranas.…”

The Archaeological Study of Spanish Colonialism in the Americas

“…The developmental sequence of mission chapel architecture has been analyzed in detail by Hanson (1995). Building on Kubler's (1948) work in central Mexico, Hanson correlates the construction of increasingly more elaborate chapels in the Yucatán with successive phases of acculturation; temporary chapels were built in newly visited Maya communities, followed by simple and then permanent ramada chapels to which large masonry structures were added after a community had become a center of pastoral activity in its own right.…”

“…Such a perspective requires comparison, an activity that neither archaeologists engaged in culture history nor their postmodernist colleagues are inclined to pursue. A number of scholars, however, have turned to comparison in recent years in order to both illuminate specific practices and account for regional differences (e.g., García Targa 2002;Hanson 1995).…”