Syncretism and emerging identities. The Manual of Jacinto de la Serna (1630)

In this paper, we move from an unusual perspective to the various processes to extirpate idolatry in Peru and Mexico. The usual practice in this subject has been the emphasis on the fact of the persistence of indigenous beliefs a century after the first systematic Christianization offensives in both viceroys. Add to this the analysis and assessment of various methods of removal and uprooting used against indigenous cultures by the ecclesiastical judges and priests. This is the visible side of the processes. However, both the facts and the documents are susceptible of another reading in which, instead of favoring the consideration of what was destroyed from above, would take into account what emerged from below. Rather than being exclusively trapped by cultural disintegration of the old order, it must also take into account the emergence of a new cultural synthesis, ultimately, would be the synthesis of the future.

Carlos Fuentes raises that the Mexican nationalism “is born to replace lost bonds” and “to respond to injuries inflicted on society,” that occur as the result of successive loss of the center of adherence. The first relates specifically to the loss of the center of indigenous adherence, above all, by the collapse of the structures of pre-Hispanic religious field causing an irreparable injury to the worldview:

La respuesta a tal herida fue, asimismo, religiosa y cultural, más que política. Para crear nuevas identificaciones en la sociedad, importaron menos las endebles leyes políticas que la moderna adhesión religiosa promovida por la aparición de una cultura cristiana y fortalecida por la asimilación sincrética del mundo antiguo mexicano.1

If our approach to the topic makes sense, then we should suspect that many of the eradication actions used by the church in Peru and Mexico in the first half of the seventeenth century -the elements that they were fighting, even without knowing it- were not idolatries and apostasies but, strictly speaking, the new syncretic Christianity that was emerging everywhere as the nucleus of crystallization of a new identity.

In the following pages we are taking as a forced reference, even if distant, the great assembly of campaigns to eradicate idolatry which took place in the archbishopric of Lima in the run of events lead by Francisco de Avila in Huarochirí in 1608. However, with the intent to raise possible new approaches based on data from other environments, we focus on what we might call the qualified testimony of Jacinto de la Serna to the process of intense syncretism that took place in New Spain in the first half XVII century. This testimony, we can say, escapes, much to his regret, in the interstices of major concern for the eradication of indigenous beliefs in the archbishopric of Mexico.

Jacinto de la Serna and his conjuncture

Of don Jacinto de la Serna we know that he attended the “Colegio Mayor de Santa María de Todos Santos”. He was doctor of theology and three times rector of the University of Mexico. Proper Jacinto de la Serna declares to have been a priest of Tenanzingo (1626) and that this town was his first pastoral destination. According to Don Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, was parish priest of Xalatlaco and of the Tabernacle of the Metropolitan Cathedral for three times (1635-1645, 1648-February 1651 and September 1651 – April 17, 1681). He was also inspector general of the archdiocese by Messrs. archbishops Meek and Mañozca.

We find him working in the eradication when in 1611, the year when Fray García Guerra was the Archbishop, the idolatres were punished in Xalatlaco, Atenango and San Mateo Texcaliacac and the judges of these cases were graduates Pedro Ponce de León and Diego Gutierrez Bocanegra. In 1613, when was Archbishop Don Juan de la Serna, performed this task Don Fernando Ruiz de Alarcon in Atenango del Río (perhaps with the collaboration from Tenanzingo of Jacinto de la Serna). In 1632 he appears “serving as General Inspector to Illmo. Mr. Don Francisco Manso y Zuniga. “Resumed, by commission, the eradication until God took him [the Archbishop] in 1646.” That same year De la Serna, in his words, “was attending the general visit of the Hon. Mr D. Juan de Mañozca”, Archbishop of Mexico. The work of our interest, the Manual de ministros de indios2 was dedicated to the illustrious doctor don Matheo de Zaga de Bugueiro, Newcomer Archbishop to Mexico. De la Serna died on April 17, 1681.

The Manual (text that Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora had in his hands with the title “De la idolatría de los mexicanos”) was completed, certainly before August 22, 1656, when the Jesuit Yrala Marcos wrote to him with his opinion on the work and adding a panegyric of the merits of the book. Therefore, the Manual de Ministros de Indios, published by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso in his Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México comes, according to the testimony of the proper publisher, of the manuscript provided by don Nicolás León for its publication in 1892 as part of Volume IV of the Colección de documentos inéditos para la Historia de España. Other historians mention the Manual as “De la idolatría de los mexicanos”.

It is beyond doubt that Jacinto de la Serna was an erudite in the language and antiquities of the Indians, in addition to being recognized as the author of the following works:

• “De la idolatría de los mexicanos”, manuscript (our Manual). According to the tracking performed by Del Paso y Troncoso, don Carlos de Sigúenza and Góngora had the original and then he passed it to a priest called Valverde who gave it to don Rodrigo Flores Valdés, in whose power was seen by doctor Barreda, canon of Mexico.
• “Informe al gobernador del Arzobispado de México sobre las causas de la epidemia de los indios y providencias que deben adoptarse para su curación” dated july 29, 1636.
• “Beato Felipe de Jesús, mexicano”, printed in México by Calderón, 1652.
• “Cuarto sermón del santísimo sacramento de la eucaristía”, printed in México by Calderón, 1665.

It should be noted that our test is an exercise in logical analysis of the dynamics of the syncretism of New Spain as a case constituted by the information that the Manual de Ministros de Indios of Jacinto de la Serna offers. Therefore, this paper has the discrete value that a case can provide on a broad and complex phenomenon. We assume no responsibility claim for generalization but without underestimating the illustrative strength this case may contain.

The persistence of idolatries in New Spain

Don Jacinto de la Serna says:

Después de las Congregaciones, que duraron casi hasta el año de 1603, por el año de 1604 ó 605, como esta mala yerba de la idolatría estaba tan assemillada en los coraçones de los Indios, començó otra vez a brotar, ó , por mejor decir, a conocerse por todo el marquesado, y donde se procuró començar a arrancarla y apartarla como a la semilla, o sizaña, para que no sufocara el trigo de muchos indios e indias devotas (que auia muchos y muchas)…. fue en el pueblo de Cumpahuacan…. y (el Licenciado Pedro Ponce de León, cura del pueblo) llevó a Cumpahuacan a el padre Iuan de Tobar y Antonio de el Rincón de la Compañía de Iesus que eran unos Pablos en predicar y enseñar las gentes destas Indias; y auiendo castigado a muchos y enseñado a otros, el Demonio le movió por medio de los mismos indios capítulos y persecuciones que solo por la misericordia de Dios no le desdoraron…3

This text and others of De la Serna places the beginning of the alarm about idolatry in the early seventeenth century, curiously, at the same time when there was the amazing discovery of Huarochiri (archbishop of Lima) and the initiation of the systematic eradication campaign in Peru. Although at this point, the Andean case and the Mexican case are hardly comparable, both in methodology and, above all, for the different determination that the colonial institutions put in them, the Mexican priest surrounds himself by a supporting infrastructure not despicable at all. We know, for example, that in one of the most notable cases that he discovered, Ponce de León and Diego Gutiérrez de Bocanegra took part as judges, and Gaspar de Prabes as translator. Immediately, the findings gave to the problem worrying proportions:

Encontrose por confesiones de algunos delinquentes, que auia en algunos Pueblos del Valle, algunos viejos que tenían por officio el sacar el fuego nuevo que era según estoy informado que este tal Ministro del Demonio o sacaba el fuego con unos palillos o lo traían de la vecindad con los poquietes y allí le ofrecían vnos tamalillos de Zoales que es una semilla de Bledos los quales ofrecían al fuego, echándolos por las quatro partes de la casa y por declaración de vn indio de Cumpahuacan (de donde se tuvo noticia y originó esta complicidad) se supo como el año de 1609 por el mes de octubre de vn indio del pueblo de Cumpahuacan… 4

And the description of the ceremony inside a house continues. The same ceremony took place not only for the new fire, but for the new pulque, the new house (when you start to live there) and midwives attending a birth repeated this ceremony before the new birth (new life).5

The findings of the people of Cumpahuacan, along with those of Teutenango, both in the Toluca Valley, motivated Jacinto de la Serna, to write his Manual in order to extend his eradication zeal to all ministers of Indians of the archdiocese.

In the “Prólogo a los Ministros” (Preface to the ministers), the author notes the precise profile of the joint that underwent the eradication campaign in New Spain, it is clear that the main concern seems to have changed, no longer is the fact that the Indians are not Christians, like in the beginnings of the evangelization. To some extent the problem is more serious because the battlefield is more confusing: the Indians are creating a new synthesis from indigenous and Christian elements, and against this happening before his eyes he tries to mobilize the Indian ministers in what could be the second offensive of spiritual conquest, but this time it is a re-Christianization.

While Arriaga6, in his chronicle of the eradication, focuses on the facts from the perspective of persistence of idolatry that syncretic transformation of Christianity. Can not stop picking what he considers the absurd claim of many Indians who “think and say that they can adore his huacas and, at the same time, having by God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and worship Jesus Chist”. And that they can make offerings to their huacas, celebrate their festivals and at the same time, attend church, hear mass, confess, and even have the communion.” Although it does not seem to be the main campaign issue of eradication, it is clear that the concern was not absent in the archbishopric of Lima in the first half of the seventeenth century. As P. Duviols points out:

… The best observers had captured, in broad terms, this process of religious acculturation based on the principle of compatibility of the two religions. Toledo wrote in 1573 that as soon as they become Christians, the Indians return to their huacas “but do not believe, therefore, abandon our faith and our Christian religion.” Baltasar Ramirez, referring to these same years, has this happy expression: “No son tan idólatras como solían ni son cristianos como deseamos y así, coxeando con entrambos pies acuden a lo uno y a lo otro…”.7

Naturally, it is always possible to interpret in favor of the sustained simulation. Accordingly, a century after the conquest the Indian peoples still retained their old beliefs and were Christians only in appearance. However, there are many signs that point to a transformation much deeper and more creative. In the conclusions of his important study of the phenomenon, Duviols suggests an interpretative key:

This ambiguity and polyvalency in the religious behavior of the Peruvians stems with naturalness of the ancestral polytheism, of the dogma of the pacarinas and of creative differentiated (gods). This ambiguity and versatility in religious behavior of Peruvians are naturally derived from the ancient polytheism, the dogma of the pacarinas and the different creators (gods). Andean religions are not, unlike Christianity, exclusive. As documents often give evidence -around 1660- attending to church with a real fervor, and cooperating with the sorcerer, is not inconsistent behavior, at least in most cases.8

In the early decades of military and spiritual conquest, confrontation had been spent predominantly in terms of “denial of the other” in the three plans proposed by Todorov.9 There were differences, but in general, the prevailing belief was that it was necessary to assimilate the other so that it had value, so that it was understandable and so that it could be treated like equals. Those were the days when it was started from the criterion of tabula rasa in the advancement of Christianity, as was the most tactically simple: destroy the old to build something new. However, after a century of baptisms, things were not as easy to handle for the men of church. Now the indigenous population censuses were largely the books of baptisms in the parishes. In addition, there were good reasons to believe that the state of the Indian peoples of the first half of the seventeenth century was the result of colonization and evangelization. The fury with which they destroyed the temples of Pachacamac and the great Tenochtitlan had given way to more conciliatory positions as the one of José de Acosta, who comes to the beginning of the seventeenth century:

If have to say what I feel, I believe it is not fair to recite against the being itself and the condition of these people, as if they were unable of the gospel. And am true that if the faith had got in this kingdom as Jesus Christ requested it would not have produced here minor fruits that those that we read of the apostolic and primitive Church. Because if in spite of so much nastiness of our men, the Indians still believe in God, and when they stumble over a priest or the royal minister or agent of better customs, they respect and hear him with admirable docility. They become soft as the wax, and they strain for imitating all that they see of good and virtuous. What would happen if from the beginning of the preaching they had seen … and known that they were looking only for Christ and the interest of their souls?
Be voluntary and free for everyone to obey the gospel and may not be violent to another faith than the devil, can clearly see that the unbelievers do not have to drag them by force, but with gentleness and benevolence lead. The growth should not be expected in one day.10

The Indians were Christians and belonged to both the Church and the Christian monarchy. This made it more difficult to treat theoretically and practically his insistent claim to reconcile the two religious systems in the new emerging synthesis.

In fact, what the eradicators had before them was in terms of L. Levy-Bruhl, a conflict of mentalities. In this perspective, traditional notions of idolatry and apostasy did not explain what was really happening:

In the spirit of white men made a dualism, that of the natives, a duality. The mission believes in a distinction between two substances a corporeal and perishable, and a spiritual and immortal. In the life they are both united and form an actual individual; the death will separate them freeing to the spiritual substance or soul, which is the real individual. However, nothing is more unknown to the primitive mind that this opposition between two substances whose attributes is antagonistic. He feels, on the contrary, that all the beings are homogeneous. None is pure matter, and much less, pure spirit. They all are bodies or they have body and they all possess in various degrees the mystical properties that we only recognize in the spirits.11

Of course, the mentality of the new American Christians are still moving in a cosmology of infinite vital “units” that could not be covered by the mentality of the conquerors to understand the world from the logical “contradictions”. Maybe the term pre-logical is the one that gave Levy-Bruhl so many troubles, it might not be the most accurate, but it is clear that in the confrontation that took place in America there were facing two radically different ways of experiencing the world.

The individual is only himself on condition that at the same time he is a different one (identification with the collective soul of the group). Under this new aspect far from being one, as we conceive it, it is simultaneously one and several. It is than, in a way of saying, a real place of shares.12

Jacinto de la Serna states that this characteristic of inclusive participation is the historical reason of the exuberant polytheism of the Mexicans and of their determination in preserving their ancient beliefs along with Christianity.

… que cuando venía alguna nación a poblar de nuevo entre la que ya estaba poblada, los unos recibían por dios a el que traían los que venían de nuevo, y es tos en recompensa veneraban por su Dios a el que tenían los ya poblados, y assí es tradición que los mexicanos que vinieron a poblar a esta tierra después de los Tlalmanalcas reciuieron por dios a Tezcatlipucca, dios de los de Tlal manalco y estos tuuieron por Dios a Huitzilopochtli, Dios de los Mexicanos…. y por esta razón se inclinaron tan fácilmente estos indios a receuir por dios a Christo Señor Nuestro por medio de los Españoles que vinieron a poblar a esta tierra entre los que ya tenían a quienenes an tenido siempre más veneración como más conocidos y como obras de sus manos y que los vían con los ojos corporales, commutando y trocando con ellos la verdad por la mentira y error, adorando a las criaturas y olvidándose del Criador.13

We can understand that the practice based in the principle of participation had to be a radical challenge to the impeccable logic of Aristotle`s principle of contradiction: the gods not just could be many, but that every one could be bearer of amazing ambivalences. In addition, the man could interact with them in a versatile e inclusive manner. This made the pastoral practice much more complicated as Jacinto de la Serna describes in his severe estimation:

Y auiendo de resplandecer con obras de verdaderos cristianos, se descubren en ellos obras de verdaderos idólatras, y fingiendo exteriormente cristiandad, y pieles de ovejas, siendo en lo interior lobos robadores de la honra debida a Dios, atribuyéndola a las criaturas y en ellas a el Demonio…. y obran con tanta astucia que aunque idolatren delante de los Españoles y aun en presencia de sus Ministros, no se les conoce la idolatría y proceden en esto con tal seguridad, que aunque en su presencia digan las palabras que ellos usan en los sacrificios, que hazen a el fuego, ó en otra alguna parte, no se las entienden porque son a las vezes equívocas y si no lo son dicen las con seguridad y satisfechos de que no se las entienden.14

En la cura deste mal que oy padecen los indios en sus idolatrías, án de
procurar los Ministros destos tiempos azer ventaja á los antiguos Padres no en enseñarles otra cosa de lo que les enseñaron: sino en procurar declararles su sancta doctrina, muy en particular á el mal que se reconoce en ellos, pretendiendo cresca la inteligencia de las verdades que les enseñaron; y que los preceptos y ceremonias de su celestial doctrina se limen y se ajusten a el tiempo presente; pero no que se muden, cercenen ni corten: sino que conservándolos en su verdad y entereza se procure darles más luz y evidencia; pues oy tienen más capacidad que quando los catequizaron y obran oy con más malicia, pues pretenden mezclar sus supersticiones con los preceptos eclesiásticos y ceremonias de la Iglesia que les enseñaron…15

However, these are other times. Now it is not uncertain the outcome of the Company of the Indies as it was in the first half of XVI century. The colonial political system has been set and also has established the Church structure. To this change of circumstances correspond also some changes of attitude and approach to the issue of superstitions. In fact, the same safety that theologians and priests feel, is what makes that to the same practices that in the XVIth century were called “idolatry”, one century later they were called “superstitions”, with the consequent connotation of “error provoked by the ignorance more than for the malice”. De la Serna, appealing to his medical background, raises the treatment of evil in the following Hippocratic terms:

Donde la vulgata dice “non sum medicus” en su lugar dice el Caldeo “non sum Chirurgus” no soy cirujano, aquí se descubre un tesoro muy rico para acabar de pintar un consumado Ministro de indios, y la práctica de obrar de manos, como los Cirujanos, que curan llagas viejas y cortan miembros podridos.

Hipócrates in offi cio chirurgi dice, que una de las partes necesarias y que mas aprovechan a las heridas y llagas es la liadura. “Partim ipsa deligatio sanat, partim curatibus inseruirt, maximaque deligationes vis est”. Es muy necesario saber atar la llaga ó herida para curarla; que ni esté muy apretada, ni muy floja la ligadura: eso ha de tener el Ministro, en particular de los indios para curarles estas heridas tan penetrantes y estas llagas tan viejas de sus supersticiones é idolatrías en el modo de obrar, corregir, y enseñar, ni ha de apretar el Ministro tan recio que encone la llaga, ni tampoco a de ser tan remiso que por falta de ligadura se empeore y acancere…16

The prologue of the Manual itself shows the main worry of the syncretism process and of the challenges that it implies for the pastoral of the ministers:

Estos son los que auiendolos buscado dios, lo dexan por buscar mentiras y vanidades, negando la feé que le tenían prometida; estos tales son estos miserables Indios idolatras que son de tan gran ignorancia y simplicidad y tan fáciles a persuadirse en sus engaños que les parece que se puede conservar la ley de dios y los Misterios de nuestra sancta feé con el conocimiento de sus antiguos y falsos Dioses: el sol, la Luna, el fuego, las aguas, los animales terrestres y volatiles, las piedras y los árboles, dándoles crédito y teniéndolos en su coraçon y haziendo memoria de ellos en sus trabajos y necesidades y menesteres de la vida humana, porque como misterios que se les enseñan y predican, no los ven, ni tocan con las manos, porque an de obrar en esto, mediante la dirección de la Feé infusa que reciuieron en el sancto Baptismo; y por otra parte ven estos viles y materiales ídolos suyos, fácilmente se conuierten a llamarlos e invocarlos, pareciéndoles, que tienen mas seguro el favor con el falso dios que ven y tocan con las manos que con el dios verdadero que adoran con la feé.

Esto mismo hazen estos miserables con sus ídolos, usando con ellos de
sus supersticiones é invocaciones (que todo esto es la mala semilla de su gentilidad) pareciéndoles que ternan mas seguro el fauor que piden á el sol, á la Luna, á el fuego, a las aguas, á las piedras, en quienes reconocen deidad. Y se la niegan el verdadero Dios á quien deben seguir y adorar, como dixo San Pablo: Seruirunt creaturae potiús quám Creatore. Y como todo esto lo asen á vezes porque los llama su mala inclinación y la tradición que observan de sus antepasados, a vezes por lo que les enseñan sus Médicos falsos y embusteros a quien dan tanto credito, los quales les enseñan cosas tan varias y tantas que a penas tienen acciones que no se las enlasen con sus mentiras y procuren mesclarlas con las verdades de nuestra Sancta Feé… 17

In the process of confrontation of the two religious systems, the logic in the participation of the new Christians has the applied inclusive criteria: “one or the other”. This allowed them to answer in a functional way to the needs of the evangelism violence and to the needs of the cultural identity, always open to borrow new ideas in order not to loose traditional values.

In conclusion of the first comparison with the new demonstration of the idolatry in the seventeenth century, are clear the line master of the eradication concerns:

1. In those days a functional and operative miscellany of the two pantheons, world view and ethos is taking place. This is the sentinel that gives the alarm to the ministers.
2. This functional synthesis is articulating life in a global reference system.
3. This process takes place on initiative of the indigenous population and in spite of the ministers zeal to preserve orthodoxy.
4. The hierarchic system of the indigenous religion seems prevailing and functional.
5. The elements that the new synthesis of the Mesoamerican religious system selects and hold, apparently have to do with: a) the pole of the sensory and corporal-material as compensation for the excessively abstract Christian religion. B) The daily and productive activities, health, and so on. C) Everything seems to obey the indigenous imperative of “principle of participation”, that is the key of syncretism with the immediate experience of reality component.

The bridges of syncretism

We understand for religious syncretism — there can be other types — the blending of two or more religious belief systems, or the incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions, into a new system. In some cases, in order to be able to speak about syncretism the authors prove to be more demanding than we are and see it as “the ambiguous and temporary coexistence, inside a coherent religious standard, elements of religions and diverse contexts”.18 Pye provides three possible outcomes of the “temporariness” of syncretism: dissoluteness, rooting out or building of a new synthesis resulting from overcoming the ambiguity stops being syncretism, overflowing the feature of original precariousness. In most cases, the syncretism processes in Latin America have taken place as results of a violent meeting of religions and cultures. They have been constituted in functional syntheses to answer to the implied challenge or fact to have to live with the gods of the conquerors or masters. The Latin-American syncretism, in its two fronts19, cannot get rid of the limit situation of the conquest and of the colonial oppression.

This fundamental fact must prepare us against the ambiguities that the term still contains. Let’s suppose with Pye that we accept the temporary character of the syncretism processes. In this case we should be conscious that in this process previous to the end, in any of the possible options that it raises, where the most interesting events appear regarding intercultural relations in the stages of confrontation. In other words, from the point of view of the intra and intercultural dynamics, the process on how the responses were constructed will be more important than the final score or the already codified response.

As regards as the importance of the role that play the relations of power in the development of the syncretism processes as in its later conceptualization, Droogers — in the work that probably is the most important one in the last years on syncretism —20 warns that one cannot forget that, in general, two systems of meanings confronted in a syncretism process are in a game of asymmetric relations:

If power is defined as the ability to influence on the behavior of other people, the syncretism has a scale of power. The clergy can legitimate its power in religious terms. In addition, it is possible that the secular power is also religiously justified. In return, the religious elite can receive a secular help in the struggle against all those that try to produce religion in an autonomous way, without the assent of the clergy and in contradiction of the official religion. When the social context involves a cultural plurality, the struggle for the power can be not only between clergy and laity or between high and under clergy, but also between different cultures. The official religion, imported or indigenous, behaves usually as a cultural domineering factor.21

This way, in the dialectics of the processes (disqualification and eradication) and in the value conceptualization of the same ones (magic, superstition or idolatry) the relations of power mark the syncretism.

In certain way, these mechanisms can be detected in the process that De la Serna describes, and how to face up to the facts by describing and “solving” them. In his meticulous pursuit of the phenomenon of which he is a witness, he discovers that few things are saved from the transformation that in that moment was taking place.

Alarmed by the magnitude of the problem, de la Serna expresses himself as follows the next text written in his own words: “y no se contentaban, entonces, con mezclar y confundir las cosas dichas, sino que pasaban más adelante a mezclar algunas de los Sacramentos de la Sancta Madre Iglesia con sus ritos y supersticiones…”22

Immediately lists some of the bridges of syncretism that are constructed between the sense and the intention of the baptism, the assertion, the marriage, the Eucharist, the confession and the extreme unction and the different available passage rites in the native religious system.

Nevertheless, syncretism does not stop in the limits of the ritual. In addition, the conception of the divinity and of the sacred beings is experiencing an important reinterpretation process:

Llamanlo Dios Tetatzin, que quiere decir Dios Padre, conservando en este nombre el antiguo, conque lo llamavan, Padre y Madre en cuyas manos nacimos; y como án oido predicar que el Spiritu Sancto vino en lenguas de fuego sobre los apóstoles, atribuyen el nombre de dios Spiritu Sancto á el fuego, entendiendo por él a su Dios que es el fuego. Llamanle otros San Simeón y otros San Joseph, porque ordinariamente los pintan viejos. Y con estos nombres disimulan y conservan el antiguo nombre con que llaman a el fuego Huehuentzin, que quiere decir viejo…23

It is clear that the processes of syncretism that happened all over took the indigenous groups as protagonists. It was not a syncretism propitiated by the missionary pedagogic. It was, from all points of view, “a syncretism from below”. The Spanish evangelists, forgetting or ignoring that the Christianity of the peninsula also was a mosaic of syncretism elements that were coming from far, tried always to implant pure orthopraxis and orthodoxy. The council’s orientation as well as the catechisms, the confessionals and the literature on the eradication processes offer abundant testimonies of the clear intention of the missionaries and Parish managers. However, the results were not the expected ones.

Regarding the latter point, Jacinto de la Serna offers us some indications that allow raising things from an unexpected point of view. On having mentioned that many Indians of the towns of San-Mateo, Xalatlaco and Tenango (Valle of Toluca) were practising “superstitions and sorcery” to banish the cloudiness and the risk of hail damage for their crops, leaving steadfastness of the presence of several indigenous ministers who were paid to make such rituals. These ministers were paid by means of the community contribution of “half real, or real, pulque or other things so that with their conjurations they were avoiding the spell of rough weather or storm”. Apparently, not everything could diminish the persistence of old beliefs in the persons. There were also those who were turning to the indigenous beliefs. The unusual information on this follows:

…. y de un español mayordomo de una de aquellas haziendas que estan por allí del conde de Sanctiago, [el indio] declaró que también le auían pedido paga para estos y para otros de este officio y que les había respondido, que, si otro español que también era mayordomo la diesse, el la daría y que aquel día que le auian pedido la paga auia caido un granizo tan grande que le auía echado a perder toda su sementera y el tal Español con el sentimiento de lo sucedido en su sementera le dixo malas palabras y riñó con un indio de quien tenía noticia y sospecha era deste offi cio, porque se auia descuidado tanto en
ahuyentar el granizo….24

In another place, on the cause that follows in other one of the villages (San Mateo Texcaliacac), some Spanish found themselves also in an awkward situation being followed by the same crime:

…pues sacando a uno, el más culpado con su coroza y como penitente, no solo no mostró estarlo [arrepentido] mas con toda resolución y descaramiento, viendo que algunos de los españoles circunvecinos que auian acudido a ver esta justicia se reían del, por ser mas conocido: les dixo que de que se reían pues no era maravilla que a el lo castigasen siendo indio; pues también castigaban españoles por semejantes delitos. Con que se conoce el mucho daño que auía allí….25

It is clear that testimonies of this tenor are small compared to those that give account of the share of the natives in these practices. Nevertheless, they put us in the track of something important: also, the popular Christianity of the Spanish was experiencing certain grade of syncretism transformation in contact with the indigenous beliefs. The Spanish, defaulting on the payment to the Minister and with the crop damaged by the hailstorm, does not rebuke the Indian because of his “superstitious practice but for neglecting to frighten away the hail”. Although, as De la Serna reports, it is for sure a question of agricultural practices of the indigenous religion, functionally similar rituals abounded in the medieval Christendom heir of the religions of the Germanic peoples.26 The surprising thing here is to find some Spanish participating in the religious indigenous universe as part of a process of “reverse evangelization”.

De la Serna offers us some particulars of the ritual in question and in them demonstrates with clarity the swaying of the elements of both systems that were part of the new synthesis:

Conjuraba con una culebra viva rebuelta en un palo y decía: “a vosotros Ahuaque y Tlaloque” que quiere decir “truenos y relámpagos”: ya comienzo a desterraros para que os aparteis unos a una parte y otro a otra. Y esto decía santiguándose y soplándolos con la voca y haziendo bueltas con la cabeza de Norte a Sur para que con la violencia del soplo que daba se esparciesen. “Amada y Madre mía, Reyna y Madre de Dios, Sancta María ayudame, sed mi intercesora, porque ay muchas cosas que son hechuras vuestras que se pierden”.
And then he added: “Sanctiago el moço, ayudame, varón fuerte, vencedor y hombre valeroso, valedme y ayudadme que se perderán las obras y hechuras de Dios todo poderoso”.
Y santiguándose decía “en el nombre del Padre y del Hijo y del Spiritu
Sancto. Amen” y soplando a un cabo y a otro se ivan las nuves y daba a Dios gracias de auerlas ahuyentado.27

Apparently, this was the basic guided ritual, probably to Tláloc and to the Christian god as part of this logical piece of syncretism news of participation and inclusion. Again, it seems that from the person in charge of the extirpation it disconcerts, more than the persistence of the so-called idolatry, the pretension to construct a qualitatively new functional synthesis from two religious systems:

Desta manera usaban y usan oy, si hay algunos deste officio, estos conjuros, mezclando las cosas divinas y ceremonias de la Iglesia con sus supersticiones. Y esto se verifica con una pintura de un Idolo que se halló en el oratorio de uno destos conjuradores cuya pintura original pondré luego, y en relación es como referiré:28

The diligence of De la Serna reproduces us the image (dated in 1587) with a foot of image that accompanies the original one29. The text is the translation of the original legend in náhuatl that found De la Serna and transcribed literally. He also does an iconographic interpretation of the discovery:

Es un ídolo formado de la mitad de un águila y la mitad de un tigre: la figura del águila a la mano derecha y la del tigre a la izquierda, en medio del pecho de ambos la figura del Ssmo. Sacramento, encima una cruz con su vanderilla a el modo de la de S. Juan Baptista, en la parte inferior en medio de las piernas del águila y del tigre un carnero pendiente al modo que se pinta un toson, la pierna y el pie del aguila estriba sobre unas piedras y la del tigre sobre un libro que por la interpretación de la invocación, son las horas de Ntra Sra. La mano del tigre tenía una acha y unos como cordeles en ella30.

De la Serna, after transcribing textually the original text, adds “it has been copied with all the mistakes. The lesson can remain like that”.

DA380301

In addition, he writes, next, the correct version. This information allows us to think that probably the author of the image and the text was a native of certain grammar and, perhaps, with some minor charge in the local church that was allowing him to refer to the Indians as “plebeian and the low and common people.” In fact, frequently the syncretism systematizers were persons placed in the two religious hierarchies: catechist assistants or helpers in the parish and ministers of indigenous rituals, and they enjoyed a prestigious position in both hierarchical systems. The case does not have anything surprising, since even in the decade of 1970 in the surroundings of Ayaviri (Handle, Peru), Luis Dalle documented repeated cases in which the celebrants of the “payments” to the Pachamama in August were veteran catechists of the parishes,31 and in many places of the south of Peru this practice has come to XXI century.

Finally, De la Serna adds some elements of his own interpretation: “Esta figura de atrás en quanto á el hacha y el cordel corresponde a la fiesta de los casados, como veremos en el cap. 10, p. 3”. In this site, the author describes the sixteenth mobile party of the Mexica calendar, dedicated to god of marriages:

[…] componían el Dios y Diosa de los casamientos que unos decían era Mixcoatl y su marido Chimalmatl, padres de Quetzalcóatl”. “Los moços por casar entravan en la solemnidad desta fi esta muy emplumados quanto podían o los ya casados o que estavan para efectuar sus matrimonios, con achas de rajar leña … como hombres obligados ya por su estado a el trabajo ….
Hazíase por el Achcautlitlenamacani un gran sermón en público por el qual se persuadía los oyentes a los trabajos del campo o a los de la guerra o a los de la mercancía por el bien general de la República.32

According to this, it is possible that the reference to these tasks to which the married ones were formally introduced is contained in the fields or portion of ground in which the eagle seems to lean its claw, in the axe that grasps the tiger and in the lamb suspended by the chain that hangs from the cross. All these elements seem to be sustained by the divine partner (Eagle – Tiger) of the indigenous pantheon, and by the cross and the Eucharist as major symbols of the Christian ritual.

Estas invocaciones y la figura de este ídolo tiene mucho fundamento sobre la fabula de el Sol que después referiré y desta manera mezclan las cosas diuinas y de nuestra sagrada Religión con los abusos y torpezas de sus idolatrías, teniendo por cierto que uno y otro se puede ussar y uno y otro es necesario.33

Everything indicates that the syncretism processes were coming to all the ambiences, and always in the inclusive perspective of “one and the other”. De la Serna describes another proof that the indigenous ministers not always had an exclusive intention to cover up the indigenous credence with Christian appearances:

[…] pues ha sucedido que estando ya un enfermo confesado y comulgado y oleado, llega el Titxilt (ministro indígena) y le exorta a palabras de consuelo para mejor lograr su malicia y le dize que ya sabe como los Predicadores le an dicho que Dios, Nuestro Señor es seruido que las almas que salen desta vida purguen sus peccados, saliendo en gracia en el Purgatorio con fuego temporal y si en peccado mortal con fuego eterno, que se componga aquí antes de morir con el fuego y le ofrezca sacrificio para que donde quiera que fuere después de muerto lo tenga propicio, para que no lo atormente tanto como lo atormetara si no uviera offrescidole sacrificio.34

Syncretism and Health

Repeatedly De la Serna affirms that the main cause of syncretism (in addition to the Demon, of course) is the fact that the Indians feel that the indigenous religion has immediate responses to the daily problems. No wonder why the field of health and illness has been particularly fertile for the syncretism synthesis, demonstrated in consistent and general form in the second half of the XVII century in New Spain. Certainly, because of his medical culture, De la Serna was a witness and an exceptional observer in this sense.

Our author observes two especially important moments in that the syncretism elements appear in the ambience of the medicine:

1. The Initiation in the art of healing, in a shaman way, often have to do with interventions of people and supernatural messages of the Christian pantheon.

In other cases, although they do not realize the initiation rite, certain accidents or shortcomings of birth are taken and exhibited as proof of the power that they possess.35 The same fact has been gathered repeatedly in the Andean Peruvian area.

Particularly eloquent, according to the testimony of De la Serna was the case of a famous healer of the city of Cuernavaca, capital of the marquisate. It is about “un indio viejo y venerable…tenido por hombre marauilloso y sancto y que tenía virtud divina del cielo para curar enfermedades”.36 When De la Serna inquired on the origin of the powers the Indian said that had been an experience in which he was visited by three ladies dressed in White who said to him: “tú eres pobre y miserable y curando tendrás en el mundo de comer y beber”, y entonces le enseñaron las palabras con que “auía de curar y que desde aquel día auía comenzado a curar y auia curado siempre y acertado las curas por muy dificultosas que fuesen; y con esto le volvieron los de las túnicas blancas a su casa y auiendo vuelto en sí halló que lo llorauan todos los de ella teniéndole ya por muerto”.

The visitors in the vision of the native turned out to be Virgin Mary, Verónica and another one that he did not recognize. During the interrogation, he told De la Serna: “el officio que ussaba era de curandero y que no lo auía aprendido de gente deste mundo, sino de la otra vida, como siempre lo auía dicho y persuadido a toda aquella comarca; la medicina que ussaba era punsar el vientre con una aguja con las palabras que le auían enseñado los dos de las vestiduras blancas”.
Those words and phrases that these women taught him were pronounced in different moments:

1. Ea pues, culebra blanca, culebra amarilla, aduierte que ya te demasías y que dañas el cofre o el sestonsillo.
2. Las cuerdas de carne (que son las tripas) pero ya va allá el Aguila blanca: pero no es mi intención dañarte ni destruirte que solo pretendo impedir el daño que hazes compeliéndote a que te arrincones en un rincón y allí impidiendo tus poderosas manos y pies.
3. Mas en caso de rebeldía y que no me obedezcas llamaré en mi ayuda al espíritu conjurando Huactzin y juntamente llamaré al negro chichimeco que también tiene hambre y sed y arrastra sus tripas que entre tras ti.
4. También llamaré a mi hermana la de la saya de piedras que desaliña piedras y árboles en cuya compañía irá el pardo conjurado que irá haziendo ruido en el lugar de las piedras preciosas y de las arcas;
5. Tambien le acompañará el verde y el pardo espiritado en el nombre de el Padre y de el Hijo y de el Spiritu Sancto.37

After transcribing the conjuration, De la Serna, as critical doctor and of minister that unmasks idolatries and lies38, offers us a meticulous explanation. This explanation consists of a process of eight steps, concluding that all these conjurations are superstitious and a few diabolical metaphors to hide idolatries, as to mean with them the type of the illnesses. Similar cases were common. An Indian who was healing with peyote assured “that the Holiest Virgin of the Remedies personally had showed him the medicinal plants so that in it he could have his earning and could sustain himself by what the patients were paying him”.39 Another Indian called Juan de la Cruz, born in the real of Zacualpa, said that he was also bleeding his patients “as all the other Spanish” but as a difference of them, his art to cure came from heaven, and that:

[…] se le havía aparecido el Angel San Gabriel y el Angel San Miguel y que los vio baxar del Cielo y que de allí truxeron una lanzeta y se la entregaron y le dixeron: “Hijo mío Juan de la Cruz, de parte de Dios Nuestro Señor te venimos a enseñar de la manera que as de sangrar para que sirvas a Dios… y manda Dios que de cada sangría de cada braço te den dos reales por tu trabajo”.40

Five years later, the same Indian had another mystical experience during an illness. This time Virgin Mary healed him and delivered to him as medicinal plants the following ones: quanenepilli, tlatlanquaio, xoxotlatzin and quapopotzin. “And She ordered to him that when someone was sick, to treat them with those medicinal plants” delivering to him a detailed ritual for the healings.41

However, De la Serna, doctor and orthodox theologian and critic, surprises us on having delivered a test of the existing uncertainty as for the relation between religion and medicine, as tension field between two religious systems in a battle for hegemony. Without being able to hide his intention of competition with the ministers that he is chasing, he offers us this confession of what he did with a sick person who was dying of hemorrhage:

Y yo tenía un pedaço de hueso del Sancto y Venerable Gregorio López, que me auía dado una persona de toda satisfacción… y con la mayor devoción que pude fi ando poco de mi indignidad y mucho de los meritos del Sancto, en una cucharada de agua le di a beber un pedacito del huesso, exortándola a que se encomendase a aquel Sancto que la sanaría y libraría de aquel mal que padecía; y así como lo bebió sintió aliuio en sus ansias y bascas…
Con que conocidamente el Sancto Gregorio López a mi entender hizo dos milagros: uno el dar salud a aquella enferma… y el otro milagro fue que en ocasión de la enfermedad desta india … que terminó con echar aquella lana con lo que dentro tenía, se començó a rugir que era hechizo y que había reñido con una india de aquel pueblo.42

In spite of a desperate attempt in order not too loose area, the Christianity had not properly developed healing rites. The theology about “sacrament of the unction of the patients” had more connotations of “extreme unction” or of preparation to the nearby death, than an attempt for retaining life. Therefore, the “fighting illnesses” area was a propitious space for the indigenous religions and that these were doing of the environment of the ailments an instance of necessary syncretism.

Partly for his minister’s zeal to chase idolatries and partly for his doctor’s curiosity that confronts an alternative system of healing, De la Serna delivers a wide repertoire of illnesses and medicines that by that time were circulating in the center of New Spain.

After many years as visitor of several archbishops, and having been employed intensely at the discovery and eradication of superstitions and rites that he considered idolatries, De la Serna, doctor and theologian, did not manage to understand the deep reasons the natives had to consider medicine and religion as very close. For the mixture with the religion, he calls medicine “lies and quackery”. And blemishes religion of idolatry and superstition, due to the connections with the traditional worldview. He did not understand that, in the perspective of a participative and integrated worldview, an illness that does not receive a “religious” treatment, could not exist.

No hay enfermedad, por leve que sea, que no la curen con supersticiones, porque como sus médicos no saben otras curas, si no son sus inuocaciones, fiados en ellas curan de todas enfermedades, aprouechen o no aprouechen los ingredientes; que ellos no miran sino al Demonio, a quien inuocan.43

Conclusions

Evidently, in the Manual of Jacinto de la Serna appear many elements of the indigenous religions that were circulating and surviving in secret during the first half of the XVII century, as resistance of a cultural identity that was not resigning to disappear. The process can be synthesizing it in the following conclusions:

1. In the period in which the studied facts take place there is a wide and deep process of syncretism that seems to develop throughout. From this process, few items of Christianity proposed to the evangelized Indians are saved: a) God and the supernatural Christian beings are re-interpreted as regards entities of the indigenous pantheon. b) The Christian sacraments receive also new significances that allow them to integrate into the indigenous worldview. c) Countless rituals from the indigenous religion and nonexistent in the Christian rituals are re-prepared by means of Christian contents and a perspective of integrating participation. And d) within this abundant and popular ritual the fields of the agrarian production, the health and the life cycles turn into particularly fertile spaces.
2. Seen from a historical perspective, that process of syncretism demonstrated an intense creativity in all the levels of the new emergent identity. And despite the attempts for preventing it, both in Peru and in New Spain, it was the one that marked the future of the indigenous and half-caste America.
3. This case also allows us to understand that the direction that takes the syncretism does not depend on a powerful position. Not only the defeated ones produce syncretism in order to resist the conqueror and for their will to preserve their threatened identity. Also the winners produced it in order to reconstruct and to adapt their symbolic system to the new historical, social and cultural situation. It is possible to understand why for Spanish peasants that arrived in America, culturally speaking and kept the due proportion, this need was similar to that of the natives.
4. For the cultural transformation that it produces, the syncretism becomes a political fact. Being a part of the popular religion, the syncretism is generated, usually, from below and from the margin, in the lowest social niches. This way, the dialectical tension of the ministers and of the syncretic communities with the official culture is inevitable because: a) what is in game is the monopoly of the official specialists or the popular autonomy in the management of the symbolic44 goods. And b) only the administrative unit and the uniformity of the religious system could guarantee the legitimizing role in favor of the political field on the part of the ecclesiastic device; for this reason, the so-calls idolatries were threatening the colonial order.
5. In the last paragraphs of his Manual, don Jacinto de la Serna has his own conclusion, very differently, certainly, of ours:

No habrá cosa que más haga volver los tiempos a felicidad que el no dexar rastro de idolatría ni memoria de ella; y sobre las diligencias que siempre se án hecho en destruir idolos, buscar los que ubiere y borrar de todo punto memorias tan perniciosas; que con eso, entonces habrá felicidad de virtudes en esta Iglesia mexicana, quando no aiga idolatrías, y en castigando los Maestros y dogmatistas que las enseñan entonces se pueden todos prometer felices sucesos….45

This was the last vision of someone who never noticed until what point was new and irreversible what was growing before his eyes. Neither could he understand that the new emergent identity could walk other ways in which perhaps the always-evasive happiness could be found.

Bibliography

Arriaga, P. J., Extirpación de la idolatría en el Perú, Madrid, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1968.

Bourdieu, Pierre, “Genèse et structure du camp religieux”, en Revue Française de Sociologie, París, XII, 1971.

De Balsalobre, G. “Relación auténtica de las idolatrías, supersticiones y vanas observaciones de los indios del obispado de Oaxaca”, en Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México, México, Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 1953.

Bernand, C. y Gruzinski, D., De la idolatría. Una arqueología de las ciencias religiosas, México, FCE, 1992.

Carmagnani, Marcelo, El regreso de los dioses. El proceso de reconstitución de la identidad étnica en Oaxaca. Siglos XVII y XVIII, México, FCE, 1988.

De Acosta, José, De procuranda indorum salute, en Francisco Mateos (ed.), Obras del P. José de Acosta, Madrid, Atlas (Biblioteca de Autores Españoles 73), 1954, [1588].

De la Serna, Jacinto, Manual de ministros de indios para el conocimiento de sus idolatrías y extirpación de ellas, en Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México, México, Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 1953 [1630].

Drogers, A., The problem of definition, the definition of problem, en Jerald Gort et al., Dialogue and syncretisme. An interdisciplinary approach, Grand Rapids, William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

Duviols, Pierre, La lutte contre les religions autochtones dans le Pérou colonial. L’estirpation de l’Idolatrie entre 1532 et 1660, Lima, IFEA, 1972.

Fuentes, Carlos, El espejo enterrado, México, FCE, 1992.

____________, Nacionalismo e integración, en Este País, núm. 1, México, 1991.

Gort, J. et al. (eds.), Dialogue and syncretism. An interdisciplinary approach, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

Gruzinski, S., La colonización de lo imaginario. Sociedades indígenas y occidentalización en el México español. Siglos XVI-XVIII, México, FCE, 1991.

Levy-Bruhl, L., El alma primitiva, Barcelona, Península, 1974.

León-Portilla, Miguel, El reverso de la conquista, México, Joaquín Mortiz, 1980.

Matet, J. y R. Pannet, “Vialart de Herse, évêque de Châlons-sur-Marne (1640-1680). Le sens et les limites d’une réformation”, en Plongeron-Pannet, Le christianisme populaire, París, Le Centurion, 1976.

Marzal, M., El sincretismo iberoamericano: Un estudio comparativo sobre los quechuas (Cusco), los mayas (Chiapas) y los africanos (Bahía), Lima, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1985.

Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del, Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México, México, Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 1953.

Ponce, P., “Tratado de los dioses y ritos de la gentilidad”, en Teogonía e historia de los mexicanos, México, Porrúa, 1973.

Todorov, T., La conquista de América. El problema del otro, México, Siglo XXI, 1999.

Author: José Luis González M., Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Translation by Carmen Martí Cotarelo.

  1. Carlos Fuentes, “Nacionalismo e integración”, 1991. []
  2. Jacinto de la Serna, Manual de ministros de indios para el conocimiento de sus idolatrías y extirpación de ellas, in Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México, 1953. []
  3. Ibidem, 74. []
  4. Ibidem, 76. []
  5. Ibidem, 77. []
  6. P. J. Arriaga, Extirpación de la idolatría en el Perú, 1968. []
  7. Pierre Duviols, La lutte contre les religions autochtones dans le Pérou colonial. L’estirpation de l’Idolatrie entre 1532 et 1660, 1972, 349. Hereafter the quotations in italics are ours. []
  8. Idem. []
  9. Tzvetan Todorov, La conquista de América. El problema del otro, 1999, 195. The author differentiates the epistemic, axiological and praxeological plans as several variables that determined the different forms of relationship with “the other” (the defeated) who practiced the conquerors. []
  10. José de Acosta, “De procuranda indorum salute”, 1954, 428. []
  11. L. Levy-Bruhl, El alma primitiva, 1974, 172. []
  12. Idem. []
  13. Jacinto de la Serna, op. cit., 63. []
  14. Ibidem, 62. []
  15. Ibidem, 52. []
  16. Ibidem, 54. []
  17. Ibidem, 58. []
  18. M. Pye, “Syncretism and ambiguity”, in Numen, nbr. 18, 1971, mentioned by A. Droogers, “The problem of definition, the definition of problem”, in Jerald Gort et al., Dialogue and syncretisme An interdisciplinary approach, 1989, 93. This essay is part, as far as we know, of the most recent balance attempt regarding the actual view of studies about the syncretism phenomena. []
  19. Manuel M. Marzal, El sincretismo iberoamericano, 1985, p. 175. The author, in a more descriptive perspective, raises that the syncretism is one of the possible exits that can stem from the meeting of two different religious systems: synthesis and new religion; juxtaposition and coexistence, and sincretic integration in a new functionality.. Also see Gort, J. et al (eds.), Dialogue and syncretism, An interdisciplinary approach, 1989. []
  20. A. Droogers, op. cit., 14. []
  21. Ibidem, 16. []
  22. Jacinto de la Serna, op. cit., 65. []
  23. Idem. []
  24. Ibidem, 78. []
  25. Ibidem, 84. []
  26. Matet, J. y R. Pannet, “Vialart de Herse, évêque de Châlons-sur-Marne (1640-1680). Le sens et les limites d’une réformation”, en Plongeron-Pannet, Le christianisme populaire, 1976, 169. []
  27. Jacinto de la Serna, op. cit., 79. []
  28. Idem. []
  29. Idem. []
  30. Ibidem, 79. []
  31. Luis Dalle, “El Despacho”, in Alpanchis, nbr. 1, 1973. The “pay” is the offering offered to the Pachamama (Mother Earth) in the month of August, in order to obtain fertility in the agricultural cycle that begins. []
  32. Jacinto de la Serna, op. cit., 181. []
  33. Ibidem, 81. []
  34. Ibidem, 103. []
  35. Ibidem, 240. []
  36. Ibidem, 85. []
  37. Ibidem, 87. []
  38. Ibidem, 88. []
  39. Ibidem, 98-102. []
  40. Ibidem, 103. []
  41. Ibidem, 104. []
  42. Ibidem, 97. []
  43. Ibidem, 296. []
  44. Pierre Bourdieu, “Genèse et structure du camp religieux”, en Revue Française de Sociologie, 1971, 312. []
  45. Ibidem, 367 []

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