214 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
during festivals. They acted in a general sense as mutual aid societies, caring for im-
poverished or orphaned members.
Cofradíaswere formally instituted and overseen by the Catholic Church: The na-
tive people were not free to invent their own. However, as they operated at the local
level, these organizations did allow people to organize their religious celebrations
much as they chose. The collective orientation undoubtedly appealed to the native
people, allowing them to come together in groups dedicated to a common purpose.
The confraternities counterbalanced the authority of the priest—an isolated for-
eigner—with that of local groups who controlled their own funds and whose cere-
monial rights and duties were inscribed in official statutes. Confraternities were
especially important for women, whom the priests barred from offices such as fiscal
and choirmaster. They were able to take on leadership roles within the confraterni-
ties; some confraternities were for women only. Thus, they could gain prestige in
their communities while participating actively in religious celebrations.
The Catholic saints were regarded as community sponsors and protectors. The
name of each town’s patron saint was combined with the town’s traditional name to
yield a composite designation; for example, San Miguel Tocuillan or San Andrés Cal-
pan. The town’s identity became linked to that of the saint in the minds of its resi-
dents, as seen in the land document in Box 5.2 where the saint is treated as the owner
of the town’s communal property. The centering of religious devotion around com-
munity patron saints makes sense in a context where the community was the most im-
portant unit, although devotion to the Virgin Mary and Jesus was widespread (Fig-
ure 5.12).
Because they did not see any necessary contradiction between Christian worship
and their own traditions, native people supplemented their Christian devotions with
many other practices that were more indigenous in character or that freely com-
bined Christian and native elements. This practice was particularly true in regard to
concerns that were not adequately addressed within the rudimentary form of Chris-
tianity that the native people were taught. Issues of personal, family, and group sur-
vival were the most prevalent concerns. These were dealt with through rituals
surrounding the birth of a child; through a wide range of curing techniques; and
through rites intended to ensure success in agriculture, hunting, or other subsis-
tence pursuits. Curers, midwives, and conjurers of the weather—people who were
credited with control over winds, rain, and hailstorms—enjoyed considerable pres-
tige and operated as informal religious authorities.
From the viewpoint of the Catholic priests, such practitioners were in league
with the Devil. The practitioners themselves, however, often claimed that their pow-
ers were given to them by God or a saint, whom they encountered in a vision. They
used formulas from Christian prayers in their incantations, and sometimes they ex-
plained misfortune in reference to Catholic supernaturals, claiming, for example, that
the sick person had angered a particular saint. At the same time, they invoked pre-
conquest deities, often using complex metaphors that masked these deities’ identity
behind a kind of secret language. They sometimes used psychogenic substances,
such as peyote or hallucinogenic mushrooms, in their quest for supernatural knowl-