The Legacy of Mesoamerica History and Culture of a Native American Civilization, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 14 THE RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS OF MESOAMERICA 513

Figure 14.5 The Tuxtla

Statuette. Iconography,

writing, and long count date

are in the Epi-Olmec style.

Provenance: San Andrés

Tuxtla, Veracruz, Mexico. The

date in the inscription

corresponds to A.D. 162. The

lower four glyphs in the

column on the left side of the

figure can be translated as

“The animal soul companion

is powerful” (Justeson and

Kaufman 1993: 1703).

Redrawn after W. H. Holmes,

“On a Nephrite Statuette

from San Andrés Tuxtla,

Mexico,” American

Anthropologist9 (1907),

691–701.

although Indian “autoethnography” was undoubtedly biased (in that it was “spon-
sored” by the Crown and was under the tutelage of priests for reasons having to do
with facilitating the missionary enterprise), we can with certainty claim to know a
great deal more of sixteenth-century Indian religious thought and practice than we
can pretend to know of earlier periods.
For this reason, we are able to offer brief sketches of the main precepts in two
contact-period religions, those of the Mexica (Aztecs) and, in Box 14.1, of the Mayas
of Yucatan, based in large part on native testimonies and written texts.