Tag: religion

Tlaquimilolli (Sacred Bundle)

Line Drawing of Teomamaque carrying sacred bundles after Codex Boturini, 2. Drawing by Molly Bassett.

The tlaquimilolli, or sacred bundle, is an extraordinary form of the quimilli or “bundle,” an object used in many Native American cultures, including the Mexica and Maya of Mesoamerica.

Creators: Mexica-Aztec priests

Date of Creation: c. 1325-1521

Place of origin: Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco

Physical measurements: Unknown

Materials: Textiles, pelts, bones, and other media

Process by which it was made: Collection and wrapping

Current location: There are no extant tlaquimilolli. Images of sacred bundles can be found in Contact-era codices, including the Florentine Codex.

Further Reading

Bassett, Molly H. The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-Bodies. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015.

Dean, Carolyn, and Dana Leibsohn. “Hybridity and Its Discontents:  Considering Visual Culture in Colonial Spanish America.” Colonial Latin American Review 12, no. 1 (2003): 5-35.

Durán, Diego. Historia De Las Indias De Nueva-España Y Islas De Tierra Firme. Vol. 1, Mèxico D.F.: Imp. de J.M. Andrade y F. Escalante, 1867-1880.

Grecco Pacheco, Daniel. “Ontologias envolvidas: conceitos e práticas sobre os envoltórios de tecido entre os maias.” Antipoda: Revista Antropología y Arqueología. 2019, n.37, pp.119-135. ISSN 1900-5407. http://dx.doi.org/10.7440/antipoda37.2019.06.

Guernsey, Julia, and F. Kent Reilly. 2006. Sacred bundles: ritual acts of wrapping and binding in Mesoamerica. Barnardsville, N.C.: Boundary End Archaeology Research Center.

Houston, Stephen, David Stuart, and Karl Taube. The Memory of Bones:  Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya. Joe R. And Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.

Karttunen, Frances. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

Lockhart, James. Nahuatl as Written:  Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts. Nahuatl Studies Series. Edited by James Lockhart and Rebecca Horn. Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001.

Magaloni Kerpel, Diana. “Powerful Words and Eloquent Images.” Chap. 10 In The Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, edited by Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano, 152-64. Texas: The University of Texas Press, 2019.

Martínez, José Luis. “Gerónimo De Mendieta.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, no. 14 (1980): 131-95.

Mendieta, Gerónimo de. Historia Eclesiástica Indiana. México: Antigua Libreria, 1870.

Olivier, Guilhem. “The Sacred Bundles and the Coronation of the Aztec King in Mexico-Tenochtitlan.” In Sacred Bundles: Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, edited by Julia Guernsey and F. Kent Reilly, 199-225. Barnardsville, NC: Boundary End Archaeology Research Center, 2006.

Olko, Justyna. Insignia of Rank in the Nahua World: From the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century. Boulder, US: University Press of Colorado, 2014.

Online Nahuatl Dictionary. 2020-2022

Sahagún, Bernardino de. Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy. Translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Vol. 6, Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1969.

———. Book 7: The Sun, the Moon and the Stars and the Binding of the Years. General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Vol. 7, Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1953.———. Book 11: Earthly Things. Translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Vol. 11, Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1963.

Information contributed by Molly Bassett.

Libreta by Lydia Cabrera

Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries

A handwritten text that contains religious information from not just the Lucumí religion, but also the Congolese Palo Monte tradition, and the Dahomean/Beninois-derived religion known as Arará.

Creators: Lydia Cabrera

Date of Creation: ca. 1950

Place of origin: USA

Physical measurements: 3 5/8” x 5 1/2,″ 100 pages.

Materials: Notebook with printed, illustrated cover.

Process by which it was made: Machine-made book with handwritten text and illustrations.

Current location: Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida. Part of the Lydia Cabrera Papers.

Information contributed by Martin Tsang.

Relation de ce qui s’est passé en La Nouuelle France, es années 1640. et 1641

A section from the seventeenth-century “Jesuit Relations,” which presents the dying words of Chiwatenhwa, a legendary “first convert” among the Wendats.

Creators: Joseph Chiwatenhwa [Wendat]; Barthélemy Vimont; Paul Le Jeune; Jérôme Lalemant

Date of Creation: Printed 1642

Place of origin: Paris

Materials: Paper

Process by which it was made: Letter-press printing

Current location: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania; Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Information contributed by John Pollack.

Burning of a Chief Priest

Courtesy of American Baptist Historical Society.

A detailed vision of the cremation of a prominent Burmese Buddhist monk.

Creators: Unknown Burmese artist

Date of Creation: Late 1830s

Place of origin: Tavoy, Burma (Dawei, Myanmar)

Physical measurements: 1 page

Materials: Watercolor, paper, pencil, ink

Process by which it was made: Painting

Current location: American Baptist Historical Society.

Further Reading

Isaacs, Ralph. 2009. “Rockets and Ashes: Pongyibyan as depicted in nineteenth-and twentieth-century European sources.” Journal of Burma Studies 13 (1): 107-136.

Lopez, Donald S. 1995. Curators of the Buddha: the study of Buddhism under colonialism. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press. 
Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism, University of Chicago Press.

Information contributed by Alexandra Kaloyanides.

Okodakiciye Wakan Tadowan Kin

A Dakota-language hymnal covered in animal hide and embroidered with porcupine quills.

Creator: Unknown Dakota Artist

Date of Creation: Published in 1885, decorated by an unknown Dakota artist before 1898.

Place of origin: Published in New York; embellished in South Dakota, probably the present-day Yankton Indian Reservation

Physical measurements: 172 pages; 14 cm.

Materials: Animal hide, porcupine quill, fabric and thread

Process by which it was made: Embroidery

Current location: Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University

Further Reading

Bebbington, Julia M. Quillwork of the Plains. Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1982.

Deloria, Philip J. Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019.

Hail, Barbara A. “Beaded Bibles and Victory Pouches: Twentieth Century Lakota Honoring Gifts.” American Indian Art Magazine 13, no. 3 (1988): 40–47. 

Hyman, Colette A. Dakota Women’s Work: Creativity, Culture, and Exile. Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012.

Lyford, Carrie A. Quill and Beadwork of the Western Sioux. Lawrence, KS: Haskell Institute, 1940.

Information contributed by Daniel Radus.