Manipulation of indigenous Christian memory in New Spain images in 16th-century

Abstract

In the following pages I will discuss the political use of indigenous past during the sixteenth century of New Spain, for this I go to examples of the conquest and the convents of San Miguel Arcángel in Ixmiquilpan, and San Nicolás Tolentino, in Actopan, both in the current Mexican state of Hidalgo. For this purpose, I will analyze the importance of recording and recovering the past in indigenous communities, both pre-Hispanic and viceregal. I show the discussion about the historical value of native sources, with the extreme positions of considering that every story of historical type in the background is a symbolization of reality, as well as the opposite position that supposes that at the bottom of a myth there is a distorted historical fact. I present as an alternative the intermediate position that, according to Navarrete (1999) reconciles both positions, recognizing connections that myth and history have in indigenous thought, as well as the importance of narrative schemes to frame events. To address the reality of New Spain, I will briefly discuss the importance of including the concept of indigenous Christianity as a central category of analysis, since it permeated cultural products of the sixteenth century.