Weaving the Past A History of Latin America's Indigenous Women from the Prehispanic Period to the Present

by Kellogg, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780195123814
• ISBN10: 0195123816
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Weaving the Past is the first comprehensive history of Latin America's indigenous women. Concentrating mainly on native women in Mesoamerica and the Andes, Susan Kellogg also uncovers the history of indigenous people in other parts of South and Central America, including lowland peoples in and beyond Brazil, and Afro-indigenous peoples, such as the Garifuna of Central America. Common to these diverse peoples has been women's long history of labor and industry, political activism, and family and community sustenance. Here we meet women as diverse as Malinche, the translator and sometime consort of Hernan Cortes; Rigoberta Menchu, an activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Domitila Barrios de Chungara, an activist in Bolivia's mining communities in the 1970s. Spanning prehispanic, colonial, and modern Latin America, Weaving the Past is a work of remarkable historical synthesis, drawing upon a wide range of sources from archaeology, anthropology, religion, and politics. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Susan Kellogg is Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Houston.

Table of Contents

ONE Introducing the Indigenous Women of Latin America	3	(15)
Some Introductory Remarks	4	(1)
Some Useful Concepts	5	(6)
Some Background on Latin America's Earliest Women	11	(7)
TWO Of Warriors and Working Women: Gender in Later Prehispanic Mesoamerica and the Andes	18	(35)
Women and Gender among Northern and Central Mexican Peoples: Parallel Organizations, Hierarchical Ideologies	19	(11)
The Postclassic Ñudzahui: Elite Gender Complementarity	30	(5)
The Maya of the Classic and Postclassic Periods:The Flexible Patriarchy	35	(6)
The Andes: Women and Supernatural and State Power	41	(10)
Conclusion	51	(2)
THREE Colliding Worlds: Indigenous Women, Conquest, and Colonialism	53	(37)
Gender, Sex, and Violence in the Conquest Era	55	(8)
Laboring Women: Paying Tribute, Losing Authority	63	(8)
Family and Religious Life: The Paradoxes of Purity and Enclosure	71	(10)
A Rebellious Spirit	81	(5)
Conclusion	86	(4)
FOUR With Muted Voices: Mesoamerica's Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Women	90	(37)
Nahua Women: Complementarity within Submissiveness	92	(11)
Oaxaca: Land of the "Matriarchs"?	103	(9)
Maya Women: Working, Weaving, Changing	112	(13)
Conclusion	125	(2)
FIVE Fighting for Survival through Political Action and Cultural Creativity: Indigenous Women in Contemporary South and Central America	127	(42)
Women in the Andes: Revolutionizing Tradition in the Highland Cultures of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia	129	(13)
Women in the Tropical Lowlands of South America: Egalitarian Political Structures, Female Subordination, and the Fight for Cultural Survival	142	(15)
Indigenous Women in Central America: Searching for Empowerment in Diverse Circumstances	157	(10)
Conclusion	167	(2)
SIX Indigenous Women: Creating Agendas for Change	169	(10)
ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT AND THEIR ACRONYMS	179	(2)
GLOSSARY	181	(4)
NOTES	185	(54)
BIBLIOGRAPHY	239	(78)
INDEX	317