Martin Nesvig

Associate Professor, History, University of Miami

Teonanactl and the spiritual un-conquest of Michoacán

Abstract:

This presentation is about the use of hallucinogens and other autochthonous Mesoamerican plants used for ritual or non-ritual use. The socio-political context is western New Spain, a frontier region where localized power dominated and set up micro caudillo fiefdom-ranches, encomiendas, and haciendas. My analysis will focus on the different ways in which substances like hallucinogenic mushrooms (teonanactl, or nanactl) and peyote served certain purposes in pre-contact/early post contact indigenous societies that were ritualized and governed by specific social expectations. Their use was often described as a mitote (a sort of crazy party). I am primarily interested in the ways in which non-indigenous peoples in New Spain (peninsulares, criollos, mestizos, mulattos) interpreted hallucinogen use. Time permitting, I may briefly discuss the use of tzoalli (statuettes of Huitzilipochtli, but in the western Mexican context portraying Xolotl and made of amaranth) in rituals which a notary described as areito, a Taíno word for festival. These examples offer opportunities for discussion of the complex ways cultural practices mutate and adapt in different ethnic contexts: for example, Spanish men who integrated into rural, monolingual indigenous Nahua communities, or criollo, mestizo, and mulatto peoples who adopted hallucinogen use in the context of multi-ethnic communities both urban and rural.

Martin Nesvig, who received his PhD at Yale University in 2004, is associate professor of history at the University of Miami. His work focuses on the intersection of popular religion, politics, and the Inquisition in New Spain. He is author of Promiscuous Power (U. Texas) (sobre los orígenes coloniales del valemadrismo michoacano), published in 2018, and Ideology and Inquisition (Yale) (sobre el sistema flexible de censura inquisitorial), published in 2009. He is currently completing a monograph, The Xolotl Orgy, which analyzes the influence of indigenous Mesoamerican customs, like hallucinogen use, in Spanish and mestizo social worlds y que también trata de como entraron palabras-conceptos como tianguis, teonanactl, y pahtli en el léxico español-mexicano y la conciencia católica mexicana.