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The concept of religion and its practice within ancient societies across the world is a subject that has fascinated scientists for centuries. The pre-Columbian Maya codices, first-hand Postclassic hieroglyphic documents, have been examined by hundreds of anthropologists. Analysis of these books has led scientist to hypothesize that these manuscripts were vitally connected to the Maya Postclassic belief system. Understanding the central focus of a civilization's religion and how, why and under what circumstances the religion is practiced truly distinguishes them as a culture. The intent of this thesis is to examine the role of rain in Maya Postclassic religious belief. Through an examination of Postclassic Maya ethnographies, archaeological evidence and the Maya Dresden, Paris and Madrid codices, this thesis evaluates the major theme of rain that is threaded throughout the culture and religion of the Maya people. By cross referencing ethnohistoric, ethnographic and archaeological evidence, it is revealed that rain was a fundamental-part of Maya religious practice as: 1) a symbol of fertility, 2) a phenomenon that people actively sought to control through religious practice and 3) as a fundamental building block of the Maya universe, construed broadly to encompass both the natural and divine elements of the universe.

Approximately sixteen texts in the Nag Hammadi codices can be classified as apocalypses. The principal concern of this study is to determine whether the genre of a selection of these Gnostic apocalypses was based on the traditional apocalypses (Jewish and Christian). In the first two chapters a new definition of the apocalypse is proposed and developed in relation to the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. This definition states that an apocalypse is essentially a literary work structured around a first person narrative account of a mediated revelation. Chapters three to five are devoted to a study of those Gnostic texts that recount revelations which the risen Christ is supposed to have given his disciples. After a study of the literature itself (chapter 3), there is a critique of Rudolph's hypothesis that the genre was based on Graeco-Roman dialogue genres (chapter 4). The fifth chapter sets forth and examines the two most probable ways to account for the genre of this literature: 1. the genre could have been based on the traditional apocalypse; 2. it is possible that the genre was created on the basis of post-passion traditions and was not directly modelled on any antecedent genre. In chapters six and seven it is argued that there is sufficient evidence to establish that the authors of Apocalypse of Peter (VII, 3) and the Apocalypse of Paul (V, 2) based their genres on the traditional apocalypse. The final chapter is devoted to a study of The Apocalypse of Adam (V, 5). This text contains elements characteristic of two traditional genres--the testament and the apocalypse. However in its present form ApocAd must be classified as a testament rather than an apocalypse. The last part of this chapter sets forth new evidence which establishes that ApocAd originated in Gnostic circles which had been influenced by Christian and Christian Gnostic traditions.

O objetivo dessa pesquisa é analisar e compreender quais os papéis dos agentes não humanos em narrativas genealógicas, históricas e cosmológicas mixtecas produzidas no final do período pré-hispânico e colonial inicial, sobretudo daquelas figuras consideradas como deidades pelos estudiosos desses manuscritos. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram analisadas, as supostas deidades e suas ações em quatro códices mixtecos: Bodley, Selden, Vindobonense e Zouche Nuttall, manuscritos pictoglíficos produzidos a mando de elites indígenas mixtecas. Os agentes envolvidos nessas histórias podem ser base para a compreensão do que seriam as concepções de história e poder político para essas elites mixtecas, pois a produção das narrativas contidas nos códices mesoamericanos estava intimamente ligada à influência e à justificativa de domínio político das elites indígenas. / This research aims to analyze and to comprehend the role of no human agents in the mixtec genealogical, historical, and cosmological narratives produced in the late pre-hispanic and early colonial period, more precisely those characters considered as deities by the specialists in the study of these manuscripts. To achieve this objective, the supposed deities and their actions will be analyzed in four mixtec codices: Bodley, Selden, Vindobonense and Zouche Nuttall, pictoglyphic manuscripts produced at behest of mixtec indigenous elites. The agents involved in these histories could be the basis to comprehend what would be the conceptions of history and political power to these elites, since the production of the narratives encloused in the mesoamerican codices were closely linked to the influence and justification of political domain of the indigenous elites.

Theories of writing are one of the fundamental ways by which Indigenous peoples have been labeled as "uncivilized." In these discussions, writing becomes synonymous with history, literacy, and often times Truth. As such, scholars studying Nahua codices and Andean khipu sometimes juxtapose the two because together they present a break in an evolutionary theory of writing systems that links alphabetic script with the construction of "complex civilizations." Contemporary scholars tend to offer an "inclusive" approach to the study of Latin American histories through challenging exclusive definitions of writing. These definitions are always informed and limited by language-the extent to which these "writing" systems represent language. However, recentering discussions of writing and language on what Gregory Cajete has called Native Science shifts the discussion to matters of ecology in a way that intersects with current scholarship in bicocultural diversity studies regarding the link between language, culture, and biodiversity. Because of the ways in which language configures rhetoric and writing studies, a shift in understanding how language emerges bears great impact on how we understand not only the histories tied to codices and khipu but also how they function as epistemologies. In my dissertation, I build a model of relationality using Indigenous and decolonial methodologies alongside the Nahua concept of in ixtli in yollotl (a wise face/a wise heart) and embodied rhetorics. The model I construct here offers a path for understanding "traditional" knowledges as fluid and mobile. I specifically look at the relationship between land, bodies, language, and Native Science functions on the reciprocal relationship between those three components in making meaning. I then extend this argument to show how the complex web of relations that we might call biocultural diversity produces and is produced by "things" like images from codices and khipu that in turn help to (re)produce biocultural diversity. Thing theory, in emerging material culture studies, argues for the agency of cultural artifacts in the making of various realities. These "things" always-already bear a relationship to bodies and "nature." Thing theory, then, can challenge us to see artifacts like khipu and Nahua images as language artifacts and help us connect Nahua images and khipu to language outside of a text-based model. Ultimately, I argue that Native Science asks us to see language as a practice connected to biocultural diversity.

O objetivo dessa pesquisa é analisar e compreender quais os papéis dos agentes não humanos em narrativas genealógicas, históricas e cosmológicas mixtecas produzidas no final do período pré-hispânico e colonial inicial, sobretudo daquelas figuras consideradas como deidades pelos estudiosos desses manuscritos. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram analisadas, as supostas deidades e suas ações em quatro códices mixtecos: Bodley, Selden, Vindobonense e Zouche Nuttall, manuscritos pictoglíficos produzidos a mando de elites indígenas mixtecas. Os agentes envolvidos nessas histórias podem ser base para a compreensão do que seriam as concepções de história e poder político para essas elites mixtecas, pois a produção das narrativas contidas nos códices mesoamericanos estava intimamente ligada à influência e à justificativa de domínio político das elites indígenas. / This research aims to analyze and to comprehend the role of no human agents in the mixtec genealogical, historical, and cosmological narratives produced in the late pre-hispanic and early colonial period, more precisely those characters considered as deities by the specialists in the study of these manuscripts. To achieve this objective, the supposed deities and their actions will be analyzed in four mixtec codices: Bodley, Selden, Vindobonense and Zouche Nuttall, pictoglyphic manuscripts produced at behest of mixtec indigenous elites. The agents involved in these histories could be the basis to comprehend what would be the conceptions of history and political power to these elites, since the production of the narratives encloused in the mesoamerican codices were closely linked to the influence and justification of political domain of the indigenous elites.

Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo analisar um conjunto de fontes mexicas e fontes tlapanecas, com narrativas históricas e registros tributários ameríndios, para compreender as representações produzidas por mexicas e tlapanecas sobre os acontecimentos políticos e econômicos em que se estabeleceram relações de subordinação tributária entre suas elites, vigentes de 1486 a 1521. Assim, iremos contrapor e comparar como essas relações foram representadas por duas unidades que são parte de um mesmo sistema tributário no qual ocupam posições distintas, uma como cabeceira da própria Tríplice Aliança, que é México-Tenochtitlan, e outra que é cabeceira de sua província, que é Tlapa-Tlachinollan. A hipótese inicial é que mexicas e tlapanecas construíram representações históricas diferentes sobre suas relações porque baseavam-se nos interesses de promover narrativas que destacassem o poderio de suas próprias elites. Essa relação de subordinação tributária dos tlapanecas está inserida em uma superestrutura administrativa de império, aplicada pelos mexicas, na qual era importante a manutenção de certa autonomia política das elites locais na condução cotidiana das províncias, de modo a não sobrecarregar o aparato estatal mexica. Dessa maneira, propomos um estudo mais detalhado das relações regionais nesse sistema de dominação, considerando a perspectiva representada por um dos poderios locais que compôs esse império, e destacando o sistema tributário como elemento que direcionava e mantinha essas relações de domínio político e de subordinação a partir da centralização estatal controlada por algumas elites. / The present study analyses selected mexica and tlapanec sources such as historical narratives and Amerindians tribute records to understand representation made by mexicas and tlapanecs about happenings in which were involved political and economical subordination relationship between their elites from 1486 to 1521. Therefore comparisions and interposition of how those relationships were two parts of one same tributary system playing different roles, one as head of Mexico - Tenochtitlan Triple Alliance and the other as head of its own Tlapa - Tlachninollan province. The initial hypotesis is that mexicas and tlapanecs built their own hystorical representation because they were interested in promoting narratives that highlighted their own elites. This tlapanec tributary subordination relationship is inserted in an Empire administration superstructure, used by mexicas and important in maintaning they local elite political autonomy in daily province management in order not to overload mexica state apparatus. In such way, it was conducted a more detailed study of their local relationships in the domination system, considered the perspective represented by one of the local power that was a part of the Empire with an emphasis on the tributary system as the factor that direct and kept those relationship public domain and subordination from State centralization controlled by some elites.

O objetivo desta dissertação é entender as concepções de tempo e espaço presentes nos códices mexicas produzidos no período colonial inicial, entendendo-as como parte das concepções de história desse povo. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram analisadas centralmente as representações de calendário e lugares políticos e de paisagem em cinco narrativas históricas contidas nos códices mexicas produzidos durante os séculos XVI e início do XVII: Boturini, Mendoza, Aubin, Vaticano A e Manuscrito 40, manuscritos compostos por textos pictoglíficos e alfabéticos, produzidos pelas elites mexicas e seus descendentes, a partir de demandas nativas, castelhanas e missionárias. As representações temporais e espaciais levantadas nas narrativas foram cotejadas com exemplos de origem pré-hispânica, contidos nos códices mixtecos e nos monumentos e gravados em pedra mexicas, com a finalidade de inferir possíveis relações com permanências e transformações das concepções de tempo e espaço dos mexicas durante o período colonial inicial. O entendimento desse conjunto de concepções, centrados nas representações de calendário e de lugares políticos e de paisagem contidas nas narrativas históricas mexicas, pode contribuir para compreender como as elites mexicas e seus descendentes concebiam sua própria história após a conquista castelhana. / This Master thesis aims to comprehend the conceptions of time and space in the colonial Mexica or Aztec codices, assuming them as part of the Mexicas conceptions of history. To achieve this objective, the representations of calendar signs, political and landscape places were centrally analyzed in five historical narratives from Mexica codices produced during the 16th and early 17th centuries: Boturini, Mendoza, Aubin, Vaticano A and Manuscrito 40. These manuscripts produced by the Mexicas elites and their descendants, based on native, Castilian and missionary demands were composed by pictoglyphic and alphabetical texts. The time and space representations were analyzed and compared to pre-Hispanic samples at Mixtec codices and Mexicas stone monuments, for the purpose of infer the possible relations of persistence and transformation on the Mexicas conceptions of time and space during the early colonial period. The comprehension of this set of conceptions, centrally on the representations of calendar signs, political and landscape places, may contribute to understand how the Mexicas elites and their descendants conceived their own history after the Castilian conquest.

The purpose of this thesis is to assess the extent to which the singular readings of a manuscript reveal the tendencies of the scribe who wrote its text by examining three related Greek manuscripts from the sixth century. The three manuscripts are all luxury copies of the Gospels' purple codices, so named because they are written in silver and gold ink on parchment that has been dyed purple. The manuscripts, Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus (N 022), Codex Sinopensis (O 023) and Codex Rossanensis (Σ 042), were all copied in the sixth century from a common exemplar. Chapter One introduces the three manuscripts. Chapter Two provides a history of research on scribal habits and singular readings, and it describes the method used in this thesis to determine both the validity of the singular readings method and the actual scribal habits of 022, 023 and 042. Chapter Three provides a preliminary assessment of each scribe by comparing scribal features in the passages extant in all three manuscripts. Chapters Four, Five and Six assess the scribal habits of 022, 023 and 042, respectively. In these chapters, perceived scribal habits are measured by a modified singular readings method to replicate the situation for each manuscript if it had no extant close relatives' the situation for most early manuscripts. Actual scribal habits are then determined by the places the scribe changed the text of the exemplar. Chapter Seven offers some concluding thoughts about the scribes, their exemplar and the use of singular readings to determine scribal habits. Appendix One presents for the first time an edition of the reconstructed text of the exemplar of 022, 023 and 042, where at least two of the three manuscripts are extant. Appendices Two, Three and Four are full transcriptions of the Gospel of Matthew in 022, 023 and 042, respectively. Appendix Five provides information on singular readings and corrections in 042 where it alone is extant of the three manuscripts. Appendix Six describes the codicological structures of the three manuscripts. Appendix Seven is a transcription and brief discussion of 080, a fragmentary of a purple codex dating to the sixth century. Finally, both 022 and 042 contain a series of secondary corrections made against a second exemplar, and Appendix Eight argues that the scribe of 042 was responsible for these corrections in both manuscripts.

O objetivo desta dissertação é entender as concepções de tempo e espaço presentes nos códices mexicas produzidos no período colonial inicial, entendendo-as como parte das concepções de história desse povo. Para alcançar esse objetivo foram analisadas centralmente as representações de calendário e lugares políticos e de paisagem em cinco narrativas históricas contidas nos códices mexicas produzidos durante os séculos XVI e início do XVII: Boturini, Mendoza, Aubin, Vaticano A e Manuscrito 40, manuscritos compostos por textos pictoglíficos e alfabéticos, produzidos pelas elites mexicas e seus descendentes, a partir de demandas nativas, castelhanas e missionárias. As representações temporais e espaciais levantadas nas narrativas foram cotejadas com exemplos de origem pré-hispânica, contidos nos códices mixtecos e nos monumentos e gravados em pedra mexicas, com a finalidade de inferir possíveis relações com permanências e transformações das concepções de tempo e espaço dos mexicas durante o período colonial inicial. O entendimento desse conjunto de concepções, centrados nas representações de calendário e de lugares políticos e de paisagem contidas nas narrativas históricas mexicas, pode contribuir para compreender como as elites mexicas e seus descendentes concebiam sua própria história após a conquista castelhana. / This Master thesis aims to comprehend the conceptions of time and space in the colonial Mexica or Aztec codices, assuming them as part of the Mexicas conceptions of history. To achieve this objective, the representations of calendar signs, political and landscape places were centrally analyzed in five historical narratives from Mexica codices produced during the 16th and early 17th centuries: Boturini, Mendoza, Aubin, Vaticano A and Manuscrito 40. These manuscripts produced by the Mexicas elites and their descendants, based on native, Castilian and missionary demands were composed by pictoglyphic and alphabetical texts. The time and space representations were analyzed and compared to pre-Hispanic samples at Mixtec codices and Mexicas stone monuments, for the purpose of infer the possible relations of persistence and transformation on the Mexicas conceptions of time and space during the early colonial period. The comprehension of this set of conceptions, centrally on the representations of calendar signs, political and landscape places, may contribute to understand how the Mexicas elites and their descendants conceived their own history after the Castilian conquest.