One of the most controversial actions undertaken by the Catholic Church in the conversion of the Indians of the New World was the destruction of their pre-Hispanic religion through the extirpation of their objects of worship: clay, wooden and stone idols. In the case of Yucatan, the focus area for this study, the Institution that oversaw the arrest and punishment of the Yucatec Maya for idolatry was not the Holy Office of the Inquisition, but rather the little known and less studied institution of the episcopal court called the provisorato de indios. This dissertation examines the little known institution, its procedures and ministers and their impact on colonial Maya religion Using new sources of primary documentation the dissertation suggests a new trend in the conflict between the Catholic Church and the Maya in colonial Yucatan: specifically an increase in the intensity and an institutionalization of the extirpation of idolatry. The dissertation titled 'The Indian Inquisition and the Extirpation of Idolatry: The Process of Punishment in the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Provisorato de Indios in Yucatan, 1563--1821' analyzes the role played by this episcopal court in the 'spiritual conquest' of the Maya by examining its significance in two parts The first part examines the origin and procedures of the colonial episcopal court [Chapters 1--6]. A second part [Chapters 7--10] examines the impact that this institution had on local Maya religion and its central role in inter-ethnic conflict. This case study for colonial Yucatan offers a new approach to the study of colonial Indigenous religion and Spanish/Indian inter-ethnic relations in the New World. The importance of the public administration of ecclesiastical punishment as a form of didactic missionary theatre is emphasized. The dissertation's conclusions suggest that the punishment inherent in the extirpation of idolatry served as the Yucatec Maya's main means of contact with Christianity. In the face of the repressive measures of the ecclesiastical courts the colonial Maya chose either to resist or to engage in flight. This dissertation concludes that both of these options, previously discovered and studied by various authors, were the outcome of their interaction with the processes and ministers of this ecclesiastical court / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23253 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Contributors | Chuchiak, John Franklin, IV (Author), Greenleaf, Richard E (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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