Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Mexico and Spain (review)

In Aztecs, Moors and Christians Max Harris attempts to provide us with a means of understanding the Mexican and Spanish festivals of moros y cristianos (Moors and Christians)-the street theater/mock battles that date from pre-conquest Aztec time to the present day.

Harris frames his book with descriptions of four contemporary festivals. In the prologue he moves from the celebration of the Morismas de Bracho (the Beheading of John the Baptist) in 1996 in the Spanish town of Zacatecas, to Cuetzalan Mexico in 1988 and their danza de los santiagos, to examine the dissenting voices in festivals of reconquest. Here, he relies on James Scott's concepts of "public" and "hidden transcripts," which lay the theoretical groundwork for the book. These festivals, he suggests, are an attempt by the subordinate group to explore their resistance to those in power by disguising it in drama in a public form. He uses the term reading mask (p. 23) to describe his approach to the variety of performances he describes. In the epilogue, Harris describes two more contemporary festivals-the danza de los matachines in northern New Mexico and Oaxaca's danza de la pluma. He argues that these two festivals also express the "hidden transcript" as resistance to the larger culture of which the people are a subordinate part.

The main part of the book is divided into four sections, each describing a number of significant festival-battles: (1) the Spanish origins of the moros y cristianos before 1521 in the tradition of courtly tournaments and Corpus Christi processions; (2) the mock battles embedded in the preconquest Aztec calendar; (3) the meeting of the Spanish and Aztec traditions in Mexico after the conquest; and (4) the development of the tradition in Spain and other parts of Europe after 1521 and its movement into folk tradition. These four sections are based in historical descriptions of the "battles" and "festivals" taken from primary documents, some of which may be questionable in their origin and accuracy. As with any historic document read by today's scholars, we need to remember the times in which, the circumstances under which, and the purpose for which they were written. Harris seems to be aware of this in his extensive endnotes and bibliography. The bibliography would be more helpful to those who do not read Spanish if it were divided into primary and secondary sources.

The text is very dense and a slow deliberate read. While the historic material was interesting, personally I would like to have seen more of the contemporary moros y cristianos and their role in contemporary social protest. Nevertheless, the book can be seen as an example of how the traditions of a group continue to change and evolve as new influences come into play.