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209 5 Neo-Indians and the New Age During our research in Mexico and Peru, we have brought to light influences that greatly exceed the scope of their national frameworks. Movements that might appear at first sight to be merely local manifestations of a reconquered identity are now deeply impregnated with the globalized philosophy of the New Age. This is one of the paradoxes of these nascent neo-Indianities: they draw their inspiration from traditions that have a limited geographical scope, yet, at the same time, these native customs are linked to the globalized ideas of neotraditions that, from Celtic countries to Nepal, reflect “ethnic” specificities with a background of global culture. First of all, we shall examine the international dimension of the neo-Indian doxa in Mexico, where it has given rise to a flurry of interpretations, and then in Peru, where it exerts a major influence on the ritual creativity of the neo-Incas. Recycling Anthropology in the Aztec New Age To avoid confusion, there can be no question of lumping together the totally contradictory expectations of the various currents that make up the basis of neo-Indianity, the actors and the public. There is nothing in common between the easy-going families with their childish theories taking part in the “cosmic picnic” of the pilgrimage to Teotihuacan, and the feather-wearing youths photographed with European tourists in Mexico City’s Zócalo, or the obscure scholiasts who continue to dissect historical works in order to complete the revised and corrected tenets of the Aztec epic. Mexican neo-Indians display very different facets depending on their location, the issues at stake, and the context; what connects them is the desire to provide an alternative response to the celebratory unanimism of the Meeting of the Two Worlds, which they feel is too academic, apart from being politically incorrect. We are now seeing state officials mingling (not without a certain amount of self-interest) with neo-Indians; in towns and cities, they do not hesitate to join the quest for vibrations. DOI: 10.5876/9781607322740:c05 neo-indians and the new age 210 We should not lose sight of these local conjunctures, and should not systematically exaggerate the New Age dimension that colors the deeds and gestures of all neoIndian categories in a kaleidoscope of images (Figure 5.1). The huge impact of all these spiritual exercises (formalized to varying degrees) on the heterogeneous public made up of those who merely dabble, ardent followers, and skeptics intrigued by the spectacle, make any anthropologist’s attempt to define “one” coherent ideology extremely suspect. The eugenicist and “revisionist” excesses of extremist versions of Mexicanity go beyond mere cultural curiosities in that they are reminiscent of the mythologies of the Third Reich. It is not a question of bringing together the entire neo-Indian galaxy under these authoritarian and politically reprehensible formulas. However, it is true that they have a tendency to emerge whenever there is an economic, political, or religious crisis. To what extent are the exhaustion of the regime of Mexico’s single party, the degeneracy of the political class, and the adverse effects of globalization reflected in these strange spring equinox pilgrimages and the muddled quest for “vibes”? It is safe to say that cause and effect follow on from each other in this new identity crisis. The neo-Indian movement implicitly promotes a discourse of rupture: a rupture with academic history, official policies, productivist capitalism and the state, by taking charge of the interests of those who are excluded from the system and by translating their millenarianist desires in terms of energy flows. After its erratic exponential growth in Mexico, the secularization of the movement is now purged of its charge of sulfurous heterodoxy to accompany or precede the new rituals of militant environmentalism, using as reference the values of traditional religion and the fight against environmental pollution. This brings to mind a comment overheard in the Otomi village of Temoaya concerning the Marian cult celebrated in a chapel overlooking the village that is dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. According to its inhabitants, this major figure of popular Mexican religion appeared to the Indian Juan Diego in Mexico City on the Tepeyac. It is believed that she came to seek refuge in Temoaya in order to escape from the polluted air of the capital. Numerous conceptual bridges are now connecting neo-Indian ideology to the tenet of the children of the first world, especially with the “alter-globalist...

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