South and Meso-American Native Spirituality: From the Cult of the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation ed. by Gary H. Gossen (review)

1 30BOOK REVIEWS Clarke uses a -wide range of primary and secondary sources to support his work. However, while discounting the work of some other writers who have explored the Irish Catholics in Toronto, he fails to provide sufficient evidence to disprove dieir analyses. For example, while admitting that in contemporary accounts and manuscript material Irish Catholics were stereotypical as drunken brawlers, Clarke takes Kenneth Duncan and Murray Nicolson to task for basing "their respective interpretations on this stereotype rather than exploding it as a myth" (p. 28). Through diis in-depdi study, Clarke has nonetheless opened a door on an ethno-religious community diat contributed to the development of Toronto. It invites new approaches that will lead to a standard work in diis field. Murray W. Nicolson Wilfrid Laurier University Latin American South andMeso-AmericanNative Spirituality: From the CultoftheFeathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation. Edited by Gary H. Gossen, in collaboration with Miguel León-Portilla. [World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, Volume 4.] (New York: Crossroad . 1993. Pp. xii, 563. $4950 clothbound.) South and Meso-American Native Spirituality offers a sampler of the religious life in a region marked by multiple spiritual traditions, in the preContact period; and by the formation of new traditions from the cultural gifts of Amerindians, Europeans, Africans, and Asians, in the post-Contact era. Coverage includes not only South America and Mesoamerica, but also the Caribbean and other parts ofMexico and ofCentral America. The editor excludes "mainstream Judeo-Christian belief and practice" from consideration; they are "fundamentally linked to the mainstream ofworld religious tradition, and their Latin American expression, in global perspective, is not particularly distinctive " (p. 22). History and cultural analysis combine with emphasis upon spirituality and die religious quest. In part 1, the faiths of the ancient Nahua-Mexicas (Aztecs), Maya, and Incas are described by Miguel León-Portilla, Monro S. Edmonson, and Manuel M. Marzal respectively. In part 2, the spiritual legacy of Hispanic Catholicism enters into both Elsa Cecilia Frost's discussion of die theologians' concept of the indigenous soul and Manuel M. Marzal's description of sixteenth-century Spanish Catholicism. The encounter of Iberian Christianity with Nahua, Mayan, and Inca state religions is die theme of part 3· J- Jorge Klor de Alva considers Aztec spirituality and Nahuatized Christianity, while Louise M. Burkhart examines the legend, image, and devotion to the Virgin BOOK REVIEWS131 of Guadalupe, Mexico. Eugenio Maurer Avalos reports on Maya Catholicism among the Tzeltal in a Chiapas, Mexico, town. Manuel Gutiérrez Estévez describes the spirituality of die Christian Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula past and present. Jan Szeminski's subject is the Peruvian expression of the Thupa Amaro movement in the context of eighteenth-century Andean Indian Catholicism. Contact between Christianity and groups that did not adhere to the great aboriginal state religions is the concern of part 4. Peter T. Fürst presents the central, cosmogonie myth of the Huichol. Didier Boremanse describes the spirituality of the northern group of Lacandon, Chiapas, Mexico; while Louis Faron focuses on the religion ofthe Mapuche ofsouthern-middle Chile. Marcos Guevara-Berger's chapter is an experimental, ethnographic re-creation of a visit to a Bribri Indian shaman in Costa Rica. Part 5 brings together spiritual traditions which are rooted in the historical experience of Latin America and have a substantial following. Peter T. Fürst uses Theodor Koch-Gruenberg's text on magical spells among the Pemon and Taurepan of Venezuela. Gary H. Gossen centers his study of the human condition, spirituality, and moral order among the Chamula Tzotzil of Chiapas, Mexico, on native rendition and exegesis of a sacred text. Carlos Rodriguez Brandäo's survey of the religious spectrum in Brazil focuses on popular Catholicism (not considered "official" [p. 470, n. I]), Afro-Brazilian spiritualistic religions, and Protestant Pentecostalism . Julio Sánchez Cárdenas describes Orisha Religion (Santería) in modern Afro-Caribbean societies. David G. Scotchmer describes the spirituality ofMaya Protestants in Guatemala in the context of Protestantism there. The sampler approaches its close with Mary Christine Morkovsky's chapter on the "spiritual experience of encountering the Lord in the poor" which "sustains liberation praxis . . . and liberation...