Pueblo Religion and the Mesoamerican Connection (original) (raw)

The late thirteenth century religious ideologies that transformed the Pueblo World sprang from far-ranging beliefs, rituals, and social relations inextricably linked to Mesoamerica (Figure 2.1). Indigenous peoples living in the southwest of the United States and the northwest of México (the Southwest/Northwest) clearly share many aspects of cosmology, iconography, belief, and ritual with peoples living in Mesoamerica. But, Pueblo religion also differs from Mesoamerican religion in many ways. It did not diffuse north in neat packages of cosmology and ritual, nor did Mesoamerican missionaries, traders, or conquers impose a new religion on Pueblo Peoples. This chapter presents a more complex model of this relationship that considers the historical dynamics of similarity and difference between the Pueblos and Mesoamerica.