The sacred landscape of Chiapa de los Indios Century seen by Chiapanec and Dominicans in XVIth

Abstract

This work exposes how the Dominicans friars planned as main subjects of the ancient Napiniaca´s evangelization the surrounding mountains, trees, springs, and rivers. Once the Chiapanecs accept the Spaniards, especially the friars of the Order of Preachers, they sought preserve their worldview. The ceibas trees, the hills, and the aquatic elements of Chiapanecs survived the spiritual conquest, producing an unprecedented religious hagiography in the settlement of Chiapa de los Indios. Therefore, this work proposes analyze through categories as the Chiapanec word nambuí or holy and concepts like worldview and sacred landscape and the manner how the Chiapanecs formed a cultic parallelism with their gods dressed as saints, and their territory coupled to the new linguistic, biblical, and theological concepts introduced by Dominicans