Leonardo Meraz Quintana

In the sixteenth century, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian missionaries attempted to evangelize the indigenous peoples of central Mexico. Indigenous peoples incorporated the new faith into their belief system on their own terms, and continued to conceptualize a sacred geography that ordered their world and regulated time. At the same time, the missionaries had new sacred complexes built, but the question remains, why did indigenous peoples dedicate labor and community resources to these projects? This study analyzes the urban plan of indigenous communities, the construction of new sacred complexes, and the ways in which the urban plan conformed to the notion of sacred geography.