Religion and Expressive Culture of the Nahua People:

                The Nahua religion and beliefs are mainly a mix of Spanish Catholicism and Native American traditions. However, even where Catholicism seems to triumph, their traditional practices seem to remain strong.  The Nahua people participate in the Catholic Church ceremonies, but they also practice many traditional ceremonies and rituals. Sometimes, their traditional rituals involve complex preparations and follow the agricultural cycles of harvest and planting. They strongly believe the natural world is alive and sacred, especially corn because it is thought that it originated in this area. They have ceremonies and offerings to maintain the balance of the natural order and to ask for support and blessings from many gods. Also, they believe that sickness is a result of a disruption in the natural order. They use shamans, medicinal plants and Temazcallis (ritual sweat baths) to help treat many different illnesses.

                  The sun is considered to be mixed with Jesus Christ and is known as a creator deity. The pantheon includes many different spirits representing manifestations of a unified, sacred universe. For example, they believe Earth spirits are associated with death and fertility, water spirits are said to disperse rain and provide fish, and celestial spirits also supply rain and watch over people. Also, the Nahua’s sacred geography is connected with mountains, lakes, springs, caves and the Gulf of Mexico.

                  In Nahua communities that are more traditional based, the main religious person is the shaman, which is called tlamatiquetl, meaning “person of knowledge.” These religious specialists undergo an apprenticeship under an established master before practicing on their own, and they may either be male or female. In the Nahua tradition, there are some other religious specialists, which include midwives, catechists and prayer leaders, but very few Nahua communities have priests.

                  Furthermore, the Nahua’s beliefs regarding death and the afterlife are influenced by both their Hispanic culture and Protestant efforts. The destiny of one’s soul is connected to the circumstances of death rather than being associated with reward and punishment for behavior. The yolotl soul, representing a person’s life force, travels to an underworld place of death, which is called mictian, where it eventually vanishes. However, the tonali soul, which is linked to personality, disappears at death. Also, people who die prematurely are believed to become disease-causing wind spirits, while people who die from water-related causes go to a watery paradise.

References:

Wiley, David. 2006. The Nahuas. Electronic document, http://www.keepsthefire.org/nahua.html, Accessed March 25, 2014.

Alan R. Sandstrom. N.d. Nahua of the Huasteca. Electronic document, http://faculty.smu.edu/rkemper/anth_3311/EWC_Nahua_182-193.pdf, Accessed March 25, 2014.