In its expansion across the world, Christianity came across numerous cultures and civilizations that contributed their own particular shading. The Church long accepted those “borrowings” in order to facilitate Christianity’s spread.
In the Americas of the 16th century, Christian worship once again garbed itself in new finery upon contact with newly converted peoples. In this way, Christianity’s became Creolized.
Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in Religious Life
In New Spain, at the missionaries’ instigation, Native Americans participated actively in Church feasts and introduced many elements from their own culture. On 20 June, 1538, for example, they accompanied the procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of the city of Tlaxcala with traditional songs and dances. The missionaries looked benevolently upon that festive behavior, which it regarded as harbingers of heartfelt conversions. The Natives also acted out scenes from their daily life in the town squares and in front of the churches at the stops the procession made. The Franciscans encouraged the creation of choirs, especially children’s choirs. They also supported Natives who tried their hand at composing religious tunes, while insisting that they follow the canons of Church music, which the Natives enhanced with new sounds through the use of traditional instruments. The Natives produced devotional objects (such as crosses and rosaries). Feathers, which were used extensively by Native American peoples, were used to adorn crosses and palanquins; the Aztecs were particularly known for their skill at feather crafts in the pre-Colombian period. The Natives made paintings portraying the history of the Church and its saints, especially in chapels and convents, in a style that is referred to as “Indochristian art.” In the minds of the missionaries and friars, particularly the Franciscans, the introduction of indigenous elements into Christian ceremonies also bore witness to their idea of founding an American Church.
For the sake of understanding, evangelizers favored Indigenous languages for teaching Christian doctrine. The edifying plays that they had the Natives act out were performed in native tongues. So the missionaries translated, or had translated, prayers (like the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer), the Credo, and some songs and chants. They also preached in native languages, favoring the most widespread ones (Nahuatl, Quechua, etc.).
The establishment of sanctuaries in honor of the Virgin Mary and Christ also reinforced the singular nature of American Christianity, granting it its own landmarks, which became sites of pilgrimage and piety. The sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe (ill.) developed in Mexico in the 1550s. According to the legend, in 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian, Juan Diego, on Mount Tepeyac (near Mexico City), where an Aztec god associated with Quetzalcóatl, the god of civilization, used to be worshipped. An image of the Virgin Mary made of roses appeared miraculously on her cloak. The Virgin of Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca, in Peru, provides another example of a sanctuary developed by the missionaries for the Natives.
Nevertheless, that cultural rooting of Christianity was not to everyone’s liking. Some influential people in colonial life feared that, having little knowledge of doctrine, the Natives would actually continue their idolatrous practices in a Christian setting. It is true that the missionaries who used indigenous rituals and practices to encourage indigenous people to become Christians did not eliminate all ambiguities. The Counter-Reformation initiated in Trent advocated Catholic orthodoxy and was ill-inclined to accommodate elements seen as foreign to Roman (i.e. Western) Catholic tradition. The Mexican Provincial Councils of 1555 and 1565 attempted to better monitor indigenous productions, especially translations of sacred texts into indigenous languages. The Councils suspected that the texts might have been poorly translated and that they might contain theological errors or even elements that were contrary to Christianity. Dances and songs in indigenous languages were strictly supervised. It is true that, caught up by their desire to convince the Natives, the missionaries introduced into their translation of texts and prayers, and even into their catechisms, certain pre-Columbian concepts that could lead to confusion. To refer to priests, for example, they used the word that designated the earlier, pre-Columbian custodians of holiness. In some authors’ hands, the great Aztec god of civilization, Quetzalcóatl, “the plumed serpent,” resembled a kind of primitive Christ-like figure, and Tezcatlipoca appeared as the devil incarnate.
Black Slaves and Christianity
The Creolization of Christian worship was not due to the Natives only. Other components of colonial society also participated in it. The Black peoples reduced to slavery who arrived on American shores in slave ships had already been evangelized. Nevertheless, they brought their cultures with them, and wove them into Christianity. They followed their own rhythms. The Creoles, people of European descent born in the Americas, developed their own specific religious sensibility. They had their own sanctuaries, such as the one to the Virgin of Los Remedios, in Mexico City.
In one sense, American Christianity forged its identity through contact with the realities of the peoples encountered and the contexts. The same thing occurred in other regions Europeans reached in the 16th century, particularly India, and even China and Japan.
The Creolization of Christian worship does not, however, refer to religious syncretism. Converted Natives were profoundly attached to their own traditions, and they continued their own, older religious practices, but the two forms of religiosities did not blend. Over time, the pre-Columbian practices came to lose their religious meaning, evolving into cultural traditions that allowed people to claim and assert their indigenous identities in response to the Hispanicization of society. Porosity between the two religions does exist, but it is tricky in terms of belief systems. There are of course a few cases that are more complex. Vodou and candomblé rites reflect trues cases of syncretism, in which the Christian and African – largely Yoruba – traditions intertwined, producing a new religion, with its own priests and priestesses.
