Home altars of Mexico
By: [photographs by] Dana Salvo ; volume editor, Ramón A. Gutiérrez ; essays by Ramón A. Gutiérrez, Salvatore Scalora, and William H. Beezley ; afterword by Amalia Mesa-Bains.
Contributors: Scalora, Sal.; Beezley, William H.; Salvo, Dana.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Albuquerque
Language: eng
Number of pages: 138
Subjects: Household shrines -- Mexico; Indians of Mexico -- Religion; Mexico -- Religious life and customs
Description: For over a decade, Dana Salvo has traveled throughout the central highlands and southern states of Mexico with artist Dawn Southworth and their young children, Jahna and Simone. They have visited the Purepechan Indians in Michoacan, the Chamulan and Zinacantan tribes in Chiapas, the Maya of the Yucatan peninsula, and several other isolated groups in the countryside.

Welcomed into the homes of these rural peoples as few outsiders have been before, Salvo was permitted the rare privilege of photographing the home environments of these families. Central to each interior was the altarcito, or home altar. These dazzling large-format color photographs depict the altars in all their glory and meticulous detail. The essays provide the cultural and historic background to the practice of constructing domestic altars, linking the ancient traditions with modern customs.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-107).
Table of contents: title: Preface / Dana Salvo; title: Introduction / Ramón A. Gutiérrez; title: Conjuring the holy: Mexican domestic altars / Ramón A. Gutiérrez; title: Home altars: private reflections of public life / William H. Beezley; title: Flowers and sugar skulls for the spirits of the dead / Salvatore Scalora; title: Afterword / Amalia Mesa-Bains.