Feasts and celebrations in North American ethnic communities
By: edited by Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Geneviève Fabre.
Contributors: Gutiérrez, Ramón A., 1951-; Fabre, Geneviève.; Institut d'anglais Charles V.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Albuquerque
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
Subjects: Festivals -- United States -- Congresses.; Ethnic festivals -- United States -- Congresses.; Rites and ceremonies -- United States -- Congresses.; United States -- Social life and customs -- Congresses.
Description: The Matachines Dance - "the beautiful dance of subjugation," as Sylvia Rodriguez calls it - derives from a genre of medieval European folk dramas symbolizing conflict between Christians and Moors. Spaniards brought it to the Americas as a vehicle for Christianizing the Indians. In this book, Rodriguez explores the colorful, complex, and often enigmatic Matachines dance as it is performed today by Pueblo Indians and Hispanos in New Mexico.

Previous studies of the Matachines dance dealt mainly with its origins, distribution, and descriptive details. Rodriguez's work instead focuses on the larger cultural, ecological, historical, and political-economic setting within which each community's performance is organized.

She analyzes observed behavior, incorporates native explanation, and interprets the dance's symbols in attempting to discover what the dance means to those who perform it and what its performance reveals about the people who do it. For both Indians and Hispanos in New Mexico, the dance is not merely an archaic survival but an ongoing way of coping with and commenting on the history of ethnic domination as it continues to unfold in the upper Rio Grande valley.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Selected papers from the English presentations given at a conference at the Institut d'anglais Charles V, Paris, Dec. 14-16, 1989.