{"product_id":"treatise-on-the-heathen-superstitions","title":"Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions","description":"The Treatise of Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón is one of the most important surviving documents of early colonial Mexico. It was written in 1629 as an aid to Roman Catholic churchmen in their efforts to root out the vestiges of pre-Columbian Aztec religious beliefs and practices. For the student of Aztec religion and culture is a valuable source of information.\u003cp\u003eHernando Ruiz de Alarcón was born in Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, in the  latter part of the sixteenth century. He attended the University of  Mexico and later took holy orders. Sometime after he was assigned to the  parish of Atenango, he began writing the Treatise for his fellow  priests and church superiors to use as a guide in suppressing native  \"\"heresy.\"\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith great care and attention to detail Ruiz de Alarcón  collected and recorded Aztec religious practices and incantations that  had survived a century of Spanish domination (sometimes in his zeal  extracting information from his informants through force and guile). He  wrote down the incantations in Nahuatl and translated them into Spanish  for his readers. He recorded rites for such everyday activities as  woodcutting, traveling, hunting, fishing, farming, harvesting, fortune  telling, lovemaking, and the curing of many diseases, from toothache to  scorpion stings. Although Ruiz de Alarcón was scornful of native medical  practices, we know now that in many aspects of medicine the Aztec  curers were far ahead of their European counterparts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Oklahoma Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Product","offer_id":57486822244696,"sku":"9780806120317","price":39.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780806120317.jpg?v=1781090138","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/treatise-on-the-heathen-superstitions","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}