La panza del tepozteco de jose agustin y en días de muertos de berta hiriart

“LA PANZA DEL TEPOZTECO”
JOSÉ AGUSTIN

1. Author’s Biography and Literary Works.
José Agustín Ramírez Gómez was born on August 19 1944 in Acapulco Guerrero. He is a Mexican novelist. Agustin's first novel, La Tumba, was the brief but provocative story of a Mexican upperclass teen, deemed indecent by the public gathering praise from older writers. This and his most famous work, De Perfil, aa fast and detailed view of three days in the main character's life, show stylistic similarities to James Joyce's work, specially A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
A common technique in his work is mixing character's speech with narrative, without making any kind of disctintion. Thus the reader finds a long dialogue written in a single sentence, and is expected to realize which characteris speaking as he reads the words. He also makes use of the stream of consciousness technique.

Roles of the different gods portrayed in the book.
Quetzalcoatl - The most important God
Chicomecoatl - Home maintenance goddess
Chalchiutlicue - Water goddess
Tlaloc - Rain god
Tezcatlipoca - God of the Sky and Earth
Huitzilopochtli - War god
Tonatzin - Goddess of the earth
Xipe Totec -Fertility and sacrifices god
Coyolxauqui - Mood goddess
Temazcalteci . Mother of the gods
Xiutecutli - Fire god
Coatlicue - Life and death goddess
Tlaco - Road watcher
Cihuapipilti - Souls of dead women
Xochipilli - God of the party, dancing, singing, love and writing
Omacatl - Food god
Ixtlilton - God of healing
Opuchtli - Fishing god
Yiatecutli - Merchant god
Tezcatzoncatl - Pulque godMictlantecutli - Death god
Micteca - Death goddess
The aztecs were polytheistic which means they had many gods and goddesses. In the book some of them are portrayed as good and loving gods and some others are portrayed as evil. Aztecs built pyramids and temples to these gods and paid human sacrifices for them. The author of this novel tells us that the gods are hidden since many years agoand they are waiting for a prophecy to happen which would allow them to walk on the earth again and meanwhile they are hiding inside a mountain called "El Tepozteco".
Some of the Pre-Hispanic traditions that are presented in the story are
Sacrifices, Limpias, The tribute for the tepozteco once a year, Stone art, The Ball game.
The Limpias exist still today, there are people dedicated to do thisrituals specially in Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas.

An analysis of how this book could be used in teaching Mesoamerican topics to students.
This is a very good and interesting book, and also it is very easy to read, so students would learn about mesoamerican topics and at the same time they would be interested in the story of the book. And mainly the students would learn about theprehispanic gods and their functions and also about ancient traditions in mesoamerica.

“EN DIAS DE MUERTOS"
Berta Hiriart
Read the book and answer the following questions:
1. Which are the Mexican traditions about the Day of the Dead that are presented in the book?
The gathering of friends and family in order to pray and remember their relatives and friends who have died. The tradition of thealtars honoring the people who are no longer with us, placing their favourite food, drinks wearing hobbies, and the main elements of the altars are the cempasuchitl flowers, sugar calaveritas, chopped paper in many colors like orange, black, purple, and also pictures and photographs of the dead people.
2. Which are the Halloween celebrations described in the story?
Halloween is celebrated bywearing a costume. People celebrate it with parties and children go out to ask for candies shouting: "Trick or Treat". When Tina starts working at the costume shop, she realizes about this tradition but even though it seem fun she is so attached to her mexican traditions. She prefers to celebrate the day of the dead instead of halloween since she loves her own traditions.
3. Search in internet...