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Review: [untitled] Author(s): John Howland Rowe Reviewed work(s): Los Muiscas antes de la Conquista. by Jos Prez de Barradas Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Aug., 1954), pp. 339-341 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2508883 Accessed: 09/03/2010 13:40
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scribes the main traits of Tarascaii folk religion, the traditioiial cult organization, its decline in recent years, and the corresponding increase in the power of the Catholic Church or what he calls "formal Catholicism" in contrast with "folk Catholicism." The relationiship betweeln changes in religion and politics and the way in whichpolitical factions utilize folk beliefs in their local struggles is well done and original. The handling of the Sinarquistas would have gained by a more detailed analysis of how they operate on the village level and how they fuiletion as part of the national Sinarquista movement. Similarly, the decline and fall of the agraristas is explained almost exclusively in terms of local conditions althoughthe political changes on the national level may have played an important role. This is hinted at but unexplained when the author writes that the comilng of the Federal troops to defelnd the villagers against the Cristeros actually resulted in weakening the position of the local agraristas (p. 21). On the whole, the data on the agraristas seems a bit thin, perhaps because the town studied wasdominated by the Sinarquistas. An intensive study of an agrarista dominated town would be useful. OSCAR LEWIS. University of Illinois. Los Muiscas antes de la conquista. By JOsE' PEREZDE BARRADAS. 2 vols., Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1950-1951. Pp. 432, 610. Illus., Inistituto Bernardino de SahaguTn, mlaps, indexes. Paper. The peeuliar civilization of the Chibehas in thehighlands of Bogot'a influenced the Spanish conquest of South America in a number of ways, and its territory ultimately became the nucleus of the second South American viceroyalty. From the point of view of the historian of the Spaiiish empire, it is clearly one of the three or four most important of South American native cultures. The Chibeha civilizatioil is also of great interest toanthropologists interested in the origin of the state, in the effects of ecoinomy on society and religion, aind many other theoretical problems. The Spanish chroniclers of the 16th and 17th centuries were much interested in it and they have left us an unusually full record of what Chibcha life was like. It is thus rather curious that the modern literature on the Chibcha is both scanty and poor. There has...