In 401, a mob led by St. John Chrysostom destroyed one of the most sacred monuments in Ancient Greece: The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The city of Ephesus had been a center for goddess worship since the city’s dedication to the Phrygian mother goddess, Cybele, or mountain mother. Under the Grecian Empire, and later the Roman Empire, Ephesus continued to be a center for goddess culture, with sites dedicated to Artemis and her roman equivalent, Diana. After Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, during the rule of emperor Theodosius I in the year 380, the pagan temples were destroyed. The pagans converted to Christianity and abandoned the pagan mother goddesses. In addition to the destruction of places of worship, Christian ceremonies with similar themes took the place of pagan ceremonies. The feminine face of god in Europe was not restored until 431, when Mary was declared Theotokos at the First Council of Ephesus .
The events that took place in Europe in the early 4th and 5th centuries parallel those that took place in Peru during the conquest of the Andes region by the Inca in the mid 15th century, and the later conquest of Peru by the Spaniards in the 1530s. The cosmologies of Pre-Incan Andean people focused on the worship of a mother goddess, who required a male deity to actualize her powers. Gender complementarity is also apparent in the social organization of early Andean people; men and women had distinct, but mutually valuable roles. As the Incan empire gained power, they imposed their new state religion on the people of the Andes. In Incan cosmology, the complementary relationship shared by the gendered divinities of earlier cultures was still somewhat evident. As the empire progressed...
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...gain, the correlation between the two is tenuous and possibly even ephemeral, but as Christianity move away defining god as a He, society is also moving towards gender equality.
Works Cited
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Brundage, Burr C. History of the Inca. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Chapman, John. "Council of Ephesus." In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909.
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Karen, Powers V. "Andeans and Spaniards in the Contact Zone." American Indian Quarterly, 2000: 511-536.
Silverblatt, Irene. Moon, Sun, and Witches. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987.
In the first section, Monroy describes the Indian and the Iberian cultures and illustrates the role each played during missionization, as the Indians adapted ?to the demands of Iberian imperialism.?(5) He stresses the differen...
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Sanchez, Reymundo (2000). My Bloody Life: The Making of the Latin King Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated.
Patterson, Thomas C. "Tribes, Chiefdoms, and Kingdoms in the Inca Empire.” Power Relations and State Formation (1987): 1-15,117-127.
6. Lewis M. Simons, Panama’s Rite of Passage and American Trade, National Geographic, November 1999.
The following paper will be comparative of the cultures and ideas of the Americans and the Spanish. It will be primarily referring to the paper “Lived Ethnicity: Archaeology and Identity in Mexicano America, by Bonnie J. Clark”. The similarities as well as the differences will be discussed. After the comparisons and contrasts have been established, there will be a prediction of what will happen when these two cultures meet and begin to interact with one another.
Bethell, Leslie. The Cambridge History of Latin America Vol. III. Cambridge University Press, London, England. 1985.
Women had their own political and religious organization with their own hierarchies of priestesses and commissaries, as men did in their sphere (Powers). The two distinguishable spheres existed abreast, consisting of male and female officials in their respective spheres. A women’s endowment originated from Coya, the queen of the Inca territory, while the man’s originated from the king. (Powers). Likewise, the principles of religion were halved between the two genders. Women worshiped the moon, as men worshiped the sun. Each receiving representation from the akin sex. The commensurate involvement of both men and women in religion and politics is derivative of the creationism belief of Vircocha, an Inca idol, possessing both voluptuous and virile qualities, created both Illapa and Pachama. The rift amid the two genders was meant to create accord, ascribing different, but complementary roles to each gender; although man is positioned higher in the joining spheres.(Powers). Agriculture was essential to the survival of the Inca and was a collegial chore, each sex had elected routines in farming. Women, specifically the Inca queens, were accomplished agronomists, trained in the craft of planting. While women often shared in politics, they were barred from holding ‘supreme power,’ unless under the authority of a male predecessor, such as a
Keen, Benjamin. Latin American civilization: History and society, 1492 to the present. Boulder: Westview P, 1986.
A series of independence movements had marked most of South America, or “Nueva Granada” in particular during the vast time period of the early 16th century up until the late 18th century – early 19th century. An introduction of the time period which dates back to the late 15th century, illustrates how the Southern portion of the now Colombia had become a part of the Incan Empire whose central base had been located deep into Peru. Only the enlightened historians and those that have done thorough research of the time period have noted the existence concerning the various Indian tribes that roamed freely throughout portions of the land much before the emergence of the Spaniards into the territory.
Galeano, Eduardo. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997.
Burns, Bradford E. Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2002.
Wilson, Samuel M. Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,1990.
The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World
To explain, through the Gospel of Jesus, Jesus is depicted as the Holy Son, incarnation of God -His Father, and the one who served as the salvation for humanity. The vocabulary and metaphors that is used to describe Jesus sets a patriarchy as is bears "unique characteristics" to males, hence "casting women and men as polar opposite." In addition, the the Gospel of Jesus sets gender binaries. The vocabulary used to describe Jesus, insinuate men hold a closer identity with Christ. As a result, the gendered vocabulary and metaphors used to describe Jesus, and the speech used to describe God exclusively male has without a doubt marginalized women granting men the role that carries greater dominance, power and