Spanish Invasion
When the Spanish invaded and conquered Tenochtitlan in the sixteenth century, they brought with them not only the official Catholic religion, but also some of the more popular folk-religious practices of the era. This included the pagan tradition of celebrating the dead with food-offerings and feasts. However, the Spanish priests were eager to discontinue these ancient traditions that found fertile ground in Mexico. The Spanish suppressed the Mexican skull art tradition because it was too Indito or pagan for their refined European tastes. Not until Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, did skull art begin to re-emerge as a symbol of Mexicanidad.
Read more about this topic: Skull Art
Famous quotes containing the words spanish and/or invasion:
“The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them.... Yet at the very first planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first governor, the same year, “built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts.” To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship’s company that should be next shipwrecked on to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)