Abelardo de la Cruz
Assistant Professor, Nahua scholar
EDUCATION
Ph.D. University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), 2022
M.A. Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 2016
B.A. Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 2012
FIELDS OF SPECIALIZATION
Religion in the Americas
Religion in Mexican Indigenous communities
Linguistic anthropology focused in Nahuatl
Motiochihuanih (Catechists and prayer specialists)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Nahuatl language
- Discourse analysis
- Indigenous devotions
- The sacred landscape
- Ritual practices
- Ethnography in Indigenous communities
- Christian prayers translated into Nahuatl
PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY
I am a macehualli, a Nahuatl native speaker, and an ixtlamatquetl, a Nahua scholar from Chicontepec, in Veracruz, Mexico. In 2022 I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Utah. I obtained my master’s degree in Humanistic and Educational Research and a bachelor’s degree in law from the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico.
My doctoral dissertation, “Motiochihuanih: Catechists and Prayer Specialists as Religious Leaders Brokering ‘el costumbre’ Nahua, in Chicontepec, Veracruz,” examines religion as it is practiced in the township of Chicontepec, which is in the Huasteca Veracruzana, in Mexico. I carried out my doctoral research from an emic perspective. Using oral histories that date to 1980 and qualitative ethnographic research in the present, my study focuses on four motiochihuanih. Motiochihuanih are religious leaders trained as catechists by the Catholic Church who later became prayer specialists (rezanderos). I analyze their personal histories, Catholic training, relationships with their clients and communities, nonconformity with Catholicism, and participation in traditional Nahua religion. All four catechists returned to their first religion, known as “el costumbre” (the custom). It is noteworthy and significant that when the prayer specialists recite Christian prayers using the holy rosary, they decorate altars, make offerings, and petition that a (deceased) person rest in peace. These practices are a form of religious coexistence or accommodation between Indigenous and Catholic practice.
My next book chapter, which will be published in The Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language by Oxford University Press, discusses the life-cycle rituals that are a component of the Nahua religion of today. I am also collaborating with Molly Bassett in a question-and-answer style conversation about theory and method in the study of Indigenous religious traditions that contributes to the conclusion of her forthcoming book on Mexica tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles). Finally, I am a co-author, with David Tavárez, of a forthcoming critical edition of a Nahuatl commentary on the proverbs of Solomon.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
2017 Burkhart, Louise M.; Cruz de la Cruz, Abelardo de la; In citlalmachiyotl. The star sign: a colonial nahua drama of the three kings. Warsaw: University of Warsaw.
Book chapters
2022 “What motivates Nahuas to practice their religion of el costumbre?” In Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes. Eds. Molly Bassett and Natalie Avalos, 214-216. Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom.
2017 “The value of El Costumbre and Christianity in the Discourse of Nahua Catechists from the Huasteca Region in Veracruz, Mexico, 1970s – 2010s.” In Words & Worlds Turned around the world: Indigenous christianities in colonial Latin America. Ed. David Tavarez, 267–288. Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado.