Abstract

FAHMEL BEYER, Bernd Walter. When the bells ring: hispanic practices among the indigenous people of central Oaxaca. An. antropol. [online]. 2022, vol.56, n.2, pp.55-64.  Epub Aug 14, 2023. ISSN 2448-6221.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iia.24486221e.2022.79604.

The history and use of bells is an emerging discipline that focuses on the origin and spread of this instrument around the world. Early American cities used to ring them as they did in Spain, but little is known about their chime in small Indian towns. Ethnographic work carried out in the valleys of Oaxaca shows that religious establishments varied in their trousseau, albeit in many existed a bell that warned people from incoming storms. Spanish and indigenous beliefs about tempests and lightning strokes converge around this object, also associated with origin myths and a supernatural being who prevents flooding caused by a water serpent.

Keywords : zapotec; otomangue; storm bell; lightning; water serpent.

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