1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781934203321

Autore

Simms Norman Toby

Titolo

Marranos on the moradas [[electronic resource] ] : secret Jews and Penitentes in the southwestern United States, from 1590 to 1890 / / Norman Simms

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Boston, : Academic Studies Press, 2009

ISBN

1-61811-032-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (519 p.)

Collana

Judaism and Jewish life

Disciplina

979/.004924

Soggetti

Crypto-Jews - Southwest, New - History

Jews - Southwest, New - History

Crypto-Jews - Religious life - Southwest, New

Crypto-Jews - Southwest, New - Social life and customs

Southwest, New Religious life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter I. What Did the Penitentes Really Do? -- Chapter II. Marranos, Penitentes, and the Baroque Anamorphoses in Action -- Chapter III. The Machinery of Secrets and the Machinations of Silence: Conspiracies, Contraptions and Ludibria -- Chapter IV. Crosscurrents and Undercurrents -- Chapter V. Penitentes and the Crazy Things They Do: Or, How to Be Jewish and Christian at the Same Time -- Chapter VI. Festivals of Blood Here and Bloody Trials There: Playing Roles and Rolling Along -- Chapter VII. Reaching Towards a Conclusion and Some New Questions -- Chapter VIII. Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Two groups were persecuted over the course of four hundred years in what is now the southwestern United States, each dissimulating and disguising who they truly were. Both now declare their true identities, yet raise hostility. The Penitentes are a lay Catholic brotherhood that practices bloody rites of self-flagellation and crucifixion, but claim this is a misrepresentation and that they are a community and a charitable organization. Marranos, an ambiguous and complicated population of Sephardic descendants, claim to be anousim. Both peoples have a



complex, shared history. This book disentangles the web, redefines the terms, and creates new contexts in which these groups are viewed with respect and sympathy without idealizing or slandering them. Simms uses rabbinics, literary analyses, psychohistory, and cultural anthropology to consolidate a history of mentalities.