Daughters Of The Fifth Sun

"Without question, some of the most interesting writing of the last decade has come from the Latina literary movimiento. Daughters of the Fifth Sun is an informed and inspiring collection of short fiction and poetry that displays the breadth and achievement of celebrated Latina authors while introducing the next generation of voices, be they Chicana, Cubana, Puertorriquena, Dominican, or U.S.-born Latinas."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Promise of the Fifth Sun explores the myths and the healing secrets found within these ancient stories of creation and native cosmology. By understanding how our native ancestors viewed life, we are able to learn from their profound understanding of healing and its connection to the unseen forces of life and creation. We are the promise, and our time has arrived. The Promise of the Fifth Sun reconnects us to the sacred roots of life and creation. The ancient Toltec and Nahuatl people lived in order to express and celebrate the mystery of creation through time and space. Looking through their eyes, through their heart and soul, we come to recognize of a unified, nature-rooted existence containing all the medicine and power needed for our healing. There is more than culture and customs that remains in the collective consciousness of our native and Latino communities. A rich, ancestral promise stirs within each one of us. The promise restores our rightful place within the evolving history of creation.

Fifth Sun offers a comprehensive history of the Aztecs, spanning the period before conquest to a century after the conquest, based on rarely-used Nahuatl-language sources written by the indigenous people.

The words of her father echo in a young girl's head: Never want what you can never have. Born on the day of the Mexican Goddess of Grass, Malinalli, she takes that name until 1519 when she begins her new Christian life as Marina, one of twenty slaves given to Conquistador Hernán Cortés after he defeats the natives of Tabasco. Having been sold into slavery by a wicked stepfather, Malinalli has learned Mayan as well as her native tongue Nahuatl. When Cortés discovers she can speak two languages, he makes her his interpreter and keeps her constantly at his side. His soldiers admire her and give her the respectful title of Don?a Marina (Lady Marina). Later, as she learns Spanish and becomes trilingual, she helps Cortés form alliances among Nahuatl speakers who hate Moctezuma II, a tyrant who has waged wars on neighboring tribes to obtain captives for human sacrifice. Cortés and his coalition of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors lead a fierce attack upon the Aztec empire, conquer Moctezuma II, and thus change the fate of Mexico and Spain forever. Although Cortés comes to love Marina, and she brings out his best qualities, he allows her to marry a hidalgo lover for her future protection. Yet Cortés and Malinalli (also called La Malinche) become a team that rebuilds a devastated nation, shapes its Christian destiny, and leaves a proud legacy for two nations that enriched each other even as they tried to destroy each other.

Can dreams be portals to different realities? Could they link the world of ancient Mayas to current times? Two women—a Maya priestess and modern spiritual seeker—are drawn together across centuries by Jana’s recurrent dream. Risking everything she holds dear and putting her marriage in jeopardy, Jana is compelled to journey to jungle-shrouded Maya ruins where she encounters mysterious forces linking her to Maya priestess Yalucha, who was mandated centuries before to hide her people’s mystical knowledge from the Conquistadors, to be revealed at a critical time. Jana’s reluctant husband Robert is swept along into unsettling experiences with his own Maya roots. What secret bond weaves their lives together with the ancient Maya through events during the height of Tikal, Uxmal and Chichen Itza? In the countdown to the Maya calendar ending in 2012, Jana is called to re-enact a ritual at Chichen Itza to revive hidden knowledge. Could her choice to fulfill this ancient Maya prophecy make a difference for the world? Jana must rediscover her own Maya powers to contend with dark shamanic forces bent on preventing her mission—and activates forces that can heal or destroy her deepest love.

The ancient Aztecs dwelt at the center of a dazzling and complex cosmos. From this position they were acutely receptive to the demands of their gods. The Fifth Sun represents a dramatic overview of the Aztec conception of the universe and the gods who populated it—Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent; Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror; and Huitzilopochtli, the Southern Hummingbird. Burr Cartwright Brundage explores the myths behind these and others in the Aztec pantheon in a way that illuminates both the human and the divine in Aztec life. The cult of human sacrifice is a pervasive theme in this study. It is a concept that permeated Aztec mythology and was the central preoccupation of the aggressive Aztec state. Another particularly interesting belief explored here is the "mask pool," whereby gods could exchange regalia and, thus, identities. This vivid and eminently readable study also covers the use of hallucinogens; cannibalism; the calendars of ancient Mexico; tlachtli, the life-and-death ball game; the flower wars; divine transfiguration; and the evolution of the war god of the Mexica. A splendid introduction to Aztec religion, The Fifth Sun also contains insights for specialists in ethnohistory, mythology, and religion.

In this interdisciplinary volume, contributors analyze the expression of Latina/o cultural identity through performance. With music, theater, dance, visual arts, body art, spoken word, performance activism, fashion, and street theater as points of entry, contributors discuss cultural practices and the fashoning of identity in Latino/a communities throughout the US. Examining the areas of crossover between Latin and American cultures gives new meaning to the notion of "borderlands." This volume features senior scholars and up-and-coming academics from cultural, visual, and performance studies, folklore, and ethnomusicology.

A critical survey of over 150 years of Texas women writers, including fiction and nonfiction authors, poets, and dramatists.