In my last cultural entry, I talked about Catholicism and how it took hold of Latin America through the work of the Conquistadors and Jesuits. In this entry we’ll go back even further to discover what Latin Americans believed before the Western world invaded.
The native tribes of Latin America were polytheistic in general. Tribes of natives had their own gods that they prayed and sacrificed too. They believed that if these gods were pleased by their offerings, they would see prosperity and growth. However, if the gods were displeased, then famine and plagues would be sent upon them. This caused some tribes to take extreme measures to please the gods, resorting to human sacrifice and in some cases cannibalism. These horrific acts caused most to think of natives as evil savages when the majority didn’t practice them.
When the Western forces moved in, they sought to eradicate these religions completely. They had a simple policy: convert or die. The Catholics wanted to stomp out the religious practices of these natives so if they didn’t give up their gods, they were killed. The Latin Americans lost their religious identity, replaced by the religion imposed on them by the invaders. While this did stop them from performing some of the horrific things they used to do, they still lost an important piece of who they were, not to mention that the methods employed by the invaders could be just as horrendous.
The shift from polytheism to monotheism was important in Latin American religion because of how it changed the natives. Yes, they did lose an important part of their heritage, but they gained moral values that weren’t there before. They gained a new identity that was better than their old one, an identity that remains today.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Native-American-religion#toc242869
Tristan Fields eportfolio 