Publisher's Synopsis
The Matachines dance derives from a genre of medieval European folk dramas symbolising conflict between Christians and Moors. Spaniards brought it to the Americas as a vehicle for Christianising the Indians. In this book, Rodr+!guez explores the colourful, complex, and often enigmatic Matachines dance as it is performed today by Pueblo Indians and Hispanos in New Mexico. Previous studies of the Matachines dance dealt mainly with its origins, distribution, and descriptive details. Rodr+!guez's work instead focuses on the larger socio-cultural, ecological, historical, and political-economic setting within which each community's performance is organised. She analyses observed behaviour, incorporates native explanation, and interprets the dance's symbols in attempting to discover what the dance means to those who perform it and what its performance reveals about the people who do it. For both Indians and Hispanos in New Mexico, the dance is not merely an archaic survival but an ongoing way of coping with and commenting on the history of ethnic domination as it continues to unfold in the upper R+!o Grande valley.
