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The Image of Christ in Spanish America As a Model for Suffering: An Exploratory Note*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Miles Richardson ,
Marta Eugenia Pardo  and
Barbara Bode
Miles Richardson
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Marta Eugenia Pardo
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Barbara Bode
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans
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Extract

Holy Week in San Pedro, Colombia, a small town near the bustling city of Cali, begins with a procession that commemorates Jesus’ triumphal march into Jerusalem. The week climaxes on Holy Friday with processions and rites which act out Christ's crucifixion and death. The remaining days of Saturday and Sunday, days that ostensibly glorify Christ's victory over death, evoke little enthusiasm; only the priest and a few hard-core faithful trudge through the rites necessary to terminate the week.

The events which lead to the agony of Christ (his march into Jerusalem and the Last Supper), most of all the agony itself (the struggle up Calvary), are the events that the townspeople celebrate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1971 , pp. 246 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1971

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Footnotes

*

Field work (1962-1963) in San Pedro, Colombia by Miles Richardson was financed by the International Center for Medical Research and Training, Tulane University and Universidad del Valle. The field work (June-August 1967) in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, by Richardson and Bode with assistance from Pardo was supported, in part, by Public Health Service Training Grant T01-AT-00007 and Public Health Service Research Grant TW00148, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and by the Louisiana State University Medical School.

We also thank George Tracy, Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, for his helpful advice about chi square; and Valerie Richardson for her several, most helpful comments. The responsibility for what we did with their suggestions is ours. We continue to be in debt to the people of San Pedro and Puntarenas. A version of this paper was read at the Association of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nashville, Tennessee, 24 April 1969.

References

1 Richardson, Miles, San Pedro, Colombia: Small Town in a Developing Society (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), p. 78 Google Scholar.

2 Sims, Walter H., Baptist Hymnal (Nashville, Tn.: Convention Press, 1956), pp. 106, 113Google Scholar.

3 Geertz, Clifford, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Banton, Michael, ed. Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock Publication, 1966), pp. 1–46 Google Scholar.

4 Gearing, Fred, “Social Structure: Societies as Arrangements of Personnel,” in Clifton, James A., ed. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968), pp. 160-81Google Scholar.

5 Bode, Barbara and Richardson, Miles, “A Case Study in the Nature of Faith,” Human Mosaic 3 (1968): 13–40 Google Scholar.

6 Jr.Stocking, George W., “Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective,” American Anthropologist 68 (1966): 867-82Google Scholar. Emphasis added.

7 Richardson, Miles, “The Significance of the ‘Hole’ Community in Anthropological Studies,” American Anthropologist 69 (1967): 41–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Gillin, John, “Ethos Components in Modern Latin American Culture,” American Anthropologist 57 (1955): 488–500 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 It is extremely important to note that this concept does not prevent people from assigning a naturalistic cause to a particular disease. Nor does it prevent them from seeking out modern, professionally trained physicians. As is the case with the general model, this particular component is not fatalistic. For other details on Costa Rican popular medicine see Richardson, Miles and Bode, Barbara, “Urban and Societal Features of Popular Medicine in Puntarenas, Costa Rica,” Publications of the Middle American Research Institute (Tulane University, in press at this writing)Google Scholar.

10 Our data force us to define urban as the national and provincial capitals, Puntarenas being a provincial capital. This is not a satisfactory definition of urban and nonurban. However, since the vast majority of people born in an urban place were born in the city of Puntarenas, and since the majority of those born outside the city were from a clearly rural area, an urban nonurban dichotomy, if it is in the data, should appear. Dirección General de Estadística y Censo, Censo de Población; 1963 (San José: Ministerio de Industria y Comercio, 1966).

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17 Guevara, Miguel de, “A Cristo Crucificado,” An Anthology of Spanish Poetry from Garcilaso to Garcia Lorca (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1961), p. 340 Google Scholar. Above translation by Barbara Bode.