The Millennial New World.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara

The Millennial New World, by Frank Graziano. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Ideologies identified as apocalyptic, messianic, or millennial abound in Latin America. In his new book, Frank Graziano describes and catalogs these ideologies in order to examine the interplay among them in the New World. Graziano is not concerned with historical accuracy, but with the power of belief. Rather than objectivity, he seeks indications of how coinciding or competing versions of millennial thought either blend together or create dialogical tension.

Graziano is especially interested in those cases in which millennial thought from different cultures come together and interact. He cites the example of the Tupi-Guarani, who migrated across Latin America seeking the promised paradise known as the "Land-without-Evil" and wound up confronting Spanish conquistadors pursuing a millennial myth involving the fabulously rich El Dorado. The encounter caused the Spaniards to interpret the Indians' utterances as confirmation that El Dorado was located in the Amazon and contributed to the founding of the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay.

In some cases Spaniards appropriated indigenous myths in their efforts to Christianize native populations. For example, Toltec tales of the man-god Quetzalcoatl, perpetually consumed and reborn in his own ashes, prepared the Aztecs to accept Christ and the story of the Resurrection. The Aztec emperor Moctezuma supposed Cortes to be the deified priest-king Quetzalcoatl. Later, Graziano points out, Spanish friars interpreted stories about the legendary Quetzalcoatl as indications that the apostle Thomas had actually made his way to pre-Columbian America. Over the years, the friars reasoned, Saint Thomas's identity had been Indianized and distorted. The missionaries recast Thomas as a Caucasian and established his Christian virtues, which included redeeming the sinful Indian peoples. This melding of myths helped the conquistadors to justify to themselves their violence toward the Indians, while enabling the missionaries to expand the domain of their own messiah among societies already accustomed to notions of resurrection and redemption.

Millennial thought could also extend in the opposite direction, commencing with Christian beliefs and redirecting them to indigenous advantage. For example, Crusade ideology allowed Spanish imperialists to see themselves as agents of destiny steering history toward its "fixed conclusion in the...