Dreams and the sacred thresholds of p'urhépecha power in the relación de michoacán

Abstract

Within the framework of Novohispanic Franciscanism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Motolinía, Sahagún, Torquemada), this chapter seeks to deepen in the specific conceptions of the dream, by setting it in relation to pre-Hispanic culture as well as to Christian prophecy ("Dream of Nebuchadnezzar") and its sacred hermeneutics of the conquest of America. From these preliminary considerations, we analyze the sacred thresholds and representations of the dream in the divinatory practices of access to the power of the P'urhépecha world, as well as their eventual points of contact with Christianmedieval symbolism ("Tree of Jesse", "Jacob's ladder"), according to the narrative (and iconographic) perspective of the Franciscan chronicler Jerónimo de Alcalá in his Relación de Michoacán. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. All rights reserved.