Chronological Pollution: Potsherds, Mosques, and Broken Gods before and after the Conquest of Mexico.

Essays; Pollution; Douglas, Mary, 1921-2007; Indigenous peoples of Central America; Social structure; Anthropology; Transatlantic influences on Native Americans; Chronology

Mary Douglas defined "dirt" as matter out of place, but dirt can be matter out of time as well. This essay uses the concept of chronological pollution to interrelate times and places often categorized as separate: pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica; medieval Europe; and the Muslim, Christian, and Native American worlds of the sixteenth-century transatlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]