Rituals of Sacrifice: Walking the Face of the Earth on the Sacred Path of the Sun

Rituals of Sacrifice: Walking the Face of the Earth on the Sacred Path of the Sun by Stanzione, Vincent. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9780826329172.

Living and working among the Tzutujil Maya people of Santiago Atitlán in highland Guatemala for some fifteen years, Vincent Stanzione has observed, photographed, and participated in their ritual and ceremonial life, which he describes with unique authority in this account of the continuities in Mayan culture from pre-Columbian times to the present. "This book represents both a confirmation and an innovation in the scholarship and field work about the religious imagination and rites of passage of Maya peoples. I know of no book that is as able to a) link the pre-Hispanic, colonial and contemporary religious practices of these peoples into a coherent narrative, b) combine anthropological/religious studies theory with linguistics and ongoing field work as creatively and c) illuminate the debate between models of syncretism and transculturation about a contemporary ritual cycle as Stanziones beautifully illustrated work."--David Carrasco, Harvard University