An Interview with Elmer Beard: Remembrances of Black Activism, Communal Solidarity, and the Burning of Roanoke Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas

Context The oral history interview with Mr. Elmer Beard, a longtime political activist, politician, and educator, is part of a series of interviews for a study on Black church burnings, arsons, and vandalism from 2008 to 2016. Mr. Beard gives historical context to recent Black church arson with a focus on the mysterious burning of Roanoke Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on 22 December 1963. On 9 March 2018, the interview took place in Hot Springs at the current church site. The dialogue starts with biographical questions and evolves into details about Mr. Beard’s experience growing up in a racially segregated society, particularly in south-central Arkansas.

Marital Practices of the Nahuas and Imposed Sociocultural Change in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

There are many sources that allowed scholars to study the nature and functions of polygamous marriages of the Nahua nobility. Very few studies, however, focus on the marital relations of the Nahua commoners. This article presents exploratory research into various kinds of marriages of the macehualtin—polygamy, sororate, and levirate. Based on the available material (early censuses, inquisitorial records, sixteenth-century accounts) it discusses the functions that these types of unions played in Nahua society. Moreover, it reflects on the effects that the Christianization and prohibition of such marriages had on Nahua society. The Nahuas could either reshape their communities, by adjusting to the new rules, or continue their precolonial practices in hiding. Either way, the imposed Christianization can be analyzed through the notion of the cultural trauma, which occurred when the Nahuas were forced to reshape their communities to adjust to the new rules.

Pedro de Alvarado, Tonatiuh: Reconsidering Apotheosis in Nahua and Highland Maya Narratives of the Spanish Invasion

Recent scholarship on the Spanish invasion of the New World has brought under scrutiny the historiographic theme of apotheosis—the notion that Indigenous peoples regarded the invaders as gods or godlike beings and that such beliefs influenced their responses. This article examines the question by focusing on Pedro de Alvarado, a leading member of Hernán Cortés’s contingent, who was known as Tonatiuh—a Nahuatl word that designated the sun, the day, and the sun god. Indigenous peoples in Mexico and Guatemala used the name during the invasion, and Nahua, K’iche’, and Kaqchikel authors employed it frequently in later writings that variously hinted at, endorsed, or questioned Alvarado’s associations with the sun god. Rather than an imposition resulting from Spanish teachings, the association of Alvarado with the sun god derived from Mesoamerican beliefs about the rise and fall of successive eras, which provided Indigenous paradigms to explain the Spanish invasion.