Ritual and Belief

My photography attempts to capture the ancient beliefs that have been layered by Catholicism and myth to create the faith that now exists in Mexico, Guatemala and other countries in Latin America.    "Their gods, particularly the so-called "household gods" (as opposed the deities of the state religion) were their versions of the ancient gods and goddesses who were worshipped from time immemorial throughout Mesoamerica, and which have traits in common with ancient beliefs from all over the world.    One of the principal household deities worshipped by the Mexica and by other tribes of Mesoamerica was Tonantzin ("Our Lady"), the mother goddess, identified with the moon. The modern Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City is the principal shrine to the patron saint of Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and is located on the exact spot where the pyramid of Tonantzin once stood. It is generally believed by anthropologists that the Virgin of Guadalupe and Tonantzin are one in the same, and that this is one of many examples of how ancient Indian beliefs have become fused into the unique spiritual reality of "modern" Mexicans.    Today, people carrying on the same spiritual traditions which have shaped the minds and imaginations of the peoples since ancient times. The glossing over of the ancient beliefs by Catholic ritual has only served to obscure the real roots of the religious/cultural mix of the region.    But in that sense, it can be argued that the Mexica and the Toltecs, in their turn, did the same in the Valley of Mexico. So must have the Apaches and  Indians done with the more ancient beliefs of the peoples they absorbed and displaced.    Just as Tonantzin lives on in her new incarnation, as it were, as the Virgin of Guadalupe, the old beliefs here have never really died, but continue to have new life breathed into them by each new generation of believers who grow up in this culture. In turn, the spiritual entities, the saints as reincarnations of the more ancient gods, breath their life into the believers, perpetuating a living tradition which goes back to the beginning of time itself." Don MartinDon Martín Martínez González  Curandero.