Incorporating human sacrifice, flaying, and mock warfare, the pre-Columbian Mexican ceremony known as Ochpaniztli, or “Sweeping,” has long attracted attention. Although it is among the best known of eighteen annual Aztec ceremonies, Ochpaniztli’s significance nevertheless has been poorly understood. Ochpaniztli is known mainly from early colonial illustrated manuscripts produced in cross-cultural collaboration between Spanish missionary-chroniclers and native Mexican informants and artists.

Although scholars typically privilege the manuscripts’ textual descriptions, Sweeping the Way examines the fundamental role of their pictorial elements. Catherine DiCesare emphasizes the primacy of the regalia, ritual implements, and adornments of the patron “goddess” as the point of intersection between sacred cosmic forces and ceremonial celebrants. The associations of these paraphernalia indicate that Ochpaniztli was a period of purification rituals designed to transform and protect individual and communal bodies alike. Spanish friars were unable to comprehend the complex nature of the festival’s patroness and ultimately fragmented her identity into categories meeting their expectations, a situation that continues to vex modern investigations.

Sweeping the Way addresses myriad issues of translation and transformation in pre-Columbian and post-conquest Mexico, as Christian friars and native Mexicans together negotiated a complex body of information about outlawed ritual practices and sacred entities.