Sparks 1

David Sparks

Professor Leslie Offutt

HIST262: Latin America 1450-1750

Friday November 16, 2017 (using three grace days)

Sigal, Pete, From Moon Goddesses to Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya Sexual
Desire, United States of America: University of Texas Press, Austin, 2000.

A social history of Yucatecan Maya sexuality and power, Pete Sigals From Moon

Goddesses to Virgins examines how colonization changed the thought world of the Maya

through a series of cultural negotiations and dialogues in a system of power that created

something a

To the Maya, the Moon Goddess, although a sexually active goddess that slept with other Gods

to obtain power, was central to their cosmology,

Yu Sigal traces the history and transformation of sexual desires and conceptions of sexuality

through the ways the Moon Goddess was evoked by the Yucatecan Maya people throughout the

colonial period, and eventually, the Moon Goddess would be represented as a mlange of sexual

identities and genders (including being seen as a virgin, a bisexual, sexually active woman, and a

bisexual, sexually active man all at the same time) that Sigal argues represented the overall

dynamic discourse around sexuality that was present in everyday Yucatecan Maya life (241).

How did the Mayas understanding of the Moon Goddess and, by extension, sexuality

change through this colonial process? Sigals understanding of power and the way colonizers

effectively colonize is through a type of cultural hybridity, using existing Indigenous systems,

institutions, ideas, and even Goddesses to depict new colonial ideas and hierarchies (8). In the

process,
 Sparks 2

Gender and sexuality are difficult to study in contemporary times with a plethora of

resources are available to scholars

Structure: the first paragraph of your review identifies the books author and title and gives a
very brief summary of what the author intends to do. Try not to tip your hand here on your
ultimate assessment of the book. This is intro, and you should offer only enough to tempt the
reader to continue reading. The second though fourth (or fifth or sixth) paragraphs treat
specific main themes of the book (do not simply summarize each chapteryour task is to
identify the most important arguments the author is making and to assess them on their
merits). The penultimate paragraph should assess sources (see above). Dont simply list them
(and dont list all of thembe selective, highlighting the ones that are most significant to an
authors argument); give some indication of how the author uses particular sources. And dont
say simply he used archival sources from the Archivo General de Mxicothat tells me
nothing. What kinds of sources did he use from the AGN? What did they allow him to argue?
The final paragraph is your assessment of the success (or lack thereof) of the authors work; has
she convincingly carried her argument forward. Dont simply summarize; push yourself to
seriously consider the strengths and weaknesses of the authors arguments.