Anotace:
“Closing the water” is a ritual connected to the agrarian cycle and belongs to a set of rituals which are performed for the purpose of securing an abundant harvest of maize and other crops. This case study is based on fieldwork conducted by the author in Hueyapan, a Nahua community situated in the Highlands of Morelos on the southern slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano in Central Mexico. It consists of two parts: the first provides a description of the ritual; that is, it presents the ritual itself and the sequence of its parts. The second represents an analysis and explanation of the ritual from an anthropological point of view. Since the ritual of “Closing the water” belongs to a millennial tradition of Mesoamerica related to a ritual landscape, sacred mountains and agrarian cycle, the paper shows how this tradition and this ritual were incorporated into Catholicism in a process of religious syncretism.