Sandstrom, Alan & Pamela EffreinSandstrom. Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain: Nahua sacred journeys in Mexico's Huasteca Veracruzana. 478 pp., bibliogr. Denver: University of Colorado Press, 2023. $34.95 (paper)

Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain is a composite account of five pilgrimages undertaken by anthropologists Alan Sandstrom and Pamela Effrein Sandstrom through the sacred landscapes around pseudonymous Amatlán, an Indigenous Nahua village in the Huasteca region of Veracruz, Mexico, where they have conducted fieldwork since the 1970s. The book is the result of their collaboration with Cirilo Téllez Hernández, a tlamatiquetl or ‘person of knowledge’ and ritual specialist, who guided the authors through these pilgrimages, and many other aspects of religious life in Amatlán (Téllez Hernández has since passed away and the book is dedicated in his memory). The project is a remarkable example of deep, insightful anthropological analysis grounded in striking ethnography. But it also fulfils Téllez Hernández's own desire to document and transmit knowledge about Nahua sacred rituals, myth, and cosmology in the face of rapid socioeconomic, environmental, and religious changes in the Huasteca today. It is impossible in a review of this length to address all of the subjects that this fascinating and holistic account of Nahua pilgrimage covers. Chapters 1 and 2 provide analyses of foundational myths and concepts in the sacred cosmos, including conceptions of the body, significance of colours and numbers, and the nature of divinity and its relations with human beings. Chapters 3 and 4 are detailed ethnographic descriptions of pilgrimage, including ritual preparations, itineraries and locations, the roles of different human, telluric and spirit actors, and the materials, technologies, and activities necessary for effective pilgrimage, including altars, offerings and sacrifices, and chants, many of which are produced verbatim in Nahua and English. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 analyse the pilgrimage and its role within broader cosmological and ritual systems, and Chapters 8 and 9 place this extensive work in comparative perspective with pre-Hispanic and contemporary practices elsewhere in Mexico today. The central focus of the ethnography and analysis is the sacred anthropomorphic paper figures (amatlatectli) that are produced by the thousands for each pilgrimage. Ritual paper cutting was an important and widespread practice in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica; it continues in only a few regions today, although its material and design legacy is visible in contemporary Mexican folk arts, notably papel picado. Ritual paper figures in Amatlán embody aspects of sacred spirit entities, elements of the natural environment, and abstract cultural concepts. They are used in particular combinations and arrangements as altar offerings and mnemonic tools during prayers, sacrifices, and cleansings, granting human beings direct access to the sacred; their fragile and ephemeral nature seems part of their efficacy. The use and sheer number of the paper figures in these pilgrimages present methodological challenges, prompting Sandstrom and Sandstrom to commission a representative set from Téllez Hernández, who was pleased that they could be archived for future use and scholarship. This has resulted in a text that includes a level of fine-grained detail rarely seen in contemporary ethnography, supported by extensive illustrations and schemas that document the forms, symbols, meanings, relationships, and uses of the paper figures. The text is further complemented by an extensive number of photographs that document the entire pilgrimage process, and coloured etchings that place myths and narratives within Mesoamerican visual and symbolic idioms. Through their comprehensive analysis of this ritual practice and assemblage, Sandstrom and Sandstrom convincingly argue that the core purpose of Nahua pilgrimage is to achieve balance or order between the human community and the cosmic forces of the universe. Balance is essential because, while Nahua religion is pantheistic on the surface, it is grounded in a monist ontology in which all beings and objects in existence are different manifestations of the one single, sacred totality, Totiotzin. Paper figures are effective ritual technologies, because they are embodiments of specific spirit entities, which are themselves particular aspects or expressions of this divine totality. As objects with subjectivity, the paper figures therefore also have agency vis-à-vis human beings and other aspects of Totiotzin, and can influence this balance for good or ill, from the perspective of human beings. Beyond the impressive contribution that this work makes to the ethnography of Mesoamerican cosmology and ritual life, Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain also engages in important debates in anthropology and archaeology about Indigenous ontologies in the Americas; the roles of symbols, sacrifice, objects, and agency in ritual practice; and the relationships between action, movement, and landscape in studies of pilgrimage. I do feel the book misses an opportunity by not explicitly engaging with broader discussions in the so-called ‘material turn’ in the anthropology of religion, where valuable theoretical work has been undertaken on materiality, embodiment, and sensory dimensions of sacred practice. Nevertheless, the book will be of great interest to all scholars working on questions of agency, efficacy, objects, and personhood in ritual and religion, for its exceptional ethnographic detail and critical, precise analysis.