Along with Brazil, Mexico has demonstrated a similar phenomenon, amongst the Nahuatl-speaking locals. It is another Virgin Mary figure which was discovered on a sacred Aztec site. The statue is commonly referred to as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe, pictured below), however the indigenous people call her Tonantzin, after an indigenous goddess of the earth. Asides from religious figurines, there are many buildings in Latin America which are known to be influenced by the colonisation which are religious sites, most often churches. The increase in the number of churches in Latin America is another sign that religion took a large part in changing Latin American society and lifestyle. Transculturation not only resulted in mixing …show more content…
When the settlers went to start up the agricultural industry in the rural areas of Latin America, there was obviously a smaller population of both natives and Europeans in that region. Colonisers needed workers and locals needed work; both parties had no choice but to interact with one another. Ortiz states that everybody was “snatched from their original social groups, their own cultures destroyed and crushed under the weight of the cultures in existence here” (Ortiz 1947: 98). As the Europeans needed to raise funds in order to pay for their transportation costs from home, they required gold, silver and sugar for export. For the workers gathering these resources, the indigenous people supplied them food and clothes. Due to this involvement with each other, both sides were more easily influenced by the other in terms of speech, dress, behaviour, than in an urban environment. Some natives were forced to move out of their homes due to the Europeans moving in and taking over. Once the indigenous population migrated to a different region of Latin America, they began an attempt to integrate their own culture into their new environment, resulting in future transculturation in those areas