Making the World Safe for Existence presents an in-depth description of the cult of the saints as practiced in Chignaulta, an Indian community in the central highlands of Mexico. Data gathered over twenty years of field research and the rich interpretations offered allow the reader to explore Chignauteco cosmology as it is revealed in the elaborate rituals held to honor the saints. The primacy the author assigns to the perception and the Indians have of their world and the place of the saints within it reveals the vitality of an indigenous worldview that has endured since the time of the Conquest.

Making the World Safe for Existence will interest specialists in Mesoamerican studies, anthropologists, sociologists, and social psychologists.