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Darrera modificació: 2020-08-04
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
Pardo-Tomás, José, "«Antiguamente vivían más sanos que ahora»: explanations of the native mortality in the Relaciones Geográficas de Indias", dins: Slater, John - López Terrada, María Luz - Pardo-Tomás, José (eds.), Medical Cultures in the Early Modern Spanish Empire, Farnham, Ashgate, 2014, pp. 41-65.
- Resum
- Although the copious material of interest to historians of medicine contained in the texts and paintings of the so-called (and misnamed) Relaciones Geográficas de Indias was the object of some exploratory studies several decades ago, it has yet to be systematically and exhaustively analysed. Such an analysis cannot be undertaken in a single chapter, and therefore what is presented here is just one aspect, which by no means exhausts the wealth of material this source has to offer. So, the central focus on this occasion will be the distinctive interpretation of the demographic catastrophe which arose among the indigenous population following the arrival of the Europeans, as conquerors and evangelisers. The first three features that come as a surprise when we begin to analyse the texts are the discretionality (not all respondents answered every question, or even in the order laid down in the questionnaire, nor, very often, did they answer the question in the sense intended by those who wrote it), the plurality (there is a wide range of explanations, rhetorical devices, views of illness and its causes, etc.) and the originality of many of the replies. The challenge of trying to answer the question of why the indigenous population had been brutally decimated by illness was posed, firstly, to those responsible for compiling the responses to the questionnaire: corregidores (local governors), alcaldes mayores (local judges), escribanos (notaries), friars, priests and interpreters, in the first instance. Some of them abandoned at the outset any attempt to formulate their own response, making evasive replies or bluntly stating “not known”. Others, by contrast, took up the challenge directly and offer us a statement which in some cases is quite original but in others sticks firmly to a script marked by the most hackneyed clichés of the “conqueror”. Finally, some felt it necessary to leave room for other voices, including those of the representatives of the indigenous communities. However distant, muffled and mediated these voices may be as transmitted to us in the document, they are an indispensable part of the medical culture of New Spain. The plurality of voices, the wide range of explanations, the wealth of opinions and attitudes shown by these responses are a long way from that image of the colonial world as a passive or receptive territory, resistant or assimilated, but always dependent. On the contrary, it is clear that the disparate inhabitants of the colony played a part in forming the opinions and attitudes of their colonial masters.
- Matèries
- Història de la medicina
Geografia i viatges
- URL
- https://www.academia.edu/12742920/Antiguamente_viv% ...
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