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Accompanying Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1494 was a young Spanish friar named Ramón Pané. The friar’s assignment was to live among the “Indians” whom Columbus had “discovered” on the island of Hispaniola (today the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic), to learn their language, and to write a record of their lives and beliefs. While the culture of these indigenous people—who came to be known as the Taíno—is now extinct, the written record completed by Pané around 1498 has survived. This volume makes Pané’s landmark Account—the first book written in a European language on American soil—available in an annotated English edition. Edite...
Takes a close look at the relationship between humans and other (non-human) beings that are imbued with cemí power, specifically within the Taíno inter-island cultural sphere encompassing Puerto Rico and Hispaniola Cemís are both portable artifacts and embodiments of persons or spirit, which the Taínos and other natives of the Greater Antilles (ca. AD 1000-1550) regarded as numinous beings with supernatural or magic powers. This volume takes a close look at the relationship between humans and other (non-human) beings that are imbued with cemí power, specifically within the Taíno inter-island cultural sphere encompassing Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. The relationships address the importan...
A valuable recounting of the first formal archaeological excavations in Puerto Rico Originally published as the Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1907, this book was praised in an article in American Anthropologist as doing “more than any other to give a comprehensive idea of the archaeology of the West Indies.” Until that time, for mainly political reasons, little scientific research had been conducted by Americans on any of the Caribbean islands. Dr. Fewkes' unique skills of observation and experience served him well in the quest to understand Caribbean prehistory and culture. This volume, the result of his careful fieldwork in Puerto Rico in 1902-04, is magnificently illustrated by 93 plates and 43 line drawings of specimens from both public and private collections of the islands. A 1907 article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland described the volume as “a most valuable contribution to ethnographical science.”
This work examines various readings of Fray Ramon Pane's Relacion acerca de las antiguedades de los indios (c. 1498), a pioneering work in ethnography portraying the initial European perceptions of the native inhabitants of the New World. This work should appeal to scholars interested in the study of ethnography, postcolonialism, translation theory, literary theory and discourse analysis. acerca de las antiguedades de los indios (c. 1498), telling the story of the multiple layered readings of the 1974 version of the text put together by Jose Juan Arrom. The original, written by Fray Ramon Pane, a young brother from the Convent of Saint Jerome de la Murta in Badalona, Spain who sailed with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World, offers a glimpse into the earliest moments of Europe's encounter with the New World. The centuries of reading to which this work has been subjected have shaped its interpretation and translation as individuals from different times, places, and cultures have tried to associate with those things described in the text while also reflecting on themselves, producing an autoethnography.
When J. H. Elliott published Spain and Its World, 1500?1700 some twenty years ago, one of many enthusiasts declared, ?For anyone interested in the history of empire, of Europe and of Spain, here is a book to keep within reach, to read, to study and to enjoy" (Times Literary Supplement). Since then Elliott has continued to explore the history of Spain and the Hispanic world with originality and insight, producing some of the most influential work in the field. In this new volume he gathers writings that reflect his recent research and thinking on politics, art, culture, and ideas in Europe and the colonial worlds between 1500 and 1800.The volume includes fourteen essays, lectures, and articles of remarkable breadth and freshness, written with Elliott's characteristic brio. It includes an unpublished lecture in honor of the late Hugh Trevor-Roper. Organized around three themes?early modern Europe, European overseas expansion, and the works and historical context of El Greco, Velzquez, Rubens, and Van Dyck?the book offers a rich survey of the themes at the heart of Elliott's interests throughout a career distinguished by excellence and innovation.
"These critical studies propose innovative readings and overall reformulations of the texts and authors that stand as representative of the period for the contemporary reader. The first group of articles refers to reports, chronicles, and Renaissance epics, a vast block of texts that fall in most cases halfway between history and narrative fiction, and examine the experiences of the discovery, the conquest, and the colonization of the new territories. The second group concentrates on regionally marked texts from the Baroque period, especially those of the central figure of the Mexican nun poet and intellectual, Sor Juana In s de la Cruz. Finally, there are some essays on representative texts of the latter part of the colonial period."--Publisher's description.
Recently identified as a killer, tobacco has been the focus of health warnings, lawsuits, and political controversy. Yet many Native Americans continue to view tobacco-when used properly-as a life-affirming and sacramental substance that plays a significant role in Native creation myths and religious ceremonies. This definitive work presents the origins, history, and contemporary use (and misuse) of tobacco by Native Americans. It describes wild and domesticated tobacco species and how their cultivation and use may have led to the domestication of corn, potatoes, beans, and other food plants. It also analyzes many North American Indian practices and beliefs, including the concept that Tobacc...