Since antiquity, knowledge has often been juxtaposed with opinion. Whereas opinion
commonly refers to subjective perceptions and viewpoints, knowledge is typically
intended to represent objective and verifiable propositions. On this view, knowledge
per se claims a universal dimension in that it pretends to be approvable through the
reason of everyone, everywhere. This universal aspect of the concept of knowledge
stands in marked contrast to cultures of local knowledge, where the generation of
knowledge is dependent on specific times and places. These divergent aspects came
into conflict when Indigenous knowledge was contested by Europeans and likewise,
Indigenous challenges to European knowledge occurred. Based on religious, linguistic,
demographic, and cultural disparities, knowledge operative in one context was
adapted, manipulated, reframed, or dismissed as spurious or heretical in another
framework.
This book focuses on historical examples of Indigenous knowledge from 1492 until
circa 1800, with contributions from the fields of history, art history, geography,
anthropology, and archaeology. Among the wide range of sources employed are
Indigenous letters, last wills, missionary sermons, bilingual catechisms, archive
inventories, natural histories, census records, maps, herbal catalogues of remedies,
pottery, and stone carvings. These sources originate from Brazil, the Río de la Plata
basin (parts of current-day Argentina, lowland Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay), the
Andean region, New Spain (current-day Mexico), the Canary Islands, and Europe. The
14 chapters in this book are clustered into five main sections: (1) Medical Knowledge;
(2) Languages, Texts, and Terminology; (3) Cartography and Geographical Knowledge;
(4) Material and Visual Culture; and (5) Missionary Perceptions.
Author(s): Laura Dierksmeier, Fabian Fechner, Kazuhisa Takeda, (Eds.)
Series: RessourcenKulturen (14)
Publisher: Tübingen University Press/ Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen
Year: 2021
Language: English; Spanish
Pages: 310
City: Tübingen
Tags: Peru; Historia del Perú; Peruvian History; Andes; Andean History; Historia andina; Latin America; Americas; América latina; Latinoamérica; Peru; Mexico
Acknowledgements ........................................................................... 7
Information about the Editors ................................................................ 8
Glossary of Terms ............................................................................ 9
Introduction
Laura Dierksmeier and Fabian Fechner
Indigenous Knowledge as a Resource: Transmission, Reception, and Interaction of
Knowledge between the Americas and Europe, 1492–1800.
Truthmakers and Contexts of Indigenous Knowledge Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Laura Dierksmeier y Fabian Fechner
El conocimiento indígena como recurso: Transmisión, recepción e interacción del
conocimiento entre América y Europa, 1492–1800.
Los creadores de la verdad y contextos de transmisión de conocimiento indígena . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
I. Medical Knowledge
Harald Thun
El saber médico de los guaraníes y la medicina de los jesuitas.
Transmisiones y transformaciones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Miriam Lay Brander
On Indio Priests, Muslim Physicians and Konkani Servants.
The Reception of Indigenous Medical Knowledge in Early Modern Seville and Goa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
II. Language, Texts, and Terminology
Rosa H. Yáñez Rosales
Traces of Spoken Nahuatl in Colonial Texts from the Obispado and
Audiencia de Guadalajara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Yukitaka Inoue Okubo
The Notion of Authorship in Selected Indigenous Chronicles of New Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Richard Herzog
Conferring a Universal Scope to Nahua Political Concepts.
An Aim in the Works of Domingo Chimalpahin (Early 17th Century) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6 Contents
III. Cartography and Geographical Knowledge
Kazuhisa Takeda
Indigenous Knowledge of Land Use and Storage Practices of Historical Documents
in the Jesuit-Guaraní Missions of Colonial South America.
A Comparative Analysis of Maps and Census Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
María Laura Salinas
Entre guaraníes, caciques y frailes. El cabildo de indios del pueblo de Itatí,
5¯RGHOD3ODWDDȴQHVGHOVLJOR;9,,,\SULQFLSLRVGHO;,; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Irina Saladin
Authenticating Local Information. Indigenous Informants at the Amazon and the
Spanish/Portuguese Boundary Commission in 1782 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
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Anna Boroffka
Painting a Universal History of the Aztec World. Translation and Transformation
of Indigenous Knowledge in the Illuminations of the ‘Florentine Codex’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Christine D. Beaule
Qeros and the Conservation of Indigeneity in the Spanish Colonial Andes ..................... 235
A. José Farrujia de la Rosa
Indigenous Knowledge in the Canary Islands?
A Case Study at the Margins of Europe and Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
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Corinna Gramatke
Materialidad y traspaso de saberes. Fuentes y empirismo en el
“Paraguay natural ilustrado” de José Sánchez Labrador (1717–1798) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Álvaro Ezcurra Rivero
Concesiones, transformaciones y rechazos del conocimiento indígena en los sermones
GH)HUQDQGRGH$YHQGD³R 3HU¼VLJOR;9,, ................................................... 281
Susanne Spieker
Knowledge about Children, Education, and Upbringing in Bernardino
de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
