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Cultural Interbreedings: Constituting the Majority as a Minority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2012

Serge Gruzinski  and
Nathan Wachtel
Serge Gruzinski
Affiliation:
E.H.E.S.S.
Nathan Wachtel
Affiliation:
Collège de Franco
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Extract

From the time of the Spanish invasion, in the Andean world as in Mexico, a mere handful of conquistadores came to impose their domination upon the indigent masses. One cannot, therefore, begin by speaking of minorities nor of the marginalization of Amerindian populations, even when these decrease dramatically following the demographic catastrophe of the sixteenth century, for in spite of this they remain significantly more numerous than the Spanish. Yet it is true that the term Indian appears, from its origins even, as a derogatory term (see the flood of contemporary literature on savages, idolaters, and so forth) and that it is in fact applied even now in countries such as Peru and Bolivia, where the autochthonous substratum survives in many regions, to the populations least integrated into national life, who might be considered, in this sense, as “marginal.” What, then, has taken place during these last five centuries?

Type
The Construction of Minorities (A Joint Project of Annales and CSSH)
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , April 1997 , pp. 231 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1997

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References

1 “Defender estas ovejas de los lobos” in the “Carta colectiva de los franciscanos de México al emperador” (17-XI-1532) published de Benavente, Fray Toribio (‘Motolinia’), Memoriales (Mexico: UNAM. 1971Google Scholar).

2 It would be suitable in this instance to compare the case of Americans with the earlier ones of the Canary Islands and of Grenada.

3 “Esta nacion” concerning the Indians in “Carta colectiva de los franciscanos de Mexico al emperador,” 438.

4 de la Cruz, Sor Juana Ines. Obras completas, t. II (Mexico. FCE). 16Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., t.III, 180.

6 Trez piezas, 377–9. Conceived after the model of the plays of Lope de Vega, at once edifying, humorous and pleasant, the Comédie de saint François Borja tells of the conversion of a great Jesuit saint, the Duke of Gandia, grandee of Spain and viceroy of Catalonia. It is punctuated by interludes and dances such as the branle and a part of the alcancias, earthenware balls filled with flowers or ashes. Ten students of the highest nobility played a part in it that was remarked upon.

7 de la Cruz, Sor Juana Ines, Obras completas, II. 41, 17Google Scholar. The “interbreeding” of cultures was so evident and so familiar that the adjective itself—mestizo—was from the common domain, to the point of being used in a villancico as popular and as burlesque as that of San Pedro Nolasco (1677).

8 Marie Cécile Benassy, p. 31.

9 The recovery of Indian cultures took on occasion the route of mythological allegory: In 1713, a float presented by the corporation of pulque manufacturers vaunted the virtues of pulque, the fermented juice of the agave. A Creole poet took it upon himself to invent a creational myth to attach the Mexican plant to classical mythology. Created by Hercules, born of the milk of the Goddess Juno, the pulque became that “preciosisima bebida. tenida de sus aficionados por digno brindis de la mesa de Jupiter, y aptisima para procerizarse a deidades.”

10 Careri, Giovanni Gemelli, Viaje a la Nueva Espana (Mexico: UNAM), 123Google Scholar.

11 Elias Trabulse, p. 19.

12 Don Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora, p. 252: “genie arrancada de sus pueblos, por ser los mas extranos de su provincia, gente despedazada por defender su patria y hecha pedazos por su pobreza; pueblo terrible en el sufrir y despues del cual no se hallaria otro tan paciente en el padecer, gente que siempre aguarda el remedio de sus miserias y siempre se halla pisada de todos, cuya tierra padece trabajos en repetidas inundaciones.’

13 AGN (Mexico). Bando 20, no. 25.

14 Alberro, Solange: Les Espagnols dans le Mexique colonial. Histoire d'une acculturation (Cahiers des Annales, Paris, 1992Google Scholar).

15 de Matienzo, Juan. Gobierno del Peru (Paris. 1967CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

16 Cf. Wachtel, Nathan. Le retour des ancêtres. Les Indiens Urus de Bolivie (XXème-XVlème siècle). Essai d'histoire régressive. (Paris, 1990). 549–58Google Scholar.

17 Ibid, 476–7.

18 Ibid., 478–9.

19 Ibid. 480–2.

20 Cf. Barragan, Rossana. Espacio urbano y dinamica etnica. La Paz en el siglo XIX. (La Paz, Hisbol, 1990Google Scholar).

21 Ibid. 85–122.

22 Ibid. 72–74.

23 Ibid. 76–82 and 75.

24 Ibid. 96–122, and 185 passim.

25 Ibid.cf. table. 196–7.

26 Ibid. 192 and passim.

27 Cf. Barragan, Rossana, “Entre polleras, nanacas y lliqllas. Los mestizos y cholas en la conformacion de la “Tercera Republica,” in Tradition y modernidad en los Andes, Urbano, Henrique, ed. (Cuzco, 1993), 43–73Google Scholar.