Título del libro: Angels, Demons And The New World
Título del capítulo: Winged and imagined Indians
JAIME GENARO FRANCISCO JAVIER CUADRIELLO AGUILAR;
Autores externos:
Idioma:
Inglés
Año de publicación:
2010
Resumen:
It is well known that the first debate surrounding the nature of the indigenous peoples of America was set in philosophical, theological and historical terms. Upon such foundations, it was readily deduced ? with the casual caveats imposed on the topic by each brand of thinker, chronicler, jurist or royal advisor ? that the Indians were ?new men?. But beyond the need to determine their origin with the purpose of inserting them convincingly within the coordinates of sacred Scripture and the history of salvation, from the earliest days, particularly in New Spain, the interference of the devil in the lives of the Indians soon highlighted who in effect was the real subject of the philosophical and theological debate. The most radical observers, like Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, declared without any qualms that the Indians were ?not beings endowed with a capacity for proper rationality?. As a result of their various idolatrous practices, which they rendered upon altars in honour of ?Satanic images?, they were ?nothing but irredeemable subjects of hell?. It should be noted that, in practice, the most overwhelming evidence to suggest an indigenous penchant for the diabolic, which would form the basis of the corresponding demonisation of the Indians, was found in the cult of images. The problem, in other words, was the ?aberrant? submissive relationship between the object and the subject when seen through the typically Western matter-spirit dichotomy. Thus, the irksome conundrum of indigenous rationality ? which was either denied or seen to operate in practice, but always, to a greater or lesser degree, in a relationship which was suspiciously close to the animated materiality of indigenous objects of worship ? was all the more disturbing given that the Indians were believed to be under the power of a principle which was unmistakably malign. And yet, from the indigenous perspective, any magical effectiveness during the process of substituting one set of objects for another would have had no negative connotations. Indeed, the function of the sacred image went well beyond a mere honouring of the archetype through the figure: it continued to function as an extension of the animated body, particularly when its theurgic or apotropaic functions were invoked. © Cambridge Uni
Entidades citadas de la UNAM:
ISBN:
9781139023870
Editorial:
Cambridge University Press Nombre de la publicación:
Winged and imagined Indians
Página inicial:
211
Página final:
248
