Chocolate: The International Sensation

Joseph-Théodore Van Cauqenbergh, Paris, France 1774
Silver, aramanth wood
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
Van Cauqenbergh, Joseph-Théodore. Chocolate Pot. 1774. Silver, aramanth wood. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. 1948. https://art.thewalters.org/detail/5934/chocolate-pot/.

Provenance: John Alfonse Walter, Aux Cayes, Haiti, prior to 1793, [mode of acquisition unknown] [1827 inventory]; Susan Rodgers (wife of John Alfonse Walter), Baltimore [date of acquisition unknown], by inheritance; Laura Walter, Baltimore [date of acquisition unkown], by inheritance; Ethel R. Gray, Baltimore, 1911, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1948, by purchase.

Cacao is a bean crop grown on trees and the fundamental basis for chocolate production. Europeans arriving in the New World found indigenous people to be consuming chocolate most commonly in the form of a drink with froth, and when the newcomers began to explore its additional uses, they created foodstuffs and even medication. The natives created chocolate by roasting and skinning the cacao beans, then crushing and grinding them to produce a more malleable substance, often adding other natural substances such as vanilla or honey for an improved taste.

Cacao played a vital cultural role in the lifestyle of native Americans, such as the Mayans and Aztecs. Archaeological research revealed engravings in ceremonial clay bowls of deities associated with the crop, and chocolate’s linguistic origin actually traces back to a phrase about the food of the god’s.

The European settlers saw much more commercial than religious potential in cacao, and word and taste of chocolate quickly spread across the continents. Thousands of pounds of the it were shipped to Europe, where the English eventually combined it with milk, liquor, and other ingredients. The manufacturing process involved the cleaning, roasting, cracking, and fanning of cacao beans, followed by their grinding and mixture with the prepared accompanying ingredients; the work required was quite manual and similar to that done by the native Americans with whom they found it. In Europe, this work was assisted by early manufacturing machinery, such as heated cauldrons, surfaces, mortars, and surfaces.

In the late 17th century, France’s consumption of chocolate, particularly by royalty, was common knowledge. The Siamese queen sent gifts of two silver chocolatiérs and five chocolate-pots, one of which was entirely gold, to Louis XIV. These grandiose presents served as models for equipment that soon became used all over Europe and even in British American colonies. The image above shows a later design of the instrument gifted to Louis XIV, the silver chocolatiére.

The transport and spread of chocolate resulted in its eventual development into a social symbol. In European countries such as Spain and Italy, it was consumed largely by those of upper and religious class. It was used in artwork as an indicator of social elevation, particularly in situations where it was being served by a foreign servant, which historical perspective can attribute to the crop’s close connection with imperialism.

Chocolate’s presence further generated something of a social stereotype surrounding women. This was rooted in its consumption by nuns and the European priests’ condemnation of it because of the financial expense; however, chocolate later became a symbol of female malignance in general. Its association with witchcraft became a widespread idea; it was said to be used in love potions, with other key ingredients such as menstrual blood. This social link was solidified on a higher, more legal level by Inquisition allegations of the creation of such potions.

Sources:

Bonnart, Robert. Un cavalier et une dame buvant du chocolat. 1718. Engraved maunuscript. BnF, Department of Manuscripts, CLAIRAMBAULT 503, National Library of France. Accessed October 9, 2018. http://classes.bnf.fr/essentiels/grand/ess_1558.htm.

Coe, Sophie D. et al. The True History of Chocolate. United Kingdom: Thames and Hudson, 1996.

Earle, Rebecca. The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race, and the Colonial Experiences in Spanish America, 1492-1700. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

 

The Telescope and Tradition

Galileo Galilei, Florence, Italy, 1609
Convex objective lens and concave lens in a long tube
Museum of the History of the Science, Florence.
Galilei, Galileo. Galileo’s 20x Telescope. 1610. Convex objective lens and eyepiece in a long tube. Museum of the History of the Science, Florence. 3 December, 2018. https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2011/05/25/brief-history-of-the-astronomical-telescope-i-galileo-galilei-and-the-unlikely-fate-of-his-middle-finger/

Provenance: Copy of telescope held by the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienzia, Florence One of a pair – see Inv 11094

The telescope was initially designed by the Dutch spectacles maker Hans Lippershey in 1608; he claimed to create a tool that magnified distant objects three times using a concave and convex lens. Its body was no more than two silver tubes fitted together, about seven inches long. The telescope obviously went on to be further developed into the monumentally valuable instrument we know today. The one pictured above, a model of Galileo’s 20X telescope, was created a year later in Florence, Italy. It used both a concave lens, serving as the eyepiece and one convex objective lens serving as the objective. These are on either end of a long tube, positioned so that they have the same focal points. It had a relatively small field of view compared to what we are used to in the modern telescope.

Because the telescope was created by a spectacles-maker, the original purpose was to magnify objects on Earth, not those in the sky. It was originally used for commercial purpose as a sort of amusing toy or tool for Enlightenment Europe to see what was originally far more difficult to perceive. Initially, it wasn’t even perceived as a potential tool for the military; clearly its untapped potential was exponential. Therefore, when Galileo pointed this new instrument towards the heavens, the effects and implications were monumental.

The telescope was one of the most important technological advancements of the European Enlightenment. Prior to its advent, scientists used tools such solar quadrants, armillary astrolabes, and parallactic instruments, all of which were considerably precise in measurements considering their context but did not provide nearly as much detail or information as the telescope. However, they were enough to provide solid theories off of which the astronomers with access to telescopes based much of their own ideas. The physical observations this tool provided held the potential to challenge the groundwork of all that society had known up until this point; never before had people been given the opportunity to see the world from a non-human centered point of view.

It was with this pre-telescopic equipment that Ptolemy and Copernicus developed their respective geocentric and heliocentric models of the universe. Following them was Tycho Brahe, a well-respected Danish nobleman, who also did not have access to the telescope and developed a model somewhere between Ptolemy and Copernicus’: one with an immobile Earth surrounded by a rotating moon and stars while the rest of the planets circled the sun. His student, Johannes Kepler, set about proving his instructor wrong by returning to Copernicus’ heliocentric model with the use of a telescope. Galileo additionally advanced and employed the telescope to support the heliocentric model, inciting his famous controversy with the Catholic Church.

Sources:

Graney, Christopher M. “Francesco Ingoli’s Essay To Galileo: Tycho Brahe and Science in the Inquisition’s Condemnation of the Copernican Theory” History and Philosophy of Physics, Cornell University Library (18 Nov 2012): 1-60.

Graney, Christopher M. “Of Mites and Men: Johannes Kepler on Stars and Size”. History and Philosophy of Physics, Cornell University Library (9 Feb 2018): 1-19.

Hollricher, Olaf and Wolfram Ibach. “High Resolution Optical and Confocal Microscopy.” Confocal Raman Microscopy Springer Series in Optical Sciences, August 31, 2010, 1-20.

Peterson, Mark A. Galileo’s Muse. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Oct 17, 2011.

A Double-Edged Drum: The Power of the Drum from Africa to America

Akan Drum
Unknown creator, Ghana, c. 1735
Carved wood and deer skin.
The British Museum

PROVENANCE: Thought to have been made by the Akan people of present day Ghana; brought to America aboard slave ship; obtained in Virginia by the Rev. Clerk on behalf of British Collector Sir Hans Sloane; part of founding collection of The British Museum, 1753.

This drum originated from West Africa in the Akan region of Ghana and was brought on a slave ship to the Virginia colony c. 1735. It is one of the oldest surviving African-American objects. While the carved wood is from the cordia africana, a tree from West Africa, the deer skin is North American. This indicates that the drum was used in its new home.

Drums have played a central role in Africa throughout history. Generally the sound of the drum was an announcement, such as declarations of wars or celebrations. In his autobiography The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings the formerly enslaved African Olaudah Equiano described Africa as a nation of dancers and musicians and emphasizes the use of drums. Within a community where everyone speaks the same drum language drums can have rhetorical impact. Since drum language is specific to a community and only accessible to ‘in-group’ members, drumming contributed to the formation of personhood and group identity.

Slavers were likely to lose up to one-half of their human ‘cargo’ during the middle passage. It was in their economic interests to keep the slaves alive and healthy. The Akan Drum was likely used in the practice known as ‘dancing the slaves’. Ship doctors believed nostalgic melancholy was the cause of diseases and recommended dancing as an antidote.

The threat of violence under which slaves ‘danced’ turned music and dance into tools of subjugation. Slavers made the dancing into a form of entertainment for personal enjoyment. The ship captains’ declarations that ‘white men’ had to be obeyed enabled the slavers to use the rich legacy of African drum-dance culture to create and image of blackness and whiteness, in which blacks were the subjugated and whites the subjugators.

Female slaves were kept on the main deck of the ship where they were vulnerable to the sexual predation of the slavers. The forced dancing became a twisted form of foreplay for rape. Refusal to participate resulted in severe punishments. A young African girl on the slave ship Recovery was tortured and killed for refusing to dance. In the complete annihilation of the ‘cargo’ the slavers went against their economic interests. The girl denied the slavers power and pleasure by rebelling against the racial script of subordination they had written for her. The slavers had to destroy her in order to take back control of her body.

The use of African music, dance, and instruments on the slaves ships allowed slaves to preserve homeland traditions. Dance became an integral part of the daily lives of slaves in North America. During Saturday night dances slaves would dance to the beat of the drum and talk about the freedom they had possessed in Africa. Dance practices of the slaves became intertwined with resistance and survival.

Music and dance culture of the slaves contributed to the formation of group identity and self-esteem. This threatened the system of slavery, which relied on the complete oppression of slaves. Masters’ fear of the communicative power of drums was confirmed by the Stono rebellion of 1739 in which rebels used a drum to signal each other. Slaves were subsequently banned from using drums.

The same drum which beat for subjugation could beat for rebellion. Slavers manipulated the culturally vital African Drum to subjugate black slaves through dance. The power of an instrument like the Akan Drum to communicate and unify persisted from Africa to North America. The drum became a double edged sword which slavers used to subjugate slaves and slaves used to rebel against the system of subjugation.

Sources:

Akan Drum. Early 18th Century. Carved wood and deer skin. The British Museum, London. November 13, 2018. http://www.teachinghistory100.org/objects/about_the_object/akan_drum

Anku, Willie. “Drumming Among The Akan and Anlo Ewe of Ghana: An Introduction.” African Music Vol. 8, No. 3 (2009): 38-64.

Aubrey, Thomas. The Sea-Surgeon, or the Guinea Man’s Vade Mecum. London, 1729.

Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Bokor, Michael J. K. “When the Drum Speaks: The Rhetoric of Motion, Emotion, and Action in African Societies.” A Journal of the History of Rhetoric Vol. 32: No. 2 (2014): 165-194.

Cruikshank, Isaac. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Or the Inhumanity of Dealers in Human Flesh Exemplified in Captn. Kimber’s Treatment of a Young Negro Girl of 15 for her Virjen (sic) Modesty. 1792 April 10. Etched Print. Library of Congress, Washington D.C. In Ring Shout, Wheel About. Champaign: University of Illinois, 2014, 43.

“Dance among Slaves.” Gale Library of Daily Life: American Civil War. Encyclopedia.com. November 16, 2018. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/dance-among-slaves

Emery, Lynne Fauley. Black Dance From 1619 to Today. Princeton: Princeton Book Company, 1988.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. New York: Penguin Group, 2003.

Mallipeddi, Ramesh. “‘A Fixed Melancholy’: Migration, Memory, an the Middle Passage.” The Eighteenth Century Vol. 55: Nos. 2-3 (2014): 235-253.

Neely, Paula K. “Akan Drum.” Dig Into History Vol. 20, No. 5, (May-June 2018): 57.

Thompson, Katrina Dyonne. Ring Shout, Wheel About. Champaign: University of Illinois, 2014.

The Portrayal of Black Identity in Casta Painting

No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata

Andrés de Islas, Mexico, 1774

Oil on canvas

75 x 54 cm

Museo de América, Madrid

de Islas, Andrés. No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata (From Spaniard and Black, a Mulata is Born). 1774. Oil on canvas. Museo de América, Madrid. In Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, 116.

Andrés de Islas produced this painting in Mexico as part of a series of casta paintings that introduce the Black African-Spaniard lineage. Although the purpose for commissioning such paintings are not well understood, casta paintings are theorized to have served as a souvenir for wealthy European audiences. This enabled them to have a unique glimpse of colonial life. In effect, this painting would have been a part of a series that depicts the racial hierarchy of Latin America.

Islas introduces the concept of Black African-Spaniard lineage in this painting by depicting a violent domestic encounter between a Black African woman and a Spanish man. In this conflict, the Black African woman grabs the hair of a Spanish man and is about to strike him with a kitchen utensil. In response, the Spanish man expresses shock while protecting himself from getting injured. In the midst of this conflict, their mulatto daughter pushes on her mother’s leg. In the painting, Islas highlights the various exotic fruits and vegetables in Latin America by comparing them to the oddity of the Spaniard-Black African couple and their mulatto daughter.

In the seventeenth century, elite members of society exerted great power over those of African descent and enforced rigorous laws after Africans incited a mass riot in 1611. In the eighteenth century, the elite members of Latin American society saw that the categories of the Latin American caste system were deteriorating. However, they commissioned paintings which continued to illustrate a taxonomy of castas that was no longer functioning. Appealing to a foreign audience, Europeans and elite members of Latin American society may have commissioned a casta painting like this one to enforce the ideals of a deteriorating casta system and maintain exclusive economic privileges.

In doing so, they resisted the social advancement of Africans, who were acquiring the power to purchase whiteness and attain social mobility. Elite members of society responded in protest to this and complained that those of African descent were “people who in our houses one would not give a seat”.[1] To express their fear of those of African descent, the elite commissioned paintings that displayed them in unstable domestic settings. Moreover, to emphasize the debased social dynamic that a household with one of purely African blood could create, Islas juxtaposes this painting with more stable households characterized by familial members who produce children with fair skin.

[1] Ann Twinam, “Purchasing Whiteness,” in Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, ed. Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew D. O’Hara (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 152.

Sources:

Carrera, Magali. Imagining Identity in New Spain. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.

Katzew, Ilona. Casta Painting : Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Twinam, Ann, “Purchasing Whiteness,” in Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, ed. Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew D. O’Hara. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009, 141-165.

 

People with Crowns Ate Fruits with Crowns: The Royal Pineapple

Charles II Presented with a Pineapple
Unknown painter, Britain, c. 1675-80
Oil on canvas.
96.6 x 114.5 cm
Royal Collection Trust

PROVENANCE: Presented to Queen Mary by Lady Mountstephen in 1926; formerly in the Bredalbane collection.

This oil painting’s subject is Charles II, King of Great Britain (1630-85). A kneeling man, possibly the royal gardener John Rose, presents Charles II with a pineapple in front of a large garden and house. The king is depicted wearing the typical fashionable clothing of the 1670s, which is unusual because he is normally painted wearing ceremonial robes or armour. Although in casual dress Charles II is presented with a symbol of royalty, the pineapple.

Out of the many fruits encountered in the ‘New World’, the pineapple was of special interest to European travelers due to its unusual form, taste, and qualities. Upon his first encounter with the fruit Spanish explorer Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo declared it to be the unrivaled prince of all fruits. Even King Ferdinand gave the pineapple his highest praise. The pineapple became associated with royalty in Europe. The leaves on the top of the fruit are called the crown, so the pineapple certainly functions well as a symbol for kings. These royal connotations are incredibly illustrated by the Dunmore Pineapple, the ancestral home of the Earls of Dunmore built in 1761 with a fourteen meter tall pineapple crowning the building. The structure was designed to represent wealth and power and the royal symbolism of the pineapple was used to achieve this.

The pineapple presented to Charles II was claimed to have been the first pineapple grown in England. Although pineapples were later grown in Europe using hothouses, the date of the painting c. 1675-80 makes it is more likely that the pineapple pictured would have been imported. A certain parallel emerges between the pineapple and King Charles II beyond the royal status both enjoyed. In the painting a king who was both home grown and imported is presented with a royal symbol which is likewise home grown and imported.

Charles II’s father Charles I was beheaded in 1649 at the climax of the English civil war. The war, which lasted from 1642-1651, included wars in England, Scotland, and Ireland and become so intertwined largely due to Charles I himself. The Rump House of Commons created The High Court of Justice to try Charles I for treason against England for using his power to pursue personal interest rather than the country’s welfare. The court placed command responsibility on the shoulders of Charles I, holding him responsible for all the terrible things which had occurred during the wars. Despite Charles I’s refusal to recognize the court’s authority he was declared guilty and beheaded.

Although Charles II was declared king shortly after his father’s execution, he was unable to assume rule because England entered into the period known as the English Commonwealth. The country became a de facto republic headed by Oliver Cromwell. Charles II fled to mainland Europe after being defeated by Cromwell in battle. The dethroned king spent nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic, and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis following the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy. In 1660 Charles II was received in London as king.

Similar to the pineapple he was presented with in the painting, Charles II also had the dual identity of being homegrown and imported. He was homegrown because he was born and grew up in England while his father ruled and he was imported because he was returning to rule England after being in exile for nine years, a significant portion of his life. This is a moment where pineapples not only symbolize kingly qualities, but symbolize kings themselves.

Sources:

Charles II Presented with a Pineapple. c. 1675-80. Royal Collection Trust, Britain. Accessed October 12, 2018, https://www.rct.uk/collection/406896/charles-ii-presented-with-a-pineapple.

Kishlansky, Mark A, and John Morrill. “Charles I.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004. Accessed October 12, 2018, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-5143.

Okihiro, Gary Y. Pineapple Culture: A History of the Tropical and Temperate Zones. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernandez de. Historia General y Natural de Las Indias. 1535. Book 7, Chapter 14.

Seaward, Paul. “Charles II.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004. Accessed October 12, 2018. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-5144.

“The Pineapple.” National Trust for Scotland. Accessed October 12, 2018. https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/the-pineapple.

The Chocolate Cup

De español y negra, mulato, 6. (detail)

José de Páez, Mexico, ca. 1770-1780

Oil on canvas

Private collection

de Páez, José. No. 4. De español y negra, nace mulata (From Spaniard and Black, a Mulata is Born). 1774. Oil on canvas. Museo de América, Madrid. In Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, 24.

This detail is a part of a casta painting produced by José de Páez in Mexico. In the painting, a woman of African descent is being depicted as a preparer of hot chocolate for her Spanish husband. This hot chocolate would be served in a jicara or chocolate cup that was used specifically for drinking hot chocolate. This detail is an example of how chocolate and the chocolate cup would become associated with women who were the common preparers of the beverage.

Hot chocolate was a beverage that was the most universally embraced by European settlers of the New World. Colonial writers almost unanimously praised the beverage and declared that it was “the healthiest and most sustaining food in the world”.[1] Since the consumption of chocolate constituted European’s first exposure to the caffeine, it is likely that Europeans thought chocolate was stimulating and beneficial to one’s health. Hot chocolate, in fact, became immensely popular to the point that it was considered a geographically appropriate substitute for wine.

In the mid-sixteenth century, chocolate consumption was widespread because there was a shortage of Spanish women in the New World. This shortage motivated settlers to depend on indigenous women for meal preparation. However, when colonial settlement was established for a few decades, chocolate was seen as a drink that was favored by women in particular. With this association, Europeans’ attitudes towards indigenous women as welcomed preparers of chocolate transformed into a fear of the power they could exert with the product.

For Europeans, their reliance on indigenous women to prepare, serve, and drink chocolate transforms into a fear of their spirituality. Chocolate became associated with sexual witchcraft and had aphrodisiac qualities that women took advantage of to exert power over the men in their lives. Women were therefore placed on Inquisition trials by the Church for preparing and using of chocolate as a mechanism for controlling men’s sexuality. While clergy members like the English priest Thomas Gage privately prepared and consumed chocolate for themselves, the Church fearfully condemned women’s use of chocolate in a contradictory manner.

 

[1] Rebecca Earle, The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492-1700 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 131.

Sources:

Earle, Rebecca. The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492-1700. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Few, Martha. “Chocolate, Sex, and Disorderly Women in Late-Seventeenth- and Early-Eighteenth-Century Guatemala.” Ethnohistory, vol. 52, no. 4, Fall 2005.

Gage, Thomas. The English American: A New Survey of the West Indies, 1648. New York: Routledge, 1928. Accessed October 8, 2018. https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0429868251.

Norton, Marcy. Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.

Syphilis and Popular (Renaissance) Culture

Albrecht Dürer (German),
c. 1496
colored woodcut – print
25.7 x 9.7 cm
Staatliche Museen du Berlin

This woodcut by Dürer from the beginning of the outbreak of a mysterious venereal disease at the turn of the 15th/16th centuries accompanies a popular new form of literature that emerged at the time: syphilis poetry. Dürer’s Syphilitic Man appears with a poem by Theodore Ulsenius.

The imaginative possibilities of poetry highlighted the devastation that syphilis wrought on Europe before (and after) it was firmly understood that syphilis was a sexually-transmitted disease. The representations of astrological signs at the top of the woodcut signify a planetary event that occurred in 1484 that many intellectuals at the time attributed to the outbreak of the disease. Scorpio, in particular, was associated with the genital sphere.

The most famous poem to come out of this moment was Girolamo Fracastoro’s Syphilis, or the French Disease (1530), which gave the affliction its contemporary name. Fracastoro relates the horrors of “pustules with an acorn-cup and rotten with thick slime, which soon afterwards gaped wide open and flowed with a discharge like mucous and putrid blood.”* Syphilis (Treponema pallidum), even in its significantly less virulent contemporary form, can permanently disfigure or even kill its host. Beyond the presence of painful ulcers and ‘gummy’ tumors, syphilis – when contracted in pregnant women – can induce miscarriages and has a high rate of fatal transmission to infants.

The horrors of syphilis produced many interesting effects on society. Unlike most alarming outbreaks, the fear surrounding syphilis did not result in trends of violence against minority communities. Some scholars have speculated that  syphilis contributed to a rise in witchcraft hysteria. However in large part, as noted in Fracastoro’s full title, syphilis became attributed to whole nations of people. Particularly once 16th century physicians understood its venereal nature, syphilis became associated with low moral standing, and thus the inferiority of other peoples.

Syphilis was most commonly referred to as the French Disease, as several reports attributed its origin to the French wars in Italy. Contemporary scholars are still undecided on its real origins, though most suspect that it came over from the New World with Columbus’ return voyage. The ‘French’ epithet was not universal: in France it was known as the ‘Neopolitan evil;’ in the Netherlands, the ‘Spanish pox;’ in Central Asia it was deemed Russian; and in East Asia it was known as the ‘Portuguese disease.’ Thus syphilis poetry marks an interesting shift in collective identity.

* Fracastoro, Syphilis, or the French Disease, 55.

 

Sources:

Cummins, J.S.. “Pox and Paranoia in Renaissance Europe.” History Today, Vol. 38 Issue 8. August 1988.

Fracastoro, Girolamo. Syphilis, or the French Disease, trans. Geoffrey Eatough. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1984.

Knell, Robert J.. “Syphilis in Renaissance Europe: rapid evolution of an introduced sexually transmitted disease?” Proceedings Biological Sciences Vol. 271, No. 4. May, 2004.

Ross, Eric B. “Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th Century Europe.” Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 2. Apr., 1995.

Image from: Artstor. “The Syphilitic Man (The French Disease) [Der Syphilitiker].” Artstor Digital Library. Accessed Dec. 6th, 2018. https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/BERLIN_DB_10313749275;prevRouteTS=1544122609535

Khipu in New Spain

Unknown maker (Inka),
c. 1400-1532.
Cotton or wool cords, knotted, twisted and dyed. 85 x 108 cm.
Cleveland Museum of Art
1940.469

While very few remain in the present, Khipu were very important and widespread bureaucratic tools of the Inka Empire (c. 1418-1572). Made of cotton or wool cords, khipu were organized along a primary cord that housed a series of pendant cords, which could in turn host up to 10-12 layers of subsidiary cords. Khipu communicated numerical data from the provinces of the empire by delineating particular values on the basis of cord color, knot type, and placement.

Citizens of the empire were organized into units of 10, 50, 100, and furthermore up to the total population of each of the 80 provinces. Each of these units had an appointed leader. The organization of khipu follows this model, with the smallest subsidiary cords representing the smallest data set and the primary cord the conglomerate of data.

Only specialized scribes – selected by officials for their integrity and talent – were allowed be khipumayaq, or khipu makers. Furthermore, the ability to read and interpret khipu was a specialized skill. These khipumayaq worked in specific teams to ensure that all data sets were counted by multiple officials. Each khipumayaq team was only responsible for and able to read and create a section of the total khipu, in order to maintain checks and balances. Additionally, each team inspected the work of the team before them. For these reasons, the Spanish census makers who observed khipu being used in the sixteenth-century emphasized its reliability and accuracy.

Khipu were transported back to Cusco along the Inka Empire’s sophisticated system of roads and runners. These runners transported the khipu and were able to communicate numerical data to different provinces and officials.

Because khipu is an unconventional system of accounting, it was considered sufficient evidence by the Spanish of the lack of civilization in the Andean region to justify the subjugation of the Inkan people into the encomienda system. Due to the specialized nature of its construction and limited legibility, Spanish surveyors regularly classified khipu as less than a writing system. Because it needed to be recited by khipumayaq, khipu was also closely associated with the oral tradition, which was considered an unreliable source of information by western audiences. Spanish writers also compared the khipu to women’s prayer beads.

While the Third Lima Council’s order to destroy “idolatrous” khipu in 1583 may have played a role in their scarcity today, recent scholarship suggests a civil war immediately before the Spanish conquest is probably a more substantial reason for their absence. Their early disappearance would also explain why the Spanish failed to recognize khipu’s significance.

 

Sources:

Brokaw, Galen. A History of the Khipu. Cambridge Latin American Studies, 2010.

Cobo, Bernabé. History of the Inca Empire: An Account of the Indians’ Customs and Their Origin, Together with a Treatise on Inca Legends, History, and Social Institutions. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979.

de la Vega, Garcilaso. Royal Commentaries of the Yncas. Translated by Clements Markham. England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010.

Harvard University. “What is a Khipu?” Khipu Database Project. Last modified September 2018. http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/WhatIsAKhipu.html

Image from: Artstor. “Inka Khipu (Fiber Recording Device).” Artstor Digital Library. Accessed Dec. 6th, 2018. https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/AMICO_CL_103799373;prevRouteTS=1544122826172

Early Modern History in 28 Objects

Welcome to a digital exhibit developed by Louisa Foroughi’s Fall 2018 Honors Early Modern European History course. This semester we learned about the Early Modern world through the lens of its material culture and commodities. We read about malaria and silver; tobacco and sugar; coffee and chocolate; tulipmania and butterflies; the building of Versailles and reconstruction of Lisbon; and the tragic and terrible commodification of human beings represented by the Early Modern slave trade. Here, fourteen talented students present their research into twenty-eight things–commodities, artifacts, paintings, viruses, buildings–that represent major trends in Early Modern history.

For further reading, see our textbooks for the course:
Timothy Brook. Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. London: Bloomsbury, 2008.
Natalie Zemon Davis. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Rebecca Earle. The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race, and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Charles Mann. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York: Knopf, 2012.