The Tree of Jesse and the “Relación de Michoacán”: Mimicry in Colonial Mexico

Abstract

When the Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza first visited Michoacán, Mexico (about 1539), he commissioned a Franciscan friar to record the indigenous customs of the region. The friar, together with local native nobles and artists, produced the illustrated manuscript known as the “Relación de Michoacán.” One of these indigenous artists transformed the European Tree of Jesse, a motif depicting Christ's genealogy, to represent the local indigenous noble family. Such an act of mimicry and appropriation allowed the artist to represent the native nobles as the rightful rulers of Michoacán and to communicate this conviction to the manuscript's colonial audience.

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Notes on contributors

Angélica J. Afanador-Pujol

Angélica J. Afanador-Pujol is assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where she teaches the history of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Latin American art. Her current book project deals with the representation of race and ethnic identity in sixteenth-century Michoacán [Department of Art History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 55455, [email protected]].