Representations of hands in the Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagún (ca 1499–1590)

Abstract

One of the most outstanding gatherers of information about the culture of the pre-Colombian Mexica of Nahua, also known as the Aztecs, was the Franciscan monk Bernardino de Sahagún, who compiled his findings in 12 books with the title General History of the Things of New Spain between 1540 and 1585. The so-called Codex is a complex document which offers a variety of information about Mexica culture in Nahuatl, Spanish, and Latin, containing also pictographical images and ornaments. This study offers iconographic interpretations of the Codex’s illustrations and especially focuses on the representations of hands and gestures, preferentially in contexts related to birth, upbringing, and education. A thorough analysis of the diverse text bodies reveals certain patterns of the transculturation process which took place in Spanish-colonised America in the sixteenth century. Furthermore, the interpretation of the material contributes to the ongoing discussion about Sahagún’s role in this process, highlighting that his use of early ethnographic-like methods was motivated by the objective to create a tool which made the conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism, their submission and exploitation by the Spanish conquerors easier and arguing that his classification as an early ethnographer by some researchers is not correct.

Keywords:

• Florentine Codex
• Bernardino de Sahagún
• Meso-American history
• iconographic interpretation
• hands

Notes

¹ Edwin Keiner, “The Short Timelines of History of Education at Present,” Bildungsgeschichte – International Journal for the Historiography of Education 3, no. 2 (2013): 236.

² Susanne Spieker develops this argument profoundly in her book Die Entstehung des modernen Erziehungsdenkens aus der europäischen Expansion, (Interkulturelle Pädagogik und postkoloniale Theorie, vol. 4), ed. Heike Niedrik and Louis Henri Seukwa (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2015).

³ See, for instance, Christine Mayer, “Circulation and Internationalization of Pedagogical Concepts and Practices in the Discourse of Education: The Hamburg School Reform Experiment (1919–1933),” Paedagogica Historica 50, no. 5 (2014): 580–98.

⁴ Jeroen J.H. Dekker, “Images as Representations: Visual Sources on Education and Childhood in the Past,” Paedagogica Historica 51, no. 6 (2015): 703.

⁵ Diana Magaloni Kerpel, “Painters of the New World: The Process of Making the Florentine Codex,” in Colors between Two Worlds, ed. Gerhard Wolf and Joseph Connors (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 48.

⁶ See Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés and the Fall of Old Mexico (New York,: Simon & Schuster, 1993), xi.

⁷ Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: Why Nations Fail (New York: Random House, 2012), 11.

⁸ For instance, Miguel León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún: pionero de la antropología [Bernardino de Sahagún: A pioneer of Anthropology] (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1999), 36. Also Spieker, Die Entstehung, 88; and Victoria Ríos Castaño, Translation as Conquest: Sahagún and Universal History of the Things of New Spain (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2014), 37.

⁹ Spieker, Die Entstehung, 90.

¹⁰ Ríos Castaño, Translation as Conquest, 48.

¹¹ Spieker, Die Entstehung, 92.

¹² Ríos Castaño, Translation as Conquest, 63.

¹³ Ibid., 65.

¹⁴ Spieker, Die Entstehung, 96.

¹⁵ See Alfonso Maestre Sánchez, “‘Todas las gentes del mundo son hombres’ – El gran debate entre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1474–1566) y Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490–1573) [’All peoples of the world are human beings’ – The great debate between Friar Bartolomé de las Casas (1474–1566) and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490–1573)],” Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía (2004): 91–134.

¹⁶ León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún: pionero de la antropología, 36.

¹⁷ Ríos Castaño, Translation as Conquest, 246.

¹⁸ Ibid., 94.

¹⁹ Ibid., 246.

²⁰ A scanned copy is available at https://www.cmog.org/library/de-proprietatibus-rerum-bartholomeusanglicus. (accessed August 8, 2017).

²¹ See https://www.vincentiusbelvacensis.eu/works/worksSM.html (accessed August 8, 2017).

²² Miguel León-Portilla, “De la oralidad y los códices a la ‘Historia General’: trasvase y estructuración de los textos allegados por Fray Bernardino de Sahagún [From the oral works and the codexes to the ‘General History’: Transfer and structure of the texts presented by Friar Bernardino de Sahagún],” Estudios de cultura Náhuatl 29 (1999): 65–141, offers a detailed study of the different versions of the Historia general.

²³ An excellent digitised version is available at https://www.wdl.org/es/item/10096/view/1/1/ (accessed August 8, 2017). I also used an e-book version of the Spanish text of the Historia general: Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las Cosas de la Nueva España I y II (Barcelona: Red ediciones, 2012).

²⁴ “En lo que toca a la religión y cultura de sus dioses, no creo ha habido en el mundo idólatras tan reverenciadores de sus dioses, ni tan a su costa, como éstos de esta Nueva España,” Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 592, also at https://www.wdl.org/es/item/10096/view/1/16/ at page 16.

²⁵ “Pues es certísimo que estas gentes todas son nuestros hermanos, procedentes del tronco de Adán como nosotros, son nuestros próximos a quien somos obligados a amar como a nosotros mismos,” Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 608, also at https://www.wdl.org/es/item/10096/view/1/16/ at page 16.

²⁶ This Bible, published in 1520, contains texts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. A scanned copy is available at https://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000013439&page=1&search=brocar&lang=es&view=main.

²⁷ A study mentions: “The count varies between 1855 and 2686, depending on whether smaller sigla in the text are counted as images.” Joseph Connors, “Colors between Two Worlds: The Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahagún,”, in Wolf and Connors, Colors between Two Worlds, xi. Eloise Quiñones Kleber, “Reading Images: The Making and Meaning of the Sahaguntine Illustrations,” in The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico, ed. J. Jorge Klor de Alva et al. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988) mentions 1855. Our count includes only images with clearly indentified motives. Some images with many different motives, such as representations of calendars, were counted as one.

²⁸ Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 1459. Art historical research believes they have identified larger numbers: Diana Magaloni identifies 22 different artists (see Diana Kerpel, “Painters of the New World,” 52) and Marina Garone speaks of seven scribes, see Marina Garone Gravier, “Sahagún’s Codex and Book Design in the Indigenous Context,” in Wolf and Connors, Colors between Two Worlds, 196.

²⁹ “Nieto mío, has venido al mundo donde has de padecer muchos trabajos y fatigas, porque estas cosas hay en el mundo. Por ventura, vivirás mucho tiempo, y te lograremos y te gozaremos, porque eres imagen de tu padre y de tu madre,” Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 5018.

³⁰ Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 4238.

³¹ Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general II, pos. 3207–349.

³² Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 6065.

³³ “No hay necesidad en este Segundo Libro de poner confutación de las ceremonias idolátricas que en él se cuentan, porque ellas de suyo son tan crueles y tan inhumanas que a cualquiera que las leyere le pondrán horror y espanto,” Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 1885.

³⁴ “[Q]ue aquellos que ellos tenían por dioses no eran dioses sino diablos mentirosos y engañadores,” Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general I, pos. 3756.

³⁵ The extent to which the Mexica practiced human sacrifices before the Conquest is still the object of academic debate. Most current researchers admit that there were these type of sacrifices, but doubt the high numbers given by Spanish contemporary historians. See, for instance, Muriel Paulinyi Horta, “El sacrificio de imágenes en la Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún [The sacrifice of images in the General History of Things of New Spain by Friar Bernardino de Sahagún],” Historia 396, no. 2 (2013): 269–97.