Description
Book SynopsisThrough close readings of the painted images in a major sixteenth-century illustrated manuscript, this book demonstrates the critical role that images played in ethnic identity formation and politics in colonial Mexico.
The Relación de Michoacán (1539–1541) is one of the earliest surviving illustrated manuscripts from colonial Mexico. Commissioned by the Spanish viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, the Relación was produced by a Franciscan friar together with indigenous noble informants and anonymous native artists who created its forty-four illustrations. To this day, the Relación remains the primary source for studying the pre-Columbian practices and history of the people known as Tarascans or P’urhépecha. However, much remains to be said about how the Relación’s colonial setting shaped its final form.
By looking at the Relación in its colonial context, this study reveal
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Making and the Makers of the Relación de Michoacán
2. Unfaithful Lovers and Malicious Sorcerers: Justice, Punishment, and the Body
3. Making and Emending Landscape in the Petamuti’s Speech
4. Creating Chichimec-Uanacaze Ethnic Identity
5. Mimicry and Identity and the Tree of Jesse
6. Memories of an Ethnographic Funeral
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
