The Living Feather: Tonalli in Nahua Featherwork Production

Ethnohistory ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-406
Author(s):  
Allison Caplan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Production Analysis ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Production Stages ◽  
Late Postclassic ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
Differential Ability ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Florentine Codex

Abstract Previous studies suggest that late postclassic and early colonial Nahua viewers understood specific artistic creations to contain tonalli, a solar-derived animating force. This article advances understanding of the animacy of Nahua featherworks by examining attention to tonalli in the various stages of featherwork production. Analysis of a classificatory distinction used in the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex between tlazohihhuitl (beloved feathers) and macehualihhuitl (commoner feathers) suggests that this distinction registers specific types of feathers’ differential ability to contain tonalli. Ultimately, this classification posited tlazohihhuitl as living beings and macehualihhuitl as inanimate materials. The relationship between these two classes of feathers is integral to Nahuatl descriptions of the treatment of specific feather types in the production stages of bird hunting, dyeing and selling feathers, and mosaic construction. Understanding these production practices through Nahuatl descriptions suggests that care for tonalli represented a central commercial and artistic concern in featherwork production.

The Herbal of the Florentine Codex: Description and Contextualization of Paragraph V in Book XI

2018 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-488
Author(s):  
Victoria Ríos Castaño
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Imperial College ◽  
Colonial Medicine ◽  
Santa Cruz ◽  
Bernardino De Sahagun ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Primary Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Florentine Codex

In contemporary studies, three texts dating from the second half of the sixteenth century continue to be treated as essential primary literature concerning pre-Hispanic and early colonial medicine. These are the herbal Libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis (1552), composed by the Nahuas Martín de la Cruz and Juan Badiano in the Imperial College of Santa Cruz of Tlatelolco; the Historia natural de Nueva España, written by Philip II's protomédico (royal physician) Francisco Hernández, a “scientific envoy” in New Spain in the 1570s; and the Florentine Codex, the only extant manuscript of the 12-book encyclopedia on the world of the Nahuas, Historia universal de las cosas de Nueva España (ca. 1577), which was directed by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún.

Civil Jurisdiction, Settler Politics, and the Colonial Constitution, circa 1840-58

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damen Ward
Keyword(s):  
Lower Court ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Responsible Government ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Competing Ideas ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Institutional Relationships

In early colonial politics, decisions about lower court jurisdiction often reflected competing ideas about the relationship between different parts and functions of government. In particular, court structure and jurisdiction could be seen as having important implications for the role and power of the governor. Appreciating the importance of jurisdiction as a way of defining, and arguing about, the distribution and exercise of political and legal authority in the colonial constitution allows connections to be drawn between different elements of settler politics in the 1840s and 1850s. The closing of the Court of Requests by Governor Grey in 1848, and the decisions of the Supreme Court judges in subsequent litigation, provide examples of this. Debate over the role of the governor in emerging systems of representative and responsible government after 1852 contributed to lower court jurisdiction remaining politically significant, particularly in relation to Māori.  This is shown by considering parliamentary debates about the Stafford ministry's 1858 proposals for resident magistrates' jurisdiction over "native districts". The politics of jurisdiction were part of wider contests about the establishment and consolidation of particular political and institutional relationships within the colonial constitution. This multi-faceted construction of government authority suggests a need to reconsider elements of Pākehā colonial politics and law.

scholarly journals Guilds, Social Mobility and Status in Sixteenth-Century Ghent

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Dambruyne
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Social Promotion ◽  
Social Position ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Democratic Character ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This article investigates the relationship between social mobility and status in guilds and the political situation in sixteenth-century Ghent. First, it argues that Ghent guilds showed neither a static picture of upward mobility nor a rectilinear and one-way evolution. It demonstrates that the opportunities for social promotion within the guild system were, to a great extent, determined by the successive political regimes of the city. Second, the article proves that the guild boards in the sixteenth century had neither a typically oligarchic nor a typically democratic character. Third, the investigation of the houses in which master craftsmen lived shows that guild masters should not be depicted as a monolithic social bloc, but that significant differences in status and wealth existed. The article concludes that there was no linear positive connection between the duration of a master craftsman's career and his wealth and social position.

Revisiting the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain from the manufacturer’s perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52
Author(s):  
Ann Compton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Drawing Board ◽  
Public Exposure ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Two Sectors

The mid-nineteenth century critical discourse compartmentalized art and industry by crediting each with specific powers. Manufacturing was identified with the development of technologically advanced processes, materials and products, while fine artists were given authority over the aesthetic aspects of industrial design. The idea that the two sectors had separate areas of responsibility has proved extremely enduring, and continues to influence our perceptions of Victorian manufacturing. This article contributes to the wider task of re-evaluating the relationship between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain by examining the role of design in potteries and art metalworking firms from the manufacturer’s perspective. It shows that contrary to the picture painted by Victorian critics, design was central to the ambitions and commercial operations of manufacturing businesses. Crucially, decisions about the recruitment of design staff were shaped by the close connection between the creation of new products at the drawing board, and their fabrication in the workshop. Since each branch of manufacturing had its distinctive characteristics, there were significant practical, aesthetic and commercial advantages for manufacturers in employing experienced designers who knew the trade, and were fully conversant with production practices. Unless a professional sculptor joined a firm, they were unlikely to have this inside knowledge, which made commissioning one-off designs from artists a riskier proposition. Manufacturers found that one of the best ways to get around this was to make reductions of sculptures, and initial demand for statuettes in Parian suggested they would be profitable for all concerned. In the end, the market did not live up to its early promise, but the publicity given to Parian statuettes compensated manufacturers and sculptors. Overall, it was this increased public exposure for art manufactures that was the prime benefit of the mid-nineteenth century critical discourse for the industrial sector.

Marvels of Medicine

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yarí Pérez Marín
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Medical Writing ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Common ◽  
New Form ◽  
Natural Histories

Marvels of Medicine makes a compelling case for including sixteenth century medical and surgical writing in the critical frameworks we now use to think about a genealogy of cultural expression in Latin America. Focusing on a small group of practitioners who differed in their levels of training, but who shared the common experience of having left Spain to join colonial societies in the making, this book analyses the paths their texts charted to attitudes and political positions that would come to characterize a criollo mode of enunciation. Unlike the accounts of first explorers, which sought to amaze audiences back in Europe with descriptions of strange and astonishing lands, these texts instead engaged the marvellous in an effort to supersede it, stressing the value of sensorial experience and of verifying information through repetition and demonstration. Vernacular medical writing became an unlikely early platform for a new form of regionally anchored discourse that demanded participation in a global intellectual conversation yet found itself increasingly relegated to the margins. In responding to that challenge, anatomical treatises, natural histories and surgical manuals exceeded the bounds set by earlier templates becoming rich, hybrid narratives that were as concerned with science as with portraying the lives and sensibilities of women and men in early colonial Mexico.

A NOTE ON THE RISE OF SURAT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractFar less attention has been paid to the rise to importance of the Gujarati port of Surat, than to its decline. This brief essay, a tribute to the memory of Surat's best-known historian, Ashin Das Gupta, attempts to address the problem of its rise before the Mughal conquest of Gujarat in the 1570s. It argues that once Diu had been taken over by the Portuguese in 1535, Surat emerged as a crucial link between Southeast Asia and West Asia. Thus, one needs to look not only at the relationship between the port and its hinterland, but to Surat's role as an entrepôt, in order to explain its rise.

scholarly journals Military Service in Early Sixteenth-Century Lithuania: A New Interpretation and Its Implications

Slavic Review ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-256
Author(s):  
Karl von Loewe
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Structure And Dynamics ◽  
Compulsory Military Service ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Relationship

The existence of compulsory military service has become a major theme in recent attempts to explain the development of Lithuanian society and politics in the early sixteenth century. Much of the discussion has centered on the relationship between military service and feudalism. This article concentrates not on that question but on the nature of military service and the understanding it can provide of the structure and dynamics of the economy of Lithuania in the sixteenth century.

scholarly journals Strategic Groups and Competitive Priorities in Lean Production Environments: Challenges of Production Management

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Orlando Roque Da Silva ◽  
Delvio Venanzi ◽  
Haroldo Lhou Haegawa ◽  
Diogo Faustino
Keyword(s):  
Lean Manufacturing ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Lean Production ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Strategic Groups ◽  
Strategic Orientations ◽  
Production Environments ◽  
Auto Parts ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
The Relationship

This paper explores how the choices and implementation of lean production practices are influenced by performance goals prioritized by firms in the context of operations strategy. We analyzed a set of fifty-six companies in the auto parts industry in Campinas and Jundiai region, divided into four strategic groups. These groups of firms that adopt similar strategic orientations were used to investigate the relationship between implementation of lean manufacturing practices and choice of performance objectives. The results suggest that consideration of strategic groups can improve the understanding of how performance objectives can define lean manufacturing practices adopted by manufacturing companies.

scholarly journals Revising the Narrative of the Conquest of Mexico: Bernardino de Sahagún’s 1585 Relación de la conquista de esta Nueva España

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber Brian
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Spanish Translation ◽  
Bernardino De Sahagun ◽  
Aztec Empire ◽  
Florentine Codex ◽  
Conquest Of Mexico

2021 represents the five-hundred-year anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire. This essay addresses the rendering of the events that culminated in the Spanish domination of that region in two texts associated with the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590). The first is Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex, a bilingual manuscript written collaboratively with Indigenous intellectuals in Nahuatl with a Spanish translation and accompanied by nearly two thousand illustrations that represent a third text. Completed in 1579, under increasing scrutiny by religious authorities, the manuscript was confiscated and sent to Europe, eventually coming to reside in the Medici Library in Florence. In 1585, Sahagún, authored Relación de la conquista de esta Nueva España, which sought to revise the narrative of the conquest found in Book Twelve. Sahagún’s revision reveals how the narrative of the conquest changed in the hands of the Franciscan friar as the sixteenth century drew to a close.

Khipu Transcription Typologies: A Corpus-Based Study of theTextos Andinos

Ethnohistory ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-341
Author(s):  
Manuel Medrano
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Multivariate Statistical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Evaluation ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
And Diffusion

AbstractDespite ongoing efforts to compile both Andean khipus and their written colonial references, initiatives in this domain have emphasized the benefits of aggregation vis-à-vis preservation and diffusion, largely forgoing opportunities to analyze khipu data in aggregate. This article introduces multivariate statistical analysis to colonial khipu texts, enlisting the aid of a heretofore little-studied source: the Textos Andinos, a compilation of sixteenth-century Spanish transcriptions of Indigenous khipu “readings.” The largest syntactically annotated corpus of khipu transcriptions to date is compiled. Textual interpretation informs an exegetical typology of “paper khipus”—a division of the texts into distinguishable categories. The initial typology is expanded using the outcome of its statistical evaluation. Pre- versus postconquest content and the incorporation of currency emerge as the primary distinguishing attributes of khipu transcriptions. The expanded typology in turn enables the assessment of previous hypotheses in the study of paper khipus, responding to criticisms of their generalizability; suggestions of a diminishment in khipu complexity following the Spanish conquest are revisited and corroborated to this effect. A corpus-based study of khipu transcriptions offers a promising inroad to negotiating the highly mediated conditions of their original creation while expanding the study of khipus in the early colonial Andes. The aggregative methodology is proposed to ethnohistorians as an additional strategy for complementing and enriching historical interpretation.

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