Humoralism and Colonial Subjugation: Indians and Medical Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

doi:10.1017/9781108976893.008

Chapter 7 - Humoralism and Colonial Subjugation: Indians and Medical Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

from Part II - Body

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2022

Germán Morong Reyes

Edited by

Rocío Quispe-Agnoli and

Amber Brian

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Rocío Quispe-Agnoli: Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Amber Brian: Affiliation:
University of Iowa

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Summary

From the Iberian colonization on, the American Indians were understood based on their skin color and the place where they were living. They were imputed a corporal condition and/or a complexio linked to the preponderance of the melancholic and phlegmatic ‘humor’ which expressed a kind of specific morality and behavior according to medical discourse of the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. This chapter analyzes how these medical assessments were transferred to the American Indians with a high degree of generalizing essentialism in order to naturalize a condition of permanent servitude. This knowledge transfer used to describe them, implied a series of strategic analogies and correspondences among the generalized significations and representations of complex melancholy on the individuals in the Old World and the observed practices and behaviors of the Natives of the New World.

Keywords

Humoralism colonial subjugation Indians of Peru Lope de Atienza medical knowledge chronicles relaciones geográficas melancholy phlegm

Type: Chapter
Information: Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800 , pp. 107 - 120

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976893.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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