Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions that Today Live Among the Indians Native to this New Spain, 1629The Treatise of Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón is one of the most important surviving documents of early colonial Mexico. It was written in 1629 as an aid to Roman Catholic churchmen in their efforts to root out the vestiges of pre-Columbian Aztec religious beliefs and practices. For the student of Aztec religion and culture is a valuable source of information. Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón was born in Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, in the latter part of the sixteenth century. He attended the University of Mexico and later took holy orders. Sometime after he was assigned to the parish of Atenango, he began writing the Treatise for his fellow priests and church superiors to use as a guide in suppressing native "heresy." With great care and attention to detail Ruiz de Alarcón collected and recorded Aztec religious practices and incantations that had survived a century of Spanish domination (sometimes in his zeal extracting information from his informants through force and guile). He wrote down the incantations in Nahuatl and translated them into Spanish for his readers. He recorded rites for such everyday activities as woodcutting, traveling, hunting, fishing, farming, harvesting, fortune telling, lovemaking, and the curing of many diseases, from toothache to scorpion stings. Although Ruiz de Alarcón was scornful of native medical practices, we know now that in many aspects of medicine the Aztec curers were far ahead of their European counterparts.
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Contents
Letter to Francisco Manso de Zúñiga | 39 |
Second Treatise Untitled | 73 |
Third Treatise Superstitions of Farmers and Their Incantations | 121 |
Fourth Treatise Untitled | 131 |
Fifth Treatise About the Seers and Superstitions of the Indians as Regards | 141 |
Sixth Treatise Untitled | 157 |
About the Cure for Children Who Get Sick | 161 |
About the Remedy That They Use for What They Call Recon ciling | 163 |
About Belly or Stomach Pain | 183 |
About One Indians Fiction Concerning the Cure of the Belly | 184 |
About Another Fraud Similar to the Foregoing One | 187 |
The Incantation and Superstition That They Use for Pain in the Loins | 188 |
For Bone Fracture | 189 |
For Pains in the Bones of the Back | 192 |
For Rash Impetigo and Sickness of This Kind | 194 |
About the Method of Curing Other Inflammations and Swell ings | 197 |
About the Treatise About Superstitious Cures Beginning with the Head | 167 |
Superstitious Cure of the Eyes | 169 |
Other Methods of Curing the Eyes | 170 |
The Cure for Earache | 172 |
Cure for the Pain Beneath the Ear or in the Jaw | 173 |
About the Swollen Throat | 174 |
Another Incantation for the Purpose of Curing a Swollen Throat | 175 |
Cure for Chest Pain Because of an Accident or Because of Fatigue | 177 |
What They Use with Patients Open at the Chest | 178 |
The Same Chest Pain in Children | 179 |
About the Incantation and Spell for Bleeding | 180 |
In Order to Stop the Blood That Comes out of the Mouth or Some Other Place | 182 |
A Fraud for Urinary Sickness | 198 |
About the Cure and Frauds for Fevers | 199 |
For Fever Sickness and Other Illnesses | 201 |
For Body Fatigue and Pain | 203 |
Against the Wound and Poison of the Scorpion | 204 |
Appendices | 209 |
Appendix A Brief Relation of the Gods and Rites of Heathenism by Don Pedro Ponce | 211 |
B Ritual and Supernatural Names Mentioned in the Treatise | 219 |
Glossary of Linguistic Terms | 305 |
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