Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions that Today Live Among the Indians Native to this New Spain, 1629

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University of Oklahoma Press, 1984 - Social Science - 406 pages

The 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.

 

 

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
References
383
Copyright

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About the author (1984)

J. Richard Andrews (1924-2014), Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Spanish and Portuguese at Vanderbilt University, was considered the foremost living authority on the Classical Nahuatl language. He is the author of Juan del Encina: Prometheus in Search of Prestige and coauthor of Patterns for Reading Spanish. Ross Hassig, a historical anthropologist specializing in Mesoamerica, is the author of Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico; Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control; and Trade, Tribute, and Transportation: The Sixteenth-Century Political Economy of the Valley of Mexico.

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