Dreams and the sacred thresholds of P’urhépecha power in the Relación de Michoacán
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Rolando Carrasco Monsalve
Abstract
Within the framework of Novohispanic Franciscanism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Motolinía, Sahagún, Torquemada), this chapter seeks to deepen in the specific conceptions of the dream, by setting it in relation to pre-Hispanic culture as well as to Christian prophecy (“Dream of Nebuchadnezzar”) and its sacred hermeneutics of the conquest of America. From these preliminary considerations, we analyze the sacred thresholds and representations of the dream in the divinatory practices of access to the power of the P’urhépecha world, as well as their eventual points of contact with Christianmedieval symbolism (“Tree of Jesse”, “Jacob’s ladder”), according to the narrative (and iconographic) perspective of the Franciscan chronicler Jerónimo de Alcalá in his Relación de Michoacán.
Abstract
Within the framework of Novohispanic Franciscanism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Motolinía, Sahagún, Torquemada), this chapter seeks to deepen in the specific conceptions of the dream, by setting it in relation to pre-Hispanic culture as well as to Christian prophecy (“Dream of Nebuchadnezzar”) and its sacred hermeneutics of the conquest of America. From these preliminary considerations, we analyze the sacred thresholds and representations of the dream in the divinatory practices of access to the power of the P’urhépecha world, as well as their eventual points of contact with Christianmedieval symbolism (“Tree of Jesse”, “Jacob’s ladder”), according to the narrative (and iconographic) perspective of the Franciscan chronicler Jerónimo de Alcalá in his Relación de Michoacán.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface and acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Regionally specified knowledge compendia between encyclopedia and chorography 1
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I Universal history, encyclopedia, and chorography: Early modern practices and forms of knowledge compilation
- The local, the regional, and the universal in knowledge compilations: Observations on the Codex Aldenburgensis 41
- Encyclopedia and dictionaries in premodern and early modern Japan: Chinese heritage and the local reordering of knowledge 95
- Imago et descriptio: Narrating Sicily in the modern period 147
-
II Creating and organizing New Spanish knowledge: Early colonial compendia and “cultural encyclopedias”
- Dreams and the sacred thresholds of P’urhépecha power in the Relación de Michoacán 175
- Constructing a native heritage in New Spain? Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex (1577) as a “cultural encyclopedia” 209
- Order and organization of knowledge on the New World in José de Acosta’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) 323
- The problem solver: Colonial knowledge, authority, and the compilation of natural marvels in Juan de Cárdenas’s Problemas y secretos (1591) 339
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III Writing history and depicting knowledge: Compendia and “cultural encyclopedias” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries
- Mastering the chaos of cross-cultural encounter in Andrés Pérez de Ribas’s Historia de los triumphos de nuestra santa fee (1645) 363
- Jesuit historiography and the making of the Kingdom of Quito: Juan de Velasco’s Historia del Reino de Quito (1789) 399
- A mid-nineteenth-century ethnographic atlas of the Tibetan world: The British Library’s Wise Collection 423
- Notes on the contributors 445
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface and acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Regionally specified knowledge compendia between encyclopedia and chorography 1
-
I Universal history, encyclopedia, and chorography: Early modern practices and forms of knowledge compilation
- The local, the regional, and the universal in knowledge compilations: Observations on the Codex Aldenburgensis 41
- Encyclopedia and dictionaries in premodern and early modern Japan: Chinese heritage and the local reordering of knowledge 95
- Imago et descriptio: Narrating Sicily in the modern period 147
-
II Creating and organizing New Spanish knowledge: Early colonial compendia and “cultural encyclopedias”
- Dreams and the sacred thresholds of P’urhépecha power in the Relación de Michoacán 175
- Constructing a native heritage in New Spain? Bernardino de Sahagún’s Florentine Codex (1577) as a “cultural encyclopedia” 209
- Order and organization of knowledge on the New World in José de Acosta’s Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) 323
- The problem solver: Colonial knowledge, authority, and the compilation of natural marvels in Juan de Cárdenas’s Problemas y secretos (1591) 339
-
III Writing history and depicting knowledge: Compendia and “cultural encyclopedias” from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries
- Mastering the chaos of cross-cultural encounter in Andrés Pérez de Ribas’s Historia de los triumphos de nuestra santa fee (1645) 363
- Jesuit historiography and the making of the Kingdom of Quito: Juan de Velasco’s Historia del Reino de Quito (1789) 399
- A mid-nineteenth-century ethnographic atlas of the Tibetan world: The British Library’s Wise Collection 423
- Notes on the contributors 445
