Read Kachina and the Cross Online

Authors: Carroll L Riley

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Page 149
popular decorated majolica pottery. Indeed, there was not only majolica but actual Chinese porcelain, obtained by the Manila galleons in their trans-Pacific trade. Some of these Chinese porcelain vessels were already heirlooms when brought to New Mexico, dating from the mid-sixteenth century. The porcelain was incredibly expensive and was said to be worth its weight in silverand even that may be undervaluating this delicate exotic ware.
Some of the elaborate porcelain cups were likely used to sip chocolate, a very popular drink in Spain and its possessions, including New Mexico. Chocolate was cultivated and much valued by the Aztecs, and the incoming Spaniards quickly picked up the habit of imbibing chocolate drinks. López de Mendizábal was one of the governors who invested in chocolate when he took up the governorship in 1659. In 1541 chocolate in the Parral area could be purchased, at least in large quantities, for one peso per libra, and presumably retailed for something more than that. Parenthetically, the Spanish libra was roughly the same weight as the English pound. Since New Mexico was several hundred arduous miles farther away from the sources of chocolate, it seems very likely that the value in this far northern outpost was considerably greater.
From the Oñate lists we get some idea of the wealth and variety of clothing worn by the upper classes. It included wool outer clothing, silk and wool stockings, ribbons, damask, taffeta cloth in various colors, velvet, lace, and fine cotton, shoes of cordovan leather, and linen shirts, trousers, and underclothing. The upper-class housewife had needles, thimbles, scissors, buttons, and both cotton and silk thread in all colors. A variety of fashionable hats, some with feathers and braid, handkerchiefs, and house slippers were also carried north to New Mexico. There was a great variety of jewelry. Finely ground flour was probably used as a face powder in the seventeenth century, as it certainly was in the eighteenth and nineteenth. From the evidence given by Doña Teresa, wife of Governor López, we see that at least some upper-class people donned clean clothing, and washed their hair every few days and changed their bed linen every two weeks or so. Both sexes tended to wear their hair long, which meant thatgiven the lack of general washing facilities and no effective insecticidesthe problem of head lice transcended sex, age, and even, to some degree, status. Women in the estancias held delousing parties, an activity that they were reluctant to allow men to watch. However, husbands and wives deloused each other, and parents their children. Cosmetics were in considerable demand by all classes, including the flour mentioned above and a rouge made of the alegría plant (
Amaranthus paniculatus
).
We know very little about certain aspects of social life among the various rural dwellers in New Mexico. There was widespread illiteracy, and in any case, books were not available to the general population, and education was almost
Page 150
totally a matter of the family. Still there were amusements, fiestas, saints' days, and birthdays. The governing groups, certainly from the 1630s and 1640s on, set a very low standard of sexual morality, and this attitude seems to have permeated the colony as a whole, even to some degree affecting the missionaries. Playing cards and gambling were well known to the adult lay population. Cards were probably brought to New Mexico as early as Oñate's time. Youngsters also had their childhood games, as similar young people did in Mexico and Spain. However, boys beyond infancy normally would be expected to work at least part of the time with their fathers, brothers, and other male family members. Girls tended to be married rather young and before marriage would have had household chores, including care of their younger siblings. Life, generally, was harsh, and life expectancy past the first flush of youth was not very great.
The practice of medicine in seventeenth-century New Mexico was unsophisticated by the standards set by European medical theory and practice. The seventeenth century saw an upswing in European medicine. There were especially dramatic advances in anatomy, building on the sixteenth-century studies of men like Andreas Vesalius and Hieronymus Fabricius, the latter the mentor of William Harvey, who first described the circulation of the blood. By the mid to late seventeenth century, anatomists and physiologists knew a great deal about the blood, the workings of the nervous, lymphatic, and reproductive systems of the human body, and the function of major organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, and brain. Actual medical practice was somewhat less advanced, and a system of diagnosis and treatment popularized by Galen in the second century A.D. was still followed. Galen considered the body to be governed by four ''humors''blood, lymph, yellow bile, and black bileeach with its own characteristics. Blood, for example, was a hot and moist humor, lymph cold and moist, yellow bile hot and dry, and black bile cold and dry. Diseases were caused by an excess or a deficiency in these fundamental humors.
Although the idea of humors was considerably refined by the seventeenth century, it was still basic to medical practice. Medicines were given to change the humors. A "phlogistic" condition, a kind of inflammation, was considered to be a major cause of illness, and bloodletting was practiced as a sort of overall "antiphlogistic" measure. The purpose of medicines generally was to act as antidotes to the poisons produced by disease. A dream of the times was a universal cure or panacea, a medication that could be used for any disease condition. This, of course, was never found, but drugs that affected specific conditions gradually spread. The seventeenth century saw the first systematic use of metals such as mercury and antimony (the latter often in the form of tartar emetic) in the treatment of various diseases, including syphilis. New drugs from the Americas
Page 151
included ipecac, cinchona (still not properly used for malaria), and guaiacum, the resin from a New World tropical tree, used to treat rheumatic ailments. A number of Old World plant medicines were common in seventeenth-century Europe; for example, digitalis from the figwort family was used as a heart stimulant, and opium from the opium poppy, belladonna, and valerian, all as sedatives.
This, however, was medical development in urban European centers. Spain was actually somewhat backward in medical knowledge and practice. Central Mexico was even more removed, though it should be pointed out that medicine in the newly founded University of Mexico was taught as early as 1553, and a Chair in medicine created in 1575. Subsequently, a
protomedicato,
a regulatory council, was formed in Mexico. Among its other functions it licensed the practice of medicine.
Still, the rude frontier of New Mexico was very far removed from the ideas of European medical practice. A few Franciscans were skilled in medicine and surgery, but for the most part the friars practiced only rough-and-ready medicine. However, individual settlers were expected to know something of the healing arts. Just how many medical books were available in the province is uncertain, but a Spanish-language book of surgery was listed for the López de Mendizábal library.
Under the circumstances, medicine was mainly of the folk variety. By the seventeenth century, an active herbal medicine, a mixture of European and Native American traditions, had developed. The Aztecs of central Mexico had a rather sophisticated system of curing, in some ways superior to European medicine of the time. The Aztecs, as might be expected, were especially skilled in treating injuries incurred in military operations, stopping hemorrhages, setting bones, and applying herbal concoctions to wounds. They also had practical, reasonably efficient quarantine methods to handle infectious disease. The Aztec practice of piping potable water from springs in the Chapultepec area to fountains in various parts of their capital, Tenochtitlan, certainly checked the spread of disease. These aqueducts were reminiscent of ancient Rome and superior to the water supplies of most, perhaps all, contemporary European cities. But the great triumph of the Aztecs was in the experimental approach to herbal curing, the botanical garden in Tenochtitlan being mainly for experimentation and introduction of new medicinal plants. A post-Conquest herbal, the Badianus manuscript written in Latin about 1552, described some of the Aztec medical usage of plants.
The writings of Bernardo de Vargas Machuca discuss the kind of folk medicine that must have been current in the Spanish New World. Though Vargas Machuca was talking about soldiers, and some of his experiences were in South America, many of his medical practices were surely common among the civilian
Page 152
population of New Spain. He specifically gives credit to the Native Americans for certain of his remedies; others were probably European in origin or part of Spanish American folk medicine. As discussed below, at least one copy of the part of Vargas Machuca's book that contains medical information had reached New Mexico by the mid-seventeenth century. His medical practice was basically algorithmicthat is, a set of procedures were set down and, if followed faithfully, could be expected to produce a given result. This writer had a variety of remedies for illness and wounds including the use of plants, minerals, foods, and animal parts for given ailments. Certain of Vargas Machuca's treatments would not be overly appealing today. For disorders of the spleen, the patient mixed his/her own urine with honey and urine-soaked soap and drank this concoction for nine mornings before breakfast. For those with stomach problems, fresh horse manure dissolved in wine,
chicha
(maize beer), or soupor in water if these were lackingwas strained and given to the patient three mornings before breakfast. For catarrah, the patient was given sulfur mixed with water or, somewhat more appetizing, a small bowl of boiling water with camomile and bee honey. Tertian or quartian fevers were treated with ground snake skin mixed with soup or wine, to be taken three times. Chest colds could be alleviated by smearing the chest with tallow and drinking sulfur during the night. Pelvic pain was cured by taking roasted ground-up
grillos
(this normally means "crickets," though the author may possibly be referring to sorrel shoots) taken with wine or chicha. The writer recommended a tisane of blackberry shoots made into a syrup with honey and urine as an excellent cure for gum boils. Other ingredients used by Vargas Machuca included tobacco, mustard seed (ground and moistened for poultices), sugar, vinegar, maize gruel, gunpowder, white lead, mercury, powdered crab shell, oil of egg(?) (
aceite de huevo
),rosemary, mint, various powdered barks, and lime juice, most of which would be available in New Mexico. Vargas Machuca recommended bleeding and for all his remedies advised holy incantations to increase the efficacy of the cure.
Medicines and medical equipment of various kinds were brought to New Mexico with Oñate and his men. Juan del Caso Baraona seems to have been especially well equipped with "five pounds of medications by recognized masters," as well as two cases of instruments for bloodletting, a syringe and four cupping glasses, plus other surgical instruments. Medicines with the expedition included balsam, sulfur, alum, verdigris (copper treated with vinegar), sarsaparilla, several ointments (including those of lead, mercury, basilicon [resin], and the herbal mixture called "diachylon"), mastic (an astringent resin), molasses, rose honey, rose vinegar, rose extract, rose, myrtle and quince oils, various laxatives and purgatives, turpentine, and an arsenic-based compound called "orpiment." Wine
Page 153
was carried in casks, and oil in large flasks; both had medical but other uses as well. These were typical medications and were replenished by the mission trains throughout the century.
Some of the herbal practices of central Mexico were introduced into New Mexico, and there was also a native tradition practiced by the Pueblo Indians (and perhaps to some degree by the surrounding nomadic groups). Various of these remedies continue today, among both the Pueblos and the Hispanic population of New Mexico. Unfortunately, we have relatively little seventeenth-century documentary evidence for specific medicines. There is an early (1631) report on medicinal uses of the psychoactive cactus root peyote. At that time, both settlers and Pueblo Indians knew of it, which raises the possibility that peyote was pre-Hispanic in the Pueblo worldthough it could equally well have been introduced by the early settlers.
In any case, the folk medicine that developed in the seventeenth century was a mixture of Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and Pueblo. From the Spaniards, New Mexican settlers derived their habit of bleeding. This particular treatment was largely counterproductive since it is useful only for victims of hemochromatosis, a rather rare, genetically determined disease that causes an overload of iron in the blood. The treatment for hemochromatosis is to draw blood on a regular basis. For sick people who did not have the disease, blood loss further weakened the body. Strangely enough, bloodletting was a mainstay of European medicine into the nineteenth century. (See "Sources and Commentary" for chapter 9 for further information on bleeding).
There might have been an occasional barber-surgeon in New Mexico during the seventeenth century although, as said above, there seems to be no evidence for them. The economy of the colony was on such a low level that probably such specialists would not have been tempted to make the long journey north. On the other hand, there was an infirmary at the Hermita of San Miguel in the Analco district of Santa Fe, at least by Governor Rosas's time. In fact, it seems extremely likely that all the missions had infirmaries, and medicines of various kinds were part of the supply train traffic into New Mexico.
Education in colonial New Mexico was generally at a very low level. Most of the settlers probably could neither read nor write. This would not have been true of the elite class (the governor and his party, the missionaries, and at least some of the encomenderos and estancieros), but the extant library lists from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries do suggest that such reading was somewhat limited. There was a great deal of writing, however, including governmental and ecclesiastic directives, and letters within the province and between New Mexico and Mexico. In the Salazar inspection, Oñate declared some forty-one reams of
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