Ethnohistory: Impressions and Perceptions of Maize

Abstract

The sixteenth century documents, pictorial codices, and iconographic and hieroglyphic texts are all evaluated to consider how earlier Indo-European perceptions of the New World influenced our current understanding of the roles and importance of maize to sociocultural development. Primary focus is given to the earliest primary and secondary ethnohistoric accounts regarding the role of maize to New World cultures. Since all the sixteenth century accounts were written to be part of history, they are generally narrative and descriptive (Carmack 1973). Their analytical and historical importance is not only that they provide a picture of relatively pristine native culture (see, e.g., Cortes 1963 (1485–1547?); 1991 (1519–1526); Diaz 1953 (1567–1575); and Landa 1975 (1566)), but also that they are a reflection of the sixteenth century New Word culture and their perceptions of the world around them. The only regions where native documents compare in ethnohistoric value to the Spanish sources are those written in Mexico and Guatemala during the sixteenth century (Carmack 1973; Carmack et al. 1996; and Barber and Berdan 1998). Most of the preHispanic codices were destroyed in various campaigns to eradicate pagan idolatry (Acosta 1961 (1590); Duran 1971 (1581); Landa 1975 (1566); Las Casas 1992 (1552); and Sepulveda and Las Casas 1975 (1540)). Those codices produced after the conquest are largely commissioned by the Spanish nobility and illustrated by indigenous and mestizo scribes who had converted to Catholicism. Consequently, the content of most such colonial indigenous texts were conditioned to varying degrees by sixteenth century European perceptions and cultural biases (Staller 2009).