Rerrcriucnce Studies VoL 4 No. 3-4

Mzksionanes, humanists and natives in the sixteenth-centu y Spanish Indies - a failed

encounter of two worlds? WOLFGANG REINHARD

The impressive resistance to the conquista, which one assoCiates above all with Las Casas, the alternative experiments of the humanist Qui.oga,’ and finally the fact that we owe our ethno-historical knowledge to the ef- forts of missionaries, such as Sahagun,2 who were trained philologists - all these conjure up time and again pictures of a more humane meeting of cultures in the new world, an encounter marked by respect for the Other and his way of life. It seems that if only the missionaries had been listened to, any colonialism could indeed have been avoided. But the more or less base interests of the settlers and of the crown gained the upper hand over the pure intentions of the idealists. A quasi-Manichaean, dualistic view of history of this type may of course serve the purposes of topical polemics; with the historical reality that is open to our insight it has very little in common. Theory and practice concerning the treatment of the culture of the Other cannot, after all, in any way be reduced to two basic polarities. Indeed, we find, particularly in the sixteenth century, a complex and moreover constantly changing set of attitudes into which it is often dif- ficult to fit precisely any given individual. Above all, despite occasional opposition, the missionary movement and humanism remained firmly tied to the colonialist process; indeed, they were an integral part of it, if not its very basis.

I

Europe, being the most expansionist continent, was also the continent of the Mission. Europe, in the sense of its medieval and early modem defini- tion, had only come into existence through Christian missionary activity since antiquity. And when Europe turned its attentions outwards, this

This article has becn translated by Ursula Cairns Smith. ’ Cf. F. Manin Henundcz. ‘Don Vasco de Qyiroga, protector de 1 0 s Indios’, SalmaticCnrir. 34

(1987). 61-85. ’ A. J. 0. &denon and C. E. Dibble (eds.), Flosartinc Codex. General History of the Things of

New S M . Fmy Bcnrmdino de Sahagun (14 vola., Salt Lake City and Santa Fe, 1950-82); M. S. Ed- morwon (ed.), Sirtemth-Century Murico: The Wmk of Sahagun (Albuquerque, 1974); M. Sieva- nich, ‘Inkulturation und Besgnung der Religionen im 16.Jahrhundcrt. Bmnardino de S a h a v Beitrag in Mexico’, Zcitrchriftfir Mzbhmissenschaft und R c ~ ~ ~ c h ~ f i , 71 (1987) 181-9.

@ 1992 The Society fw Renaiuance Studies, Oxfwd University Rcrs

Mtksionan*es, humanists and natives in the Spanish Indies 361 was accompanied by a missionary activity whose rhythm and mentality was in complete correspondence with the various phases of expansion. Thus, the first flowering of the missions at the beginning of the modem period, the 'Missionsfriihling zu Beginn der Neuzeit',' was inseparable from the Spanish conquest of Latin America and the Portuguese trade empire in Asia.' The general integration of all areas of human life under the guidance of religion in the early modem period in general, and the close link between expansion and mission in particular, led from the very beginning to a need for mastery of the radically new world beyond the Atlantic in a religious There remains the question as to how far traditional patterns could be used.6 We are, it is true, familiar with the spiritual background of the Observant movement in Spain, which was so important for the mission,' but not with its missionary practice in Granada and on the Canary Islands, which probably served as a model for America.' However, even so, one should not ignore the novelty of the missionary situation in America. After all it did not involve, as it had quite predominantly done till now, theistic Muslims or Jews, but a polytheistic world like that of ancient times. Thus monastic refonn ideals and the missionary situation could culminate in the idea of a reconstitu- tion of the original 'Ecclesia primitiva'.' Since through it the preaching of the gospel had reached the ends of the earth, there was also an eschatological dimension: a missionary utopia as preparation for the Day of Judgement.

From its very origins, the Good News of the coming of God's rule on earth contained a utopian strand, so that the tendency on the part of the missionaries to establish ideal Christian communities on allegedly virgin soil becomes understandable. In Mexico, Franciscan missionaries, from Peter of Ghent in 1529," to Toribio de Motolinia in 1542,'l to Jeronimo de Mendieta at the end of the century," always emphasized the natural suitability of the Indians for receiving the gospel. According to

' Handbuch dar Kcichengeschichts, vol. N (Freiburg, 1967). 605. ' W. Reinhard, 'Christliche W o n und Dialelrtilr des KoloNalismus', Hist Jahrb, 109 (1989).

' R. Ricard, "'La conqutte spirituelle du Mrsique" revue aprb ~ n t e am'. in M. Ballatcro.~ 359-70.

Gaibmis d d., Lo &couuerte de t!Am&+e (Park, 1968), 229-39, p. 239.

teaham&. poi. x (Padcrbom. 1984). 1-48. p. 6.

lo Zgkdo en Etpm?cr, III/1-2) (Madrid 1980), I, 211650.

' H. Pi-, 'Die Kirche in Hirpm~lmQilrr'. in W. -1. Dis Kondian in Lo-

' J. L.Goruala Novllin (cd.). Lo Zgkdo en la Etpcvscr & h dglac X V y XVZ, 2 vob. (Hirtozio de

* A. Tibesar, 'The king and the pope and the clergy in the colonial Spaniah American empire',

' Introduction by F. Solam y Perez-Lila in Fray Jcronimo de Mmdiua. Hljtmio eclesaiutka in-

'* Ebcrhard Schmitt (ed.). Dar Aujlmu der Kobniolraihe, Dokumente zur k h i c h t e der

" Fray Toribio de Motolinia, HljtoSia & bs Indios & lo Nuua Es$&a, ed. G. Baudot (Madrid,

'' Written 1571-1604. ace. to Solano (note 9). x x i v - 4 .

,&h Hljt R, 75 (1989), 91-109 the p b l a , but that h all.

dioM, 2 v o h (Bibheca & Autorcs Espafioka. 260-1) (Madrid, 1973). I, XI*.

euro$ciischen Expondon. nx (Munich. 1987). 502.

1985), 233 (XI. 4, 220).

362 Wolfgang Rea'nhard Mendieta, l 3 they eased the process of conversion by gentleness, simplicity, poverty, humility, and an incredible patience. The theatricals of the Franciscan missionaries turned Epiphany into an Indian celebration, for through the Three Kings the Lord revealed Himself to them, the pagans, as He had revealed Himself before to the Jews through the shepherds of Bethlehem." Yet the more pagans received the sacrament of baptism, the more rapidly this world was nearing its end." Salvation moved across the earth from East to West so that in the beginning it was the Church in the East which flourished; at the end of it would be the Church in the West.16 In this way, however, a certain degree of force on the part of the Spaniards can be deemed justified for the benefit of the Indians and in- deed necessary in the interest of salvation. The conquistador &rt& ap- pears as the new Moses who liberates the Indians from the slavery of heathenism and leads them into the Promised Land of the Church." As frequently happened in the history of the mission, the winning over

of the young males was considered decisive for the future. Enthusiastic, not to say fanaticized adolescents acted as pioneers in searching out and destroying idolatry, sometimes even to the extent of denouncing their parents. l o And in 1536, with the help of the viceroy Mendoza, the College of Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco was founded where the hand-picked sons of the Indian elite were raised in monastic discipline to become disseminators of the Christian gospel and of classical learning -to the point where they spoke better Latin than many a Spanish priest." Mendieta regarded the years 1524 to 1564 under Cortb and the Viceroys Mendoza and Velasco as the Golden Age of the Indian Church. 'O One of the teachers in Tlatelolco was Bernardino de Sahagun, who taught Latin and studied Nahuatl. For him the College became the collection point for information about the lost culture of the Aztecs. So, by 1569, there came to be written his Histona general de las cosm de la Nuem &pa%, one of the most im- portant sources for today's Ancient-American Studies.

Yet the 'ethno-historian' Sahagun was at that time already superseded by the 'comparative ethnologist' Bartolome de las Casas, a Dominican.22

I' Ibid. 11, 54-6 (IV, 21); J. L. Phelan, The Millmial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. 2nd edn (Berkeley. Calif., 1970). 60.

I' R. Ricard, Lia 'conquZtesi+ituelle'du Mexiqw (Paris. 1933), 246; R. E. Surtz. 'Pasto~judioa y reyes magos gentiles: teatm francixano y milenarismo en Nuwa Espaiia'. Nuturr R d a de Filologia Hirpmric4. 56 (1988). 335-44.

I' Sum, 'Pastores judios', 341, 342. I' J. Sala Catala. 'Cronica de India e ideologia misional'. C u a h s americanos. n.s. 2 (1988).

I' Phelan. MiUcnicJ Kingdom, lOff, 41ff and Ppvim acc. to Mendieta. I' Motolinia. H&oziCr. 359-75 (IV. 14-15); Mendieta. HiCtOria, I. 134ff. 142-8 (111, 17, 24-7);

R. C. Trcxler, Church and Community 1200-1600 (Rome, 1987). 549-75. I' Mendiaa. Hictonh, XI, 40-2 (IV, 1F). lo Phelan. Millminl Kingdom. 103. 'I See note 2 above. " A. Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the ofi'gins of Compamtiw

39-59, p. 49.

Ethnology (Cambridge, 1982). 119-44.

M&.sionanes, humunists and natives tir the Spanrjh Indies 363

This Order had always rejected the use of force much more emphatically than the Franciscans. Las Casas himself initiated, with varying success, peaceful mission attempts. Above all, however, he became, in the course of many years of theological debate, the most determined champion of peaceful dealings with the Indians. At the end of his life he went so far as to threaten the Spaniards with divine punishment if they continued to refuse the Indians the return of their property, their liberty and their political independence.” These uniquely radical demands are matched by the way in which in his later work, the Apobgeticu histwica, 24 he takes seriously and respects the Indians and their culture, something that had never happened before and was not to happen again for a long time. This regional and ethnic survey of the New World was intended to demonstrate that the Indians in their nature and culture were not only the equal of other known peoples, even the ancient Greeks and Romans, but in part even superior to them,’5 as for instance in the manner of educating their young,z6 and indeed in the wisdom of their political organization.” Shared male ownership of women and other abomina- tions occurred in antiquity but not among the Indians.” Thus they were as well suited to receive the gospel as any other nation, if not more so.29 Despite their certainly reprehensible idolatry they possessed a greater degree of instinctive knowledge of God than the Greeks and Romans had done. Some were possessed of the knowledge of one God, others did indeed worship several gods, but these had a more rational and moral character than those of the Ancient World, the errors were fewer in number.” Where, with the Indians, would one find anything as disgusting as the cult of Venus and of F’riapus in antiq~ity?~’ Even the in- famous human sacrifices only demonstrated the outstanding piety of Indian peoples because they sacrificed what was most precious to them. Did not the Old Testament know human sacrifice, was not Christ’s s ad ice on the cross something ~omparable?~’ Was it possible to go any further in overcoming the colonialist delusions of superiority, in openness towards the Other?

*’ However, without dewloping conCrete ideas for the restitution: cf. letter to Carranza 1555, in BartolomC de las Casas, O h accogidac. 5 MIS. (Bibliotsca de Autorac EsprzZolss. 95.96.105, 106, 110) (Madrid, 1957-80, V, 430-50; Testament 1564, in ibid. 539; Manorial an den Indienrat 1565, in ibid. 538.

*‘ ‘Apologericr Hiatoria sumaria cuanto a las cualidades. diapiaon. dcscripcion, a d o y suelo desrastitierras,ycondiaonesnatunla,policiu,rrpublicu,murau&vivirecostumbrer&las gentes dcatas Indias ocddentales y mcridionala, cup Mperio aoberano pcrtenece a loe Reya de Cadla’, in ibid. m-w. *’ Ibid. IXIN (Argumento).

*‘ Ibid. IV 297-300 (ch. 222). *‘ Ibid. 204-10 (Cas. 1956). *’ Ibid. 226-36 (chr. 201 -3). *’ Ibid. 4304 (ch. 263, end). ’’ Ibid. m. 436-9 (ch. 127).

’* Ibid. 166-90 (cbs. 183-9) and fm.s.uk. ” Ibid. IX, 68-72 (ch. 153).

364 Wolfgong Reinhard

And yet every instance of openness and every Utopia within the horizon of sixteenth-century missionary activity came up against an insuperable barrier, namely belief in the certainty of eternal damnation of all those not baptized, and in the consequences arising from this. As early as 1524, in discussions concerning religious faith between the Franciscans and noble Mexicans, the Aztecs were told, ‘be certain in your hearts that of all those you worship as gods, there is none who is the true God . . . For they are all devils.’” It is true that there is no express mention here of the dam- nation of the unbaptized, but this is certainly to be found in the Christian teaching of the pro-Indian Pedro de Cordoba of 1544 and 1548 which was used by the Dominicans: without baptism, no one can escape Hell, unless it be through the desire to receive baptism; unbaptized children, too, go to one of the hells, namely that which is called Limbo.’* The souls of non- believers, non-Christians and bad Christians all end up in the eternal fires of Hell. There, so it was preached to the Indians, is where all your ancestors are to be found, and that is where you too will go if you do not believe and keep the commandment^.'^ This was, by contrast, so much taken for granted in writings directed to

the Spanish public that no further elucidation was ne~essary;’~ the authors of these, however, leave one in no doubt that they share the same theological view of the world. For Motolinia, the Indian religion is Devil worship,” as it is for Mendieta, who expressly ponders the question why so many souls were for so long left to worship the Devil and thus were lost. We cannot know the answer, but must believe in the justice of God’s co~nsel.~’ Even in the case of those who knew most about Indian culture, their sympathetic stance towards their subject did not affect this fun- damental view in any way. Sahagun wrote his gigantic opus in order to enable the missionaries to get to know the opposition and to fight it more effe~tively.~~ Like a doctor he wanted to diagnose the sicknesses of the In- dians: idolatry and upe erst it ion.'^ Even the Dominican Diego Durh, whose H t j t o k de lar Indim written between 1576 and 1581, does justice to Indian culture to an extent that allows one to speak of ‘cultural

W. Lehrnann and G. Kulxher (eds.), Sterbmdc G6tter und chrirtlichc Hcilrbotschfi. Wechselrcdcn indianticher Vmchmer und sponircher Gkaubensapostel in Mexico 1524 ( Q u e U e n ~ k e zur den Ceschuhtc Am&. 111) (Stutrgart 1949). 118; cf. Mendicta, Historia I. lSOff(111, 13); R. Nebel. Altmedunischc Relr’gion und chrirtlichc HaZtbotschOft (Immrwe. 198s). 152-67; SiMmich, ‘Inkulrurauon’.

I‘ M. A. Medina, Doctrina tmitiana para inrtruccion da 10s indios por Pedro dc Cordoba (Salamanca, 1987). 237. ” Ibid. 294. Cf. T. Ohm, Machet xu Jimgarn a& V 6 k : Theme der MizciOn (Frciburg. 1%2), 149ff. 174,

196. ’’ Motolinia, Hirtoria, 125 (1. 2). 134 (I. 4). I’ Mmdiaa, Hirtoricr I, 161ff. 11. 108-10 (IV. 40). I’ Codar F h e n t i n u , l , 35. ‘O Sievernich, ‘Inkulturation’. 187.

Missionaries, humanists and natives in the Spanish Indies 365

Mestizaje’,“ was writing with the express purpose of making known the facts of idolatry which it was necessary to destroy root and branch. When he, like others, also mentions the similarity between some Mexican rites and those of the Church, it is done to assert two explanations for this: either an earlier dissemination of the true religion in America, or an iUu- sion created by Satan who is out to build his Anti-Church. Faced with these alternatives, Durb eventually comes down in favour of the idea that the Indians have their genealogical roots in the Lost Tribes of

For Las Casas the alternative presents itself in a different way. Accor- ding to him, idolatry can have its roots in either the weakness of reason which has been damaged by the Fall and therefore is unable to interpret correctly the signs of the Creator, or again in satanic delusion. In con- trast to the Franciscans, he opts for the former answer. But in that case even a false religion has for its adherents the character of an ~bligation.‘~ This results in an important structural element in his indophile com- parative ethnology.

The Jesuit Jo& de Acosta, whose missionary tract De procuranda In- dorum salute of 1588 together with his Histonir natural y moral de laJ In- dias of 1590 represents the culmination of the sixteenth-century debate, was, in contrast to most of these writings, published in printed form. This once again puts idolatry down to the perfidy of Satan. Its causes are seen as the arrogance of the Devil demanding to be worshipped in place of God, and the hatred of the Devil for mankind.44 This view, which dominated the sixteenth century, possibly suggested itself even for aesthetic reasons. For the representations of the Gods of the Aztecs and Mayas did not correspond in any way whatsoever to the ideal of beauty on which the representation of the divine was based in Europe, but rather to the masks of the devil as conjured up by the European mind.45 Thus the god of war of the Aztecs, Huitdopochtli, ends up as the devil Vitzliputzli of the German peasant farce.

The Devil was a familiar figure to the people of the sixteenth century. In an age where the obsessive belief in witches was beginning to develop, the Devil had long since become a subject of ‘scientific’ investigation. Although Spaniards were less prominently engaged in this field than others, the first bishop of Mexico, Juan de ZumSrraga, and the ‘ethnographer’ And& de O h o s are said to have been actively involved

1~rae1.42

So, on Durin, T. Todorov, The Conquest of Amenca: The Quedm of the Other (New York, C. 1984), 210-18.

‘ I Ibid. 249ff. ” ‘Apologerien Hiaoria’ (note 24), 111,244-~ jch. 74). “ Jd de Acoaa. Hirtwicr, in idam, O h (Biblioteca de Autozht Espan’olcc, 73) (Madrid, 1954).

‘I P. Ragon : ‘D&nonoi&me ct d6monologie dam la rechcrches sur la avilisation mexi& au 14off(v, 1).

XVIe SiMe’, RevHist M, 35 (1988), 163-81, p. 169.

366 Wolfgang Resithard

in the persecution of witches in the Basque country before coming to Mexico. It is no wonder that European ‘demonology’ with all its an- thropological pessimism was enlisted in order to interpret these exotic and repulsive religious phenomena. It is possible that for the people of the six- teenth century there was less that separated Indian and European ‘superstition’ than we tend to assume today. The ’demonization’ of this superstition, which was directed from above, followed in any case a parallel course here and over there. The gradual appearance in Mexico and Peru of notions such as the Demonic Pact and the Witches’ Sabbath, which belong to the repertoire of European witches but were totally unknown to the Indians until these notions were foisted upon them, may serve as evidence for this.46

If, in the controversy concerning their equality as human beings, one regarded the Indians as victims of the Devil’s delusion and not of their own weakness, then thii was surely an argument in their favour.” Yet their eternal damnation through lack of baptism was, however, more than ever certain. It is true that in Catholic theology from the late six- teenth century, during the course of the debate with Jansenism, in a development not yet properly investigated, the idea of extraordinary paths to salvation even for the non-baptized gained acceptance. This idea was taken up above all by the Chinese Jesuit mission, until it culminated in the enlightened slogan: ‘Holy Confucius. pray for US^'^' But clearly no one contemplated applying this idea to the Indians; not a single Jesuit, most certainly not Acosta, nor even Las Casas who after all was brought very close to such considerations through, on the one hand, his Thomism, and on the other his positive image of the Indians. But when, in the Apologetica histonu, he considers that ‘all men have the potential to at- tain the theological virt~es’,‘~ this amounts only to some preconditions for the rapid acceptance of the Faith, in which connection mention is made of, beside the New World Indians - as always with Las Casas it has to do with their equal suitability for conversion - the Indians of the sub- continent and of the Chinese.” The primitive monotheism ascribed to some Indians does not in any way result here in the salvation, even without baptism, of the ‘ h a naturaliter christiana’. It is evident that even for Las Casas and much more so for Acosta there were yet more barriers beside the theological ones that stood in the way of the Indians’ equality, namely barriers that had been erected by the ancient heritage of the Western world.

“ Ibid. 180; I . Careis, ‘La “Idolatria” andina y sus fuentes historicas: refluiones en torno a

“ Ragon, ‘Demonolipme’, 166. “ V. Pinot, Lo C M e et la formation & l‘mpn2 philosophipw m Fmncc (Paris, 1932). 282-8. ” ‘Apologetica Hiscoria’ (note 24). IV, 177-82 (ch. 186). ’O ‘brachmana . . . sem;’ (ibid. 182).

“Cultura andina y repr&on” de Pierre Duviols’ Rrv In&. 50 (1990). 606-26. p. 621.

Misnbna.res, humanh and nata5es in the Spanish Indies I1

When one considers that the slogan ‘Holy Confuaus, pray for usl’ goes back to the famous ‘Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobisl’ of Erasmus of Rotter- dam,” one would expect a greater degeee of openness towards the alien hunumum from the anthropological optimism of Renaissance humanism than from the Augustinianism of the theologians. In reality the op- posite is the case. One is more likely to find champions of the Indians among the scholastics who, from the humanist point of view, were in- tellectually backward, than among the humanists themselves, whose self- image was that of progressives. The leading humanist authority on Aristotle at that time, Juan Gin& de Sepaveda, is rightly regarded as the protagonist of Spanish colonialism. Even if one were to try turning him from being an apologist for slavery into a kind of developmental scienti~t,~’ there st i l l remains the dominance of the more developed culture over the backward one. With this he moves nearer to a humanist of an allegedly quite different hue, Vasco de Quiroga, who, as bishop of Michoacan. is said to have attempted turning Thomas More’s Utopia into a reality in his Indian settlements. 53 But the humanist lawyer Quiroga was an enemy of Las Casas and championed the encomiendu which Las Casas had condemned. His ‘utopian’ Indian communities were to serve the pur- pose of liberating the natives from their barbarism by means of syste- matically subordinating them to Spanish tutelage, and not at all to create in the New World a different, ideal way of life. One may recall that the political views of the leading European humanists were mostly anything but ‘liberal’; they were on the contrary distinctly elitist and authoritarian. This is understandable, for their concern was, after all, man’s improve- ment through education by means of the rule of the educated.

Erasmus himself took care not to give specific expression to his views on the salvation of unbaptized pagans.” His expositions on the mission however make it look certain that he did not apply them to the new ‘heathens’. These may well have remained morally pure in their simpli- city, but, being crude and barbarous people, they lack a more refined character and therefore can in no way be the equals of the When, on the other hand, Las Casas claims for his Indians a higher moral character than that of the Greeks and Romans, he does not do this from any ignorance of the cultural heritage of the classical age. Judging by his sovereign mastery of the ancient sources, Las Casas could as well be called

367

’’ Enanus wn Rotterdam, ‘Convivium religiosum’. in idem, A u s g d l t c Schsiftm, ed. W. Weltig. -1. VI (Darmstadt, 1967). 86.

r z H . Pi- ‘Aristotelischer Humanismus und Inhumanitit? Sepdvda und die amaikankhen Ureinwohns’, in Humaninnw wad Ncuc Welt, ed. W. Reinhard (Weinhcim. 1987). 143-66. ” A. Pagtien The humanism of Vlsco de Quirok’s “Infomacion en dcrccho”’. in ibid. 1 3 3 4 . ” R. Bainton, E m u s (Wttingen, n.d.), 184. ’I &-US of R o t t b , 0- om&, wl. V-4 (Amst&, 1991). 146-54.

368 Woqgang Reinhard

a humanist as anyone.56 Humanism was after all deeply embedded in the whole of education and culture by the sixteenth century. Everywhere in historical writing about the New World we come across ancient texts used as models, and even topographical descriptions are undeniably based on the system of Marcus Terrentius Varro.” But above all it was humanist philology which in the first place enabled the missionaries to produce their linguistic and ethnological achievements. Yet the attention given to the Indian languages by means of this philology was also an instrument of colonial power. By applying, in the manner perfected by Renaissance humanism, the linguistic tradition of antiquity, Europeans had become some of the best philologists in the world. That is, they possessed rational techniques for ‘understanding’ strangers, techniques which these lacked, and this amounted to a different power status and ability to control.s‘

For the humanist the Indian remained a barbarian. And because the notion of the ‘barbarian’ merged with that of the ‘pagan’ against the background of an Aristotelianism reinforced by humanism, the classical tradition of the Western world increased the theological barrier between Christians and heathens even further. It was Las Casas in particular who could not free himself, in his controversy with Sepaveda, from the con- straining notion, long ‘canonized’ by Thomas Aquinas, of the barbarian. His attempt to relativize the claim of the ancient model by means of com- parative ethnology reveals the extent to which his main problem was the debate with the idea of cultural superiority present in humanism. In pass- ing, his indophile cognitive interest caused him to arrive at a devastating critique of ethnocentrism: there is no man and no nation not considered barbarians by others,J9 and: ‘as they are barbarians to us, so we are bar- barians to them’.60 But this remains marginal, for he has to apply all his energy to at least toning down the prevailing Aristotelian concept of the barbarian. For this purpose he differentiates between four classes of bar- barians: first, anything that militates against reason and humanity in a general sense is barbarian; secondly, those peoples are regarded as bar- barians who lack the literary education of a classical kind; thirdly, barbarians in a more narrow sense are communities without civilized behaviour and social organization so that as a result they are like animals; fourthly, described as barbarians are all those who lack the true Christian faith, a deficiency which indeed frequently produces barbarism within the meaning of the first category. Only the third class are barbarians in

’( B. Rcch, ‘Bartolorn6 de las Caw und die AntW, in Humrminuc und Ncuc Welt, ed.

” Cf. Sala Catda, ‘Cronica’. Reinhard, 167-97.

” W. Rdnhard, ‘Sprachbehemchung und Wdthemchaft. Sprache und Sprachwisscnsdr aftin der e u r o p k h m Expansion’. in idem (ed.). Humcnrimruc und N n u Welt. 1 6 6 . These ideas werc considered without prior knowledge of Todorov’s book (note 41). ” 'Apologetics Historia’ (note 24). III, 435.

Ibid. 445.

Missionaries, humanists and natives in the Spanish Indies 369

the full sense, only to them applies Aristotle’s statement that by nature a d for their own good they are destined to be the servants of superior human beings. The Indians are not. They may at times be barbarians in the first sense and undeniably are barbarians in the second sense - Las casas too remains within the spell of humanism. Yet both can equally ap- ply to Christian peoples. The English, for instance, were for a long time uneducated barbarians. But first and foremost the Indians remain bar- barians because they are pagans.” For Las Casas, too, the Christian idea of the ‘heathen’ and the humanist one of the ‘barbarian’ converge and erect an insuperable barrier against the Other. Religious arrogance and cultural conceit together produce ‘ecclesiastic colonialism’l

Acosta, the theoretician of the mission, works with the same categories but arrives at another way of applying them to the Indians. He creates a different hierarchy of three ranks. Barbarians are generally defined as people who ‘a recta ratione et hominum communi consuetudine abhor- rent’.62 Barbarians of the top rank deviate only little from this norm; they possess states and cities, laws and administrators, as well as - and this is decisive -books and a literary culture and education. To these belong in the first place the Chinese, followed by the Japanese and other ‘East In- dians’. They may indeed deviate in some respect from reason and natural law but are, as the Greeks and Romans once were, competent above all others to receive the gospel. The second rank lacks the art of writing and a codified law, philosophy and science, but instead have to offer organ- ized communities with administrators, an elaborate religion and a certain measure of civilized behaviou. What such people lack through not being able to write they make up for by their admirable achievements in oral tradition. This is true above all of the Incas and the Mexicans, but other Indian peoples such as the Araucans are also included in this group. However, most peoples of the New World belong to the third and lowest group of the true savages, who live like animals and are barely human. Having no monarch, no laws, no communities, neither settled abode nor clothers, they indulge, devoid of any human emotion, in vices and in can- nibalism. He considers as belonging to this group the natives of Brazil and Ronda as well as the Caribs, and in East India the natives of the Moluc- cas and the Pacific Islands. It is they whom Aristotle has rightly declared to be slaves by nature. The slave nature of the Amerindians - and ap- parently also of those in the second group - is confirmed by experience, and one is justified in considering them to be little better than animals. But God loves the animals too, and thus the barbarian may well be a beast, but in no case does he lack the ability to find the Faith. One merely has to get him m t l y used to Christianity and only gradually, as with a

“ Ibid. W, 43445 ( c ~ s . 264-7 and epilog^). JOOC de Acosta. De procurando Indorum salute. 2 vols. (CorpUr Hirpcnarm de Pace. 43/24) 61

(Madrid. 1984-7). I, 60 (Pmemio).

370 Wolfgang Reinhard

wild ass, tighten the reins. The modem reader who automatically associates colonialism with racism may realize with astonishment that for Acosta savagery is not imposed on these people by nature but arises from a lack of education. No nation is so savage and ignorant that it cannot be made, through proper education, 'to give up barbarism and to adopt humanity and its which, after all, may be witnessed in the case of the Spaniards from Asturia and Cantabria.c4 The association between Christianity and humanism can therefore be brought into play in both an indophobic and an indophile way, and this in the case of one and the same author - but always with the premise that the barrier of ecclesiastic colonialism erected by both is not being levelled out.

111

The remarkable coherence of both the missionary and the humanist world view in the sixteenth century, applicable even to critics like Las Casas, makes the change of policies regarding both the missionary move- ment and the Indians more easily understandable. Indeed, it even pro- vokes the question whether it really was a case of changing direction, as has been stated," or a mcre course-correction within long-established parameters. After all, the problems and the attempted solutions were not really all that new.

Until the development of a conscious Creole identity, Spanish nationa- lism represents a leitmotif, even, in a less rigorous form, in Las Casas. For most of the participants, the unquestioned authority of the Spanish crown over state and church was supported by a religious and indeed sometimes eschatologically articulated national feeling which finds strik- ing expression too in Mendieta. For him, the historical and eschatological role of Spain is based on the task which its rulers, from the time of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, have taken upon themselves. That is to bring about the conversion, with or without force, of all the four enemies of Christ's Church, the Jews, the Muslims, the pagans, and finally the new heretics,66 and thereby to prepare the world for the second coming of Christ. It is not necessary to enumerate the measures, of which the Inquisition is also considered to be one, taken on these four 'fronts'. Although as a rule it was not really competent to deal with the Indians, it was replaced by other, closely related instit~tions.~' This ideology the humanists complemented by an imperialism based on the example of the Romans; an imperialism which was intended not least to spread their

" 'deponat barbarian, induat humanitatem et rnorum eleganuam' (ibid. 150). " Ibid 60-9 (Proemio). 136-57 (I. 7-8). b5 E. G. Pieuchmann, 'Die Kirche', 36. '' Mendicta, Historia, I, l3ff (1. 2). b7 I. Cams, 'Extirpaci6n de Idolatrias e Inquisicidn en el Vinrinato del Peru', Boletin del In-

stituto Riva-Agriczo (Lima), 18 (1989). 55-75.

Mdonaries, humanists and natives in the Spanzkh India 371 culture and language. The first Castilian grammar of 1492(!) already shows an awareness that language is an instrument of power.“

Accordingly, the policy-objectives in respect of the Indians, namely Christianizing, civilizing and Hispanizing, were, to start with, closely linked together in the minds of the administration. Indians and Spaniards living side by side were seen as an effective means of rapidly achieving the aim of assimilation. Las Casas at first also shared this view. Since the 1530s, however, there was increasing criticism from missionaries and ad- ministrators who, because of the bad example set by the Spaniards, ad- vocated segregation. Mendieta goes further and arrived at an ‘Ecclesia indiana’ with separate settlements and a separate administration side by side wi th an ‘Ecclesia hispana’, each with their own priests and bishops, who were to be recruited however from the ranks of the Mendicant Orders and not, as one might have assumed, from amongst the Indians.69 Between c. 1550 and c. 1580 one can observe a rigorous separation of the Indians from the Spaniards coming to be adopted in the royal decrees, together with a systematic resettlement of the former in closed Indian towns (‘Red~cci6nes’).~~ This policy of a segregated development shows a definite structural affinity with the later phenomenon of apartheid. ”

At first, cultural assimilation was to be matched by linguistic assimila- tion and Hispanization. But this soon aroused the resistance of the mis- sionaries who clung to the cultivation of the Indian languages as the medium for proclaiming the gospel, unaware in many cases of the conse- quences this was to have. Thus a pragmatic bilingualism gradually established itself which, despite attempts at an imperialist Hispanization, was to remain unchanged, at least during the sixteenth century.7z It goes without saying that both linguistic concepts took for granted the superiority of the ‘Christians’.

The establishment of proper church institutions in the New World which, like the sending out of missionairies, was the prerogative of the crown, led to tensions between the Church of the Indians, or rather the Missionary Orders, and the Church of the Spaniards, because the inclu- sion of the former in the latter also meant control over benefices and tithes. The situation was made more complex by the resolutions of the Council of Trent which Spain had indeed immediately accepted but with a reservation clause in favour of the rights of the The Tridentine self-assurance of the American bishops found expression particularly at

*’ Reinhard. ‘Sprachbehemchung’. 12. 14. ” Solano y Perez-Lila. Introduction (note 9). xl-Iiii. M. Moaner, La Corona upo-oh y los fozoncac m los @ebbs & Indiac de Am*a

(Stockholm. 1970). ‘I Petra May/Briisael is preparing a comparative study. ’’ Phelan. Millcnid Kingdom. 88; Reinhard, ‘Sprachbehmschung’. 14. ” Handbuch dsr Ki+changcschichts, IV (Fmburg, 1967). 535.

372 Wolfgang Rehahard provincial councils, which were therefore watched with suspicion by the crown and finally ~uppressed.~' The frontlines were anything but clearly drawn, because on the other side the critics of royal policies came mainly from within the ranks of the members of the Orders, from Las Casas to Mer~dieta,~~ to the dubious Jesuit Luis Lopez in Peru.76 The Junta Magna of Madrid in 1568 decided in favour of a separate 'Ecclesia indiana' only to the extent that members of the orders should be appointed to the mis- sionary sees; apart from that it demanded strict adherence to the royal prerogative of ecclesiastical appointments in the Church as a wh01e.'~ As regards the role of the Indians in the Church, crown, Orders and

secular clerics were in accord, the more so as time went by. Here Rome was the troublemaker, though an ineffectual one. The alleged indophile optimism of the early missionaries is contradicted by the fact that they were the first to be rather reluctant about the participation of the Indians in the e~charist.~: On the other hand, the Mexican Junta Apostolica, an informal synod, had certainly considered their admission into the priest- hood in 1539.79 However, I do not know of a single Indian who was ordained at that time. And the College of Tlatelolco was in no way, as one sometimes reads, a kind of seminary but a general training institution for Hispanized Indian leaders." With the first Provincial Council of Mexico in 1555, the tables were turned. The resolutions of the further Councils of Lima and Mexico in the end did not, strictly speaking, ex- clude the Indians and mestizos completely from the priesthood, but they erected such high barriers of reservations that this may well have amounted to virtual exclusion." Similar views were expressed by Acosta who, though he argued vigorously for the admission of the Indians to all the other sacraments including the eucharist,*2 nevertheless was against granting them major orders as soon as that. What militated against it despite individual exceptions was, according to him, their weakness as newly converted Christians and their as a rule obscure origin~. '~ What shows through here unmistakably, as it did in Mexico in 1555, is the Spanish exclusion principle of the Zimpieza de sangre. But in the Portugese

I' Hake1 and F'iccachrnaun (note 6). '* Phelan. Mall& Kingdom, 106. '' Acwta, DeprOcumnda, I, 653-64; J. T. Medina, HiStonb del Tribunal dei Sunto Oficio de In-

qu i s idn & Lima 1569-1820, vol. I (Santiago de Chile, 1887), 57-116 Ppuim; M. Batdon , 'La hmjia de fray Francisco de la Cnu y la reaccidn antilascasiana'. in Estudios sobrc Bartolomi de lar Cprac (Barcelona, 1976). 35567. '' P. Leturia, Rclociacs entre la Santa Sede e Hispanoamirica, vol. I (Rome. 1959). 59-100. " J . Specker, Die Mirdonmrethode in Spanisch-Ameriha im 16. Jahrhundert (SchBnedr-

7' S . Poolc 'Church law on the ordination of Indians and CWU in New Spain', &@an Am H, 61

'O Cf. Mendicta, Historia, 11. 40-2 (IV, 15); Spedrer, Die Mirsionmethode. 191. I' Ibid. Poole. 'Church law'. " Acosta. De @ocuran&, 11, 398419. I' Ibid. 454-9 (VI, 19).

Bedrenried. 1953), 160-70.

(1981). 63740, pp. 64Off.

Mis.s&manes, humanists and natives in the Spantih Indies 373 sphere of influence in the East Indies, the members of dark-skinned races were in those days also excluded from the priesthood, or at least from membership of an order.“ What had been intended as a transitory measure of development in America appears to have evolved in practice into an exclusive privilege in favour of the whites.” In this way the pro- cess of introducing Christianity into the native culture was at that point possibly nipped in the bud. This however applies only to the long-term view; in the sixteenth century, there was no chance of a native church.

In the 15709, the crown hardened its policies. Time and again Philip I1 forbade the ordination of mestizos.“ Books on the religion, history and culture of the Indians were forbidden, manuscripts were confiscated, for ‘thus God and We are best served’.!’ As a result, the most important in- dophile writings like those of Sahagun remained unpublished until the nineteenth century.” The background to this is the disappointing albeit in no way surprising discovery that below the surface of a successful Chris- tianization Indian paganism continued to exist. This discovery probably coincided with the fear on the part of the crown that its colonial empire in America might be endangered by separatist tendencies. a fear which, in the age of the revolt of the Netherlands, was surely no mere figment of the imagination. Accordingly, in 1572, the remaining Inca rule of Vilcabamba was annihilated, the last Inca executed. But more threaten- ing in this connection was the increasing Creolization of America and of the American Church, especially when linked to the arguments employed by indophile criticism of Spanish rule. This was admittedly not so in the case of the Dominican FranciscO de la Cruz in Peru. The Inquisition of Lima discovered also in the 1570s that on the basis of dubious revelations made by his mistress he had forecast the fall of Christianity in Europe and the triumph of a Creole Church in America, with married clergy, a polygamous laity and Indian subjects in eternal en~omienda.’~ This amounted not only to a legitimization of the practice of the Creoles’ way of life but also of their theoretical claims. Even indophile monks, as for instance Mendieta, partially identified with Creole notions of auto- nOmy.’O As a result political and ecclesiastical interests went hand in hand both in measures talcen against clerics and in campaigns against Indian ‘supersitition’.” These disciplinary measures were probably in synchro- nization with those in Europe where states and churches everywhere had

I‘ Cf. W. Reinhard. k h i c h t a d.r europcricclren Expanrion. vol. I (Stuttgart. 1983). 67. ” For the mentality of the Crcole d+a cf. Tibemar. ‘King and pope and clergy’. I‘ Poole. ‘Church law’, 642. I’ Codex Fbrantinlr, I, 36ff. I’ Even though McndictaL Spanish editor (note 9), lrnodv is able to give other repsons. ” Medina. Hictmio; Batrillon, .La hercjia’.

” See a h , intw dio, Gar&. ‘La “Idolatria” ’ and ‘Eaerpacibn’, where additional bibliography See note 9.

can be found.

374 Worfgang Rezirhatd

begun, in close co-operation, to bring about order once and for sus- tained beyond religious reasons by a general anthropological pessimism.93

IV

For the Indians, the encounter between the cultures and religions was first and foremost a question of power. This is shown by the sources, even though they tend to reflect rather the Spanish point of view which saw things in a similar light. The Mexican Discussion of Faith of 1524 already made unambivalent statements of this kind.94 The Indians submitted to the Christian god because it had proved to be the stronger. But with this they did not discard their polytheist mentality. The Christian god was in- deed stronger, but this still did not make him the only one. The previous- ly existing gods continued to exist. Since they could revenge themselves, however, and possibly gain the upper hand again, one had to put one’s money on both, something that could drive any missionary to despair.9’ From the very beginning, therefore, strategies were developed for adap- ting and asserting the native religion which have not only been successful right up until today, but have certainly also been Generally speaking, a retreat had to take place from the ‘imperial gods’ of the In- dian centres of power and culture to the numerous regional and local deities whose character changed from group to So-called ‘syn- cretism’ was and is clearly operative here according to the rules of the continuing religious system of the Indians. If the Andine puchaeuti con- cept of epochs is blotted out by the idea of the ‘Day of Judgement’, then this merely means: ‘In this new vocabulary, Andeans posited alternatives to the dominant religion, while the dominant religion contributed to defining and describing those alternative^.'^' Even with the present-day Mayas, the Indian tradition sets the tone in a hybrid religion which has incorporated Christian elements in various forms and to different degrees

’* Cf. W. Reinhard, ‘Reformation. Counter-Reformation, and the early modern state. A re-- mmt’, Cath Hirt R, 75 (1989). 383404. ” Poole, 649; more generally R. Birely. The Counter-Rsformattbnprince (Chapel Hill, N.C. and

London, 1990). ’* Lehmpnn and Kutscher (eds.). Sterbende G-tter, pprcim; cf . W . Henlul, ‘Die Religion der In-

dios aufdem dritten Proviruialkonzil von Lima (1582-83)’. in Ecc&.nia militam, ed. W . Brandmiller et 01.. vol. I (Paderborn, 1988). 43343. ” Cf. G. Tellmbach. Die westliche Kische w m 10. brjzumJiiihen 12. Jahrhundert (Die Kirche in

ihrer Ccrchichtr, F1) (Giittingm, 1988). 22. ’‘ U. Ghler, ‘La rcligi6n de los tzotzil de San Pablo (MCxico): ejemplo de un dncretismo

dinamico’, in ReQabsidad populm en A m h c a lattircr. ed. K . &hut and A. Meyers (Frankfurt,

” I. Gar& ‘Transfomaciones de 1 0 s ofiaos religiosos andims en la 6poa colonial temprana (dglo XVI)’, in Re+ pmrctwow impsriUm inbw, ed. M. S. Ziolkowski (Warsaw, 1991). 113-26: J. Sturm. Agrwirche G2tsr und Rituale bci den h d & m Mayadhem (Uhnologische S t d e n , 6) (Miimta, 1988). ” S. MacCormack. ‘Pachacuti: miracles. punishments, and Last Judgement: Visionary past and

prophetic future in early colonial Peru’, Am Hict R. 93 (1988). 960-1006. p. 1006.

1988), 148-160.

Miuionanes, humanzits and nathes lir the Spanish Indies 375 of intensity. The Trinity consists of 'God-the-Father', 'God-the-Mother', and the 'Holy Ghost', where the highest may be called not only 'God-the- Father' but also 'Santiago' or 'San Francisco', and his wife not only 'Virgin Mary' but also 'Santa Clara'. In other places 'hesuluisto' is the highest god, seen as the sun-god, but he can also, like the maize-god, take over the role of the Holy Child and thus of the 'Holy Ghost' in the Trinity. Christian saints can appear as complements, but also as substitutes for traditional gods.Q' The lunar goddess 'Virgin Mary' has in many places a bad reputation and is the goddess of free love. This may be connected with the traditional attributes of the lunar goddess, or it could also have its origins in the Indian response to the doctrine of the virgin birth."' At this point, if not before, we come up against the question whether

the preaching of the missionaries did not itself encourage such concep- tions because, however well they mastered the Indian languages, they employed them according to the rules of their occidental her- meneutics.lo' This did not always go so far as the identification of the apostle Thomas with the planet Venus, which arose as a result of the mis- sionaries' attempt to link the New and the Old World by identifying Thomas with the mythical Quetzalcoatl. But Quetzalcoatl was for the In- dians not just a hero of more or less historical stature, but also the god of the morning star . . . The sun-metaphor for Christ, certainly in keeping with Christian tradition and thus widely used by the missionaries - 'the Sun of righteousness' according to the prophet Malachi 4.2 - could be taken to be responsible for the widespread notion of the sun-god Jesus Christ which exists until this day.lo2 From the sun being the image for Christ, Christ became the incarnation of the sun. The missionaries had obviously assumed that 'translating' the metaphor as such would be adequate for achieving its 'correct' interpretation as it would with a Euro- pean audience. But for this the Indians lacked the essential qualifica- tions. They were not familiar with the occidental dualism between the material and the spiritual world which makes possible a 'mere' metaphor. And they had not yet got used to the constant domestication of the un- wieldy Old Testament by means of a typological approach employing metaphor and allegory. Since such use of language was foreign to their holistic way of thinking, the encounter between the religions was bound to end in most cases in misunderstandings of this kind.

From the Indian perspective, too, it led to conclusions which were contrary to the prevailing picture of the Indian mission of the sixteenth century:

" stunn, Ajpmkhe a-tter. 13941. "* K6hler. 'La Aigion', 154 ff. I*' Cf. C. E. Dibble, "The Nahuatliration of Christianity', in: Sirtarnth Century Mexico, ed. Ed-

monaon. 22535. as well as J. Coda Castellanos, El Catccisnw en pictogramas dc Fray Pedro dc GmJc (Madrid, 1987).

I*' L. M. Burkhan. 'The Solar Christ in Nahuatl doctrinal texts of early colonial Mexico', E t h ~ h i r t ~ . 35 (1988). 254-56.

376 Wolfgang Rei?thard

1 Christian and humamst attitudes, as well as ecclesiastical policies towards the Indians were much more coherent and logical than the spec- tacular controversies and political changes have led commentators to assume. 2 The reason for this is that Christianity and humanism in their very combination represented the epitome of European ethnocentrism, which is, incidentally - and not only since Hegel and Ranke - in keeping with the way Europeans have always seen themselves. Even a man like Las Casas was unable to break out of this completely. Even he could not doubt the ultimate superiority of Christian Europe. Thus the idea of Mis- sion as a fruitful encounter proved illusory since one side lacked uncondi- tional respect for the other. 3 This is not particularly surprising because once again it has been demonstrated here that a meeting of cultures on an equal footing is generally impossible. For an inequality of power is always present and in- deed necessary for cultural transfer to become initiated at all. Merely observing an alien culture without the observer becoming affected in any way will remain fruitless. 4 If such expectations were held, the meeting of two worlds was des- tined to founder. In another, more complex and less grandiose sense, however, it was extremely successful, not in the sense of the ‘ecclesiastic colonialism’ of a ‘spiritual conquista’, of course, but because the colon- ized skilfully adopted, on their own terms and for their own purposes. what the colonizers had brought.

Albert- Ludwigs-Universitit, Freiburg