Rebecca Earle’s work The Body of the Conquistador explores the connections made between the body and food consumed in Colonial Latin America. Rebecca Earle argues that the Spanish put emphasis on eating and cultivating old world food in the new world because of religion as well as because of their fear of turning into Amerindians, which in turn would mean that they would lose their beards and change skin colors. The Spanish colonists’ fear came from the idea humoralism or the layman’s definition, which was that different foods differentiated one type of human from another type of human.
In Earle’s work, Bartolome de las casas wondered why Amerindians were so different from the Spaniards. Also Las Casas was an advocate for the Amerindians …show more content…
There were many reasons for the Spanish to worry about what would happen to their bodies in the new world. The porous humoral body was vulnerable to the powerful influence of unfamiliar foods, just as it was subject to the astrological and climatic forces exerted by the stars and the air. A sudden change in either could cause fatal illness. Travel to the new world as well as eating maize could by their idea of the humoral body be fatal. An example that is given by Earle is the story of Jeronimo de Aguilar. Aguilar was born in Andalusia and travelled to the Indies. In 1511 he sailed to Panama towards Santo Domingo when his ship was caught in a storm and he shipwrecked off of the Yucatan Peninsula. Local Maya Indians, with whom Aguilar lived until 1519, captured him after his shipwreck. The in 1519, Hernan Cortes rescued him. However, following his return to Spanish society, Aguilar was offered European food, but, to the surprise of his rescuers, he ate only sparingly. When asked why he was so moderate that the explained that after so much time he was accustomed to the food of the Indians, and his stomach would regard Christian food as foreign. Long residence amongst the Indians left him unable to tolerate Christian food and his digestive system and acquired the humors of the Indians. This led to his body not being quite as Christian as it used to be. The story of Aguilar’s transformation is a solid example of the fear that the Spanish harbored towards consuming foreign
In Earle’s work, Bartolome de las casas wondered why Amerindians were so different from the Spaniards. Also Las Casas was an advocate for the Amerindians …show more content…
There were many reasons for the Spanish to worry about what would happen to their bodies in the new world. The porous humoral body was vulnerable to the powerful influence of unfamiliar foods, just as it was subject to the astrological and climatic forces exerted by the stars and the air. A sudden change in either could cause fatal illness. Travel to the new world as well as eating maize could by their idea of the humoral body be fatal. An example that is given by Earle is the story of Jeronimo de Aguilar. Aguilar was born in Andalusia and travelled to the Indies. In 1511 he sailed to Panama towards Santo Domingo when his ship was caught in a storm and he shipwrecked off of the Yucatan Peninsula. Local Maya Indians, with whom Aguilar lived until 1519, captured him after his shipwreck. The in 1519, Hernan Cortes rescued him. However, following his return to Spanish society, Aguilar was offered European food, but, to the surprise of his rescuers, he ate only sparingly. When asked why he was so moderate that the explained that after so much time he was accustomed to the food of the Indians, and his stomach would regard Christian food as foreign. Long residence amongst the Indians left him unable to tolerate Christian food and his digestive system and acquired the humors of the Indians. This led to his body not being quite as Christian as it used to be. The story of Aguilar’s transformation is a solid example of the fear that the Spanish harbored towards consuming foreign