Naming/Renaming in New Spain
I have posted an assignment for my Senior Seminar "American Studies in a Global World" cause I thought it was interesting. It looks at Diaz' The Conquest of New Spain translated by J.M. Cohen available from Penguin Classics
While reading Bernal Diaz’ The Conquest of New Spain it has become apparent that names, naming and renaming is very important. Diaz provides for the reader names of geographical locations, names of objects, and names of people.
With Geographical locations Diaz provides Spanish names that either represents an event that happened there or the person who discovered it. What is notable is that on a few occasions Diaz provides an alternative, native, name for these locations. An exemplary passage appears on page 31: “The river was called the Tabasco river after the Cacique of the town who was so named. But since we discovered it on this voyage, and Jaun de Grijalva was the discoverer, we called it the Rio de Grijalva, and so it is marked in the charts.” I pick this passage as key because of the statement “since we discovered it.” This is an interesting word choice, but I believe deliberate word choice. According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary the word “discover” is defined as: “1. to make known or visible 2. to obtain sight or knowledge of for the first time.” It is clear that the use of this term discover is Eurocentric. The river had previously been “discovered” as Diaz provides the native word for it. But the Europeans had not obtained sight or knowledge of it before. Now it is “discovered” and made known to Europe by presence of a Spanish name for it, on “the charts.”
The names of people that Diaz provides show the same kind of convention as seen above. What is of interest is not the people he names from the expedition, but the names of the people that they pick up on the way. They capture a number of individuals who were baptized and then Spanish names. These names are to be representative of a change, not just of religion, but of character, and worth. They become new people through the transformation from native religion to Christianity. This transformation gives them more value in the text. These transformed characters are the only natives in the text that are named, with the exception of Montezuma.
What I have illustrated above are instances of renaming. The rivers they cross, and the people they capture all have names in some language, but they are marked in the text with Spanish names. They are re-inscribed as Spanish subjects. This is an interesting concept. The process of giving the places and people Spanish names could be merely a matter of making it easier for European subjects, but to look at from the natives perspective it does just the opposite. For one of these Spanish named characters to understand their names or the names of the rivers that they cross, they must become Spanish. They must learn the language, learn the culture, and most important, due to the colonial situation, they must be subject to Spanish law and the Spanish Monarch. The naming that seems so swift and so simple in Diaz’s text is actually quite a profound event.
While reading Bernal Diaz’ The Conquest of New Spain it has become apparent that names, naming and renaming is very important. Diaz provides for the reader names of geographical locations, names of objects, and names of people.
With Geographical locations Diaz provides Spanish names that either represents an event that happened there or the person who discovered it. What is notable is that on a few occasions Diaz provides an alternative, native, name for these locations. An exemplary passage appears on page 31: “The river was called the Tabasco river after the Cacique of the town who was so named. But since we discovered it on this voyage, and Jaun de Grijalva was the discoverer, we called it the Rio de Grijalva, and so it is marked in the charts.” I pick this passage as key because of the statement “since we discovered it.” This is an interesting word choice, but I believe deliberate word choice. According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary the word “discover” is defined as: “1. to make known or visible 2. to obtain sight or knowledge of for the first time.” It is clear that the use of this term discover is Eurocentric. The river had previously been “discovered” as Diaz provides the native word for it. But the Europeans had not obtained sight or knowledge of it before. Now it is “discovered” and made known to Europe by presence of a Spanish name for it, on “the charts.”
The names of people that Diaz provides show the same kind of convention as seen above. What is of interest is not the people he names from the expedition, but the names of the people that they pick up on the way. They capture a number of individuals who were baptized and then Spanish names. These names are to be representative of a change, not just of religion, but of character, and worth. They become new people through the transformation from native religion to Christianity. This transformation gives them more value in the text. These transformed characters are the only natives in the text that are named, with the exception of Montezuma.
What I have illustrated above are instances of renaming. The rivers they cross, and the people they capture all have names in some language, but they are marked in the text with Spanish names. They are re-inscribed as Spanish subjects. This is an interesting concept. The process of giving the places and people Spanish names could be merely a matter of making it easier for European subjects, but to look at from the natives perspective it does just the opposite. For one of these Spanish named characters to understand their names or the names of the rivers that they cross, they must become Spanish. They must learn the language, learn the culture, and most important, due to the colonial situation, they must be subject to Spanish law and the Spanish Monarch. The naming that seems so swift and so simple in Diaz’s text is actually quite a profound event.
posted by Subversive Intentions at 12:30 PM
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