Natural and Moral History of the Indies

Name: Natural and Moral History of the Indies
Price: 7.26 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780822328452

ISBN-10: 0822328453

ISBN-13: 9780822328452

Edition: 2002

Authors: Josï¿½ de Acosta, Jane E. Mangan, Frances Lopez-Morillas, Frances M. Lopez-Morillas, Frances M. Lopez-Morillas

List price: $34.95

This item qualifies for FREE shipping.

30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!

Buy new: $36.20

Marketplace

5 new & used from $7.26

what's this?

Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:

You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

Description:

One of the first comprehensive investigations of the New World, Acosta's study is strikingly broad in scope. He describes the region's natural resources, flora, animals and terrain and writes in detail about the Amerindians and their religious and political practices.

Book details

List price: $34.95
Copyright year: 2002
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication date: 10/15/2002
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 568
Size: 6.14" wide x 9.25" long x 0.59" tall
Weight: 1.936
Language: English

Josï¿½ de Acosta (1540 - 1600) fue un jesuita, antropï¿½logo y naturalista espaï¿½ol que desempeï¿½ï¿½ importantes misiones en Amï¿½rica a partir de 1571, aï¿½o en que emprende su viaje al Perï¿½. Es el primer observador que sostiene que los indï¿½genas americanos habrï¿½an llegado a dicho continente a travï¿½s de Siberia.

Jane E. Mangan is associate professor of history at Davidson College and the author of Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potosi. She is currently researching a book on the subject of family in sixteenth-century Spain and Peru.



Introduction to Josï¿½ de Acosta's Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias


Prologue to the reader


Book I



Of the opinion held by some authors that the heavens did not extend to the New World



How the heavens are round everywhere and rotate around themselves



How Holy Writ gives us to understand that the earth is in the midst of the universe



In which a response is given to what is alleged in Scripture against the heavens being round



Of the shape and appearance of the heavens in the New World



How the world has both land and sea in the direction of both poles



Which refutes the opinion of Lactantius, who said that there were no antipodes



Of Saint Augustine's motives in denying the antipodes



Of Aristotle's opinion of the New World and what it was that caused him to deny it



How Pliny and most of the ancients believed the same as Aristotle



How some mentions of this New World is found in the ancients



What Plato believed concerning these West Indies



How some have believed that in Holy Scripture Ophir is this Peru of ours



What Tarshish and Ophir mean in Scripture



Of the prophecy of Abdias, which some say concerned these Indies



How the first men could have come to the Indies and how they did not sail purposely to these parts



Of the properties and remarkable virtue of the lodestone in navigation and how the ancients did not know of it



Which answers those who believe that in ancient times the ocean was crossed as in our day



How it may be believed that the first inhabitants of the Indies came there brought by storms and against their will



How it is more reasonable to believe that the first dwellers in the Indies came by land



How wild beasts and domestic animals crossed to the lands of the Indies



How the race of Indians did not come by way of Atlantis, as some believe



How the opinion of many, who believe that the Indians come from the race of the Jews, is false



Why there is no sure way to establish the Indians' origin



What the Indians are wont to say about their origin


Book II



Which will deal with the nature of the equinoctial line, or equator



What caused the ancients to have no doubt that the Torrid Zone was uninhabitable



How the Torrid Zone is very wet, and how in this the ancients were much mistaken



How outside the Tropics there is more rain when the sun draws farther away, which is the reverse of the Torrid Zone



How in the Tropics the rains come in summer, or time of heat, and the calculation of winter and summer



How the Torrid Zone has a great abundance of water and vegetation, though Aristotle denies it



Which deals with the reason why the sun, outside the Tropics, causes rain when it is most distant, and in the Tropics the reverse, when it is nearest



How what is said of the Torrid Zone must be understood



How the Torrid Zone is not excessively hot but only moderately so



How the Torrid Zone's heat is tempered by the abundance of rain and the brevity of the days



How in addition to the causes mentioned there are other reasons why the Torrid Zone is temperate, especially the proximity of the Ocean Sea



How the higher lands are colder and the reason for this



How cool winds are the chief reason why the Torrid Zone is temperate



How life in the equatorial region is very agreeable


Book III



How the natural history of the Indies is pleasant and enjoyable



Of winds and their differences and properties and causes in general



Of some properties of the winds that blow in the New World



How easterly winds always blow in the Torrid Zone and outside it both westerlies and easterlies



Of the differences between easterlies and southwesterlies and other kinds of winds



Why there is always an east wind for sailing in the Torrid Zone



Why westerly winds are more usually found when leaving the Torrid Zone, at higher latitudes



Of exceptions to be found in the rule just expressed and the winds and calms that exist on sea and land



Of some wonderful effects of winds in parts of the Indies



Of the ocean that surrounds the Indies and of the Northern and Southern Seas



Of the Strait of Magellan and how it was crossed on its southern side



Of the strait that some say exists in Florida



Of the properties of the Strait of Magellan



Of the ebb and flow of the Ocean Sea in the Indies



Of the different fish and methods of fishing of the Indians



Of the pools and lakes that are found in the Indies



Of various fountains and springs



Of rivers



Of the general nature of the earth in the Indies



Of the properties of the land of Peru



Of the reasons given as to why it does not rain on the plains



Of the properties of New Spain and the islands and the other lands



Of undiscovered regions and the difference of a whole day between east and west



Of volcanoes or vents of fire



Why the fire and smoke of these volcanoes persists for so long



Of earthquakes



How earth and sea clasp one another


Book IV



Of the three kinds of mixtures that will be dealt with in this history



Of the abundance of metals that exist in the Indies



Of the kind of land where metals are found, and how in the Indies all the metals are not worked, and how the Indians used metals



Of the gold that is produced in the Indies



Of the silver of the Indies



Of the mountain of Potosï¿½ and its discovery



Of the wealth that has been taken, and is still being taken daily, from the mountain of Potosï¿½



How the mines of Potosï¿½ are worked



How silver ore is refined



Of the wonderful properties of quicksilver



Where quicksilver is found and how rich mines of it were discovered in Huancavelica



How quicksilver is extracted and how silver is refined with its use



Of the machinery for grinding ore and assaying silver



Of emeralds



Of pearls



Of bread in the Indies, and maize



Of yucca and cassava, and potatoes and chuï¿½o and rice



Of different roots that grow in the Indies



Of different kinds of greenstuffs and vegetables, and of those called cucumbers, and pineapples and Chilean strawberries, and plums



Of ajï¿½, or Indies pepper



Of the plantain



Of cocoa and coca



Of maguey, tunal, and cochineal and of indigo and cotton



Of mameys and guavas and alligator pears



Of chicozapote and anonas and capolï¿½es



Of different kinds of fruit trees, and of coconuts and Andes almonds, and Chachapoyas almonds



Of various flowers, and some trees that bear only flowers, and how the Indians use them



Of balsam



Of liquidambar and other oils and gums and drugs that are brought from the Indies



Of the great forests of the Indies and of cedars and ceibas and other large trees



Of the plants and fruit trees that have been brought to the Indies from Spain



Of grapes and vines and olives and mulberries and



Of sheep and cattle



Of some European animals that the Spaniards found in the Indies and how they might have come



Of birds that exist in Europe and how they came to the Indies



How it can be possible that there are animals in the Indies not found in any other part of the world



Of birds native to the Indies



Of game animals



Of micos, or the monkeys of the Indies



Of the vicuï¿½as and tarugas of Peru



Of alpacas and guanacos and the sheep of Peru



Of bezoar stones Prologue to the subsequent books


Book V



How the devil's pride and envy have been the cause of idolatry



Of the kinds of idolatries used by the Indians



How there is some knowledge of God among the Indians



Of the first sort of idolatry, that of natural and universal things



Of the idolatry practiced by the Indians with particular things



Of another kind of idolatry with the dead



Of the superstitions that were employed with the dead



Of the funeral rites that the Mexicans and other nations used



Of the fourth and last kind of idolatry that the Indians, especially the Mexicans, used with images and statues



Of a strange kind of idolatry that was practiced by the Mexicans



How the devil has tried to copy God in methods of sacrifices and of religion and sacraments



Of the temples that have been found in the Indies



Of the splendid temples of Mexico



Of the priests and the offices they performed



Of the monasteries of virgins that the devil invented for his service



Of the monasteries of religion that the devil possesses for his superstition



Of the penances and austerities that the Indians practiced at the devil's behest



Of the sacrifices the Indians made to the devil, and of what they consisted



Of the sacrifices of men what they made



Of the horrible sacrifices of men that the Mexicans performed



Of another kind of human sacrifice that the Mexicans performed



How the Indians themselves were exhausted and could not endure the cruelties of their gods



How the devil has tried to mimic the sacraments of Holy Church



How the devil tried in Mexico to mimic the feat of Corpus Christi and the communion used by Holy Church



Of the confession and confessors used by the Indians



Of the abominable unction used by the Mexican priests and those of other nations and of their sorcerers



Of other ceremonies and rites of the Indians that are similar to ours



Of some festivals that the Indians of Cuzco had and how the devil also tried to imitate the mystery of the Holy Trinity



Of the festival of rejoicing celebrated by the Mexicans



Of the merchants' festival performed by the Cholulans



The benefit that can be drawn from an account of the Indians' superstitions


Book VI



How the opinion of those who believe that the Indians lack understanding is false



Of the method of calculating time and the calendar that the Mexicans used



Of the method of counting years and months used by the Incas



How no nation of Indians h as been found to have the use of letters



Of the kinds of letters and books that the Chinese use



Of universities and studies in China



Of the kinds of letters and writing that the Mexicans used



Of the memory aids and reckonings used by the Indians of Peru



Of the order the Indians maintain in their writings



How the Indians dispatched their messengers



Of the government and monarchs that they had



Of the government of the Inca kings of Peru



Of the distribution that the Incas made of their vassals



Of the buildings and construction methods of the Incas



Of the Inca's revenues and the order of tributes he imposed on the Indians



Of the trades that the Indians learned



Of the posts and chasquis that the Inca used



Of the laws and justice and punishments that the Incas imposed and of their marriages



Of the origin of the Incas, lords of Peru, and their conquests and victories



Of the first Inca and his successors



Of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui and what happened up to the time of Huayna Capac



Of the great Inca named Huayna Capac



Of the last successors of the Incas



Of the kind of commonwealth that the Mexicans had



Of the different ranks and orders of the Mexicans



Of the Mexicans' way of fighting and the military orders that they had



Of the Mexicans' great care and diligence in bringing up their youth



Of the Indians' dances and festivities


Book VII



Why it is important to know of the Indians' deeds, especially those of the Mexicans



Of the ancient dwellers in New Spain and how the Nahautlacas came there



How the six Nahautlaca clans settled the land of Mexico



Of the departure of the Mexicans and their route and the founding of Michoacï¿½n



Of what befell them in Malinalco and in Tula and Chapultepec



Of the war they waged with those of Culhuacï¿½n



Of the founding of Mexico



Of the rebellion of Tlatelolco and the first kind chosen by the Mexicans



Of the strange tribute paid by the Mexicans to the Azcapotzalcans



Of the second king and what befell him during his reign



Of the third king, Chimalpopoca, and of his cruel death and the cause of war waged by the Mexicans



Of Izcoatl, the fourth king, and the war against the Tepanecas



Of the battle the Mexicans fought with the Tepanecas and the great victory they achieved



Of the war and victory of the Mexicans over the city of Coyoacï¿½n



Of the war and victory that the Mexicans won over the Xochimilcans



Of Moctezuma, fifth king of the Mexicans, first of this name



How Tlacaelel refused to be king and the election and deeds of Tizoc



Of the death of Tlacaelel and the exploits of Axacayatl, seventh king of Mexico



Of the exploits of Ahuitzotl, eighth king of Mexico



Of the election of the great Moctezuma, last king of Mexico



How Moctezuma ordered the service of his household and the war he waged for his coronation



Of Moctezuma's habits and great state



Of the strange omens and prodigies that appeared in Mexico before its empire perished



Of the news that Moctezuma received of the Spaniards who had reached his country and the embassy that he sent them



Of the Spaniards' entry into Mexico



Of the death of Moctezuma and the Spaniards' departure from the City of Mexico



Of some miracles that God has performed in the Indies in favor of the Faith, beyond the merits of those who brought them to pass



and last. Of the plan ordained by Providence in the Indies for the entry of the Christian religion there


Commentary


Bibliography


Index