Abstract

RAMOS DIAZ, Martín. Poison, secret and virtue in colonial Yucatan Texts. Estud. hist. novohisp [online]. 2017, n.56, pp.65-76. ISSN 2448-6922.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehn.2017.03.001.

The following article explores the transfer of ancient and medieval narratives of herbolaria, hermetica and hagiography to Yucatecan texts of the 17th and 18th centuries. The identification of books printed in the 16th century that circulated in Mayan geography — derived from the old world — allows to check in the texts written in the southeast of New Spain the continuity and bifurcation of medical narratives of poison and remedy; narratives of revelation of feminine and astrological secrets; narratives of virtuous lives, apparitions and miracles.

The study exposes in four Yucatecan texts of the novohispano period narratives coming from the Mediterranean space. These are complex narratives that for expository purposes are reduced to simple nouns: poison, secret and virtue. The European books in the convents of Yucatan and in the small secular libraries did not disappear with the change of the centuries nor with the climatic inclemencies of the Caribbean. Part of the content of these ancient and medieval books moved to foundational texts of regional culture, to the origin of the Hispanic tradition of the Yucatan.

Keywords : Yucatan; Reading history; Cultural history; New Spain.