Ruth Olivera, Curator
April 1996
This exhibit was assembled to coincide with the SAA conference meeting in New Orleans, April 1996. It consists of items chosen to represent, in a limited way, the rare and extensive materials found in the Latin American Library. They follow a loosely chronological order, beginning in the 16th century.
Case 1
The TRIBUTE DOCUMENT for Ohuapan is one of two similar manuscripts (2 double folios each) with native-style drawings in black and red ink indicating tribute to be paid. Spanish text is signed by the viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velaxco, and dated June 18, 1557.
The CHORAL BOOK , entitled In Nocte Natalis Domini , is written in Latin and was painted by Zapotec Indians. There is an inscription inside the back cover in Zaoptec dated May 1, 1698. From the Rare Books Collection.
Also shown are two VOW FORMULAE of the Jesuit and Augustinian orders. They were painstakingly written by young men making their final profession, each in his own style. Jesuit vows were usually written in Latin, as is this one of 1727, but the 1754 Augustinian vow, elaborately illuminated, is in Spanish and records, in an added note, the death of the priest in 1803. From the Viceregal and Ecclesiastical Mexican Collection and the Gates Collection.
The TESTERIAN MANUSCRIPT of the late 16th century is a catechism used by friars for the conversion of Indians in New Spain. Pictographic writing, possibly based on earlier Nahuatl writings was phonetic or rebus in nature. From the Indian Language Series.
Case 2
The WATERCOLOR PLAN for the bridge over the Río de la Antigua near Veracruz, Mexico, was not the first plan for such a bridge by Diego García Conde. An earlier plan exists in the Archivo General de la Nacíon dated 1799. This plan of April 28, 1805, in Jalapa, gives detailed building specifications and cost estimates. The bridge was actually built and named the Puente del Rey (Bridge of the King); after independence it was renamed the Puente Nacional and is still standing. From the Bliss Collection.
When filing a PETITION to the viceroy of New Spain for the purpose of dividing a curateship and establishing a new one in San Lorenzo, Manuel Ignacio Gómez de Campillo included this WATERCOLOR MAP showing the desired division and the location of town, farms, ranches, mills and markets. From the Viceregal and Ecclesiastical Mexican Collection.
The COPPERPLATE of the Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Carmen, venerated in the Mines of Tlalpujahun, was engraved by Manuel López López in the Calle de las Escallerillas in Mexico in 1814. An engraving from this plate was used in creating note cards for the Latin American Library. From the Latin American Visual Arts Series.
Case 3
PHOTOGRAPHS displayed are taken from four collections in the Latin American Photographic Archive and the regular manuscript collection.
Two of the collections--Squier and Pepper--are of particular photographic and historical importance. Ephraim George Squier (1821-1888) collected photographs as early as the 1850s, while the stereographs shown here were taken by Squier, a diplomat and writer, when he was in Peru in the early 1860s. While there, he collected cartes-de visite by various prominent photographers. He himself appears in one "equipped for the Cordillera"; others displayed are of L.T. Chamberlin of Peru, Juan de la Cruz Benavente of Bolivia, and Justo Arosemena of Colombia. George H. Pepper (1873-1924), an early archaeologist of the Southwest, was also a photographer and collector of photographs. He collected the photograph of a Hopi girl with the squash flower indicative of her unmarried status, dated 1901, and also the images of the snake dance at the Hopi village of Walpi, in 1897, where photography was subsequently forbidden.
The two collections by Peruvian Photographers Martín Chambi (1891-1973) and Abraham Guillén (1901-1985) are from a later time, but scarcely less important in their chronicling of Peru. Chambi photographed all levels of society, especially near Cuzco, and Guillén recorded architecture and archaeological sites as well as people. Works of both photographers are well represented in the Latin American Photographic Archive.
