Ideas

by Peter Watson

  15. There was a rougher side to the first explorers too. See Leithäuser, Op. cit., pages 38ff, for the tricks Columbus used to keep his men pacific.

  16. Ibid., page 24.

  17. Bodmer, Op. cit., page 32.

  18. Elliott, Op. cit., page 25.

  19. Ibid. See also: Moynahan, Op. cit., page 510.

  20. Elliott, Op. cit., page 29.

  21. On a different aspect of comparative science, despite the many wild animals in the New World, it was the bloodhounds of the Spanish which most terrified the Indians. These animals were sometimes instructed to tear the Indians to pieces. Leithäuser, Op. cit., pages 160–161.

  22. Bodmer, Op. cit., pages 212–213.

  23. Elliott, Op. cit., page 34.

  24. Ibid., page 36.

  25. Ibid., page 37.

  26. Leithäuser, Op. cit., pages 165–166 for Indian drawings of these activities.

  27. Bodmer, Op. cit., pages 60–61.

  28. Elliott, Op. cit., page 38.

  29. Ibid., page 39.

  30. Acosta had a theory that minerals ‘grew’ in the New World, like plants. Bodmer, Op. cit., pages 144–145.

  31. Elliott, Op. cit., page 39.

  32. Ibid., pages 39–40.

  33. Evgenii G. Kushnarev (edited and translated by E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan), Bering’s Search for the Strait, Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990 (first published in Leningrad [now St Petersburg], 1968). For Cartier and Nicolet see Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe, Op. cit., page 259.

  34. Elliott, Op. cit., page 40.

  35. Bodmer, Op. cit., pages 209ff, for a discussion of the meaning of ‘barbarity’ in this context. See also: ‘Savages noble and ignoble: concepts of the North American Indian’, chapter 7 (pages 187ff) of: P. J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams, The Great Map of Mankind: Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment, London: Dent, 1982.

  36. Leithäuser, Op. cit., for a vivid description of Tenochtitlán, in Mexico, and its sophisticated engineering and art works.

  37. Elliott, Op. cit., pages 42–43.

  38. Bodmer, Op. cit., page 67.

  39. Elliott, Op. cit., page 43.

  40. Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982, page 39.

  41. Ibid., page 49. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 508, for the legalistic thinking behind this.

  42. This view envisaged the Indian as one day becoming a free man but until that time arrived he must remain ‘in just tutelage under the king of Spain’. Pagden, Op. cit., page 104.

  43. Wright, Op. cit., page 23. Also: Bodmer, Op. cit., pages 143–144. And Moynahan, Op. cit., page 510.

  44. Pagden, Op. cit., page 45.

  45. Ibid., page 46.

  46. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 510. Bodmer, Op. cit., page 144.

  47. Pagden, Op. cit., page 119.

  48. Leithäuser, Op. cit., pages 197ff, for the development of detailed maps of America.

  49. Elliott, Op. cit., page 49.

  50. Pagden, Op. cit., page 164.

  51. Ibid., page 174.

  52. There was also a theory that the precious metals of the world were collected in a fabulous region near the equator, and that the American natives knew where this region was. Padre José de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Madrid, 1954, pages 88–89, quoted in Bodmer, Op. cit., page 155.

  53. Elliott, Op. cit., pages 49–50.

  54. Ibid., page 51.

  55. Ibid., page 52.

  56. Alvin M. Josephy Jr (editor), America in 1492, New York: Vintage, 1991/1993, page 6.

  57. William McLeish, The Day Before America, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994, page 168.

  58. Moreover, the Sioux and many other tribes that became famous as Plains warriors were not yet living on the plains in 1492. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 8.

  59. Ibid., page 34.

  60. J. C. Furnas, The Americas: A Social History of the United States, 1587–1914, London: Longman, 1970, which includes details of the things Europeans tried to learn from the Indians.

  61. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 76.

  62. Ibid., pages 170–171.

  63. McLeish, Op. cit., page 131.

  64. Ibid., page 195.

  65. Ibid., page 196.

  66. Ibid., page 194.

  67. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 251. See Coe, Op. cit., page 48, for a chart on the classification and time-depth of thirty-one Mayan languages.

  68. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 253.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Ibid., page 254.

  71. The central Alaskan Yupik Indians became famous for their many words for snow, distinguishing ‘snow on the ground’, ‘light snow’, ‘deep, soft snow’, ‘snow about to avalanche’, ‘drifting snow’ and ‘snow blocks’. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 255.

  72. Ibid., page 262.

  73. Ibid., page 263.

  74. Furnas, Op. cit., page 366, says the Apaches were the least amenable to conversion by the Jesuits.

  75. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 278.

  76. Ibid., page 291. See Coe, Op. cit., page 136, for the relation between Hopi grammar and their view of the world.

  77. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 294.

  78. McLeish, Op. cit., page 233.

  79. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 309.

  80. The grave of a former shaman would be disinterred after a few years and the remains burned and turned into a special magic potion, consumed at a special ceremony, so that the men who came after him could acquire some of his wisdom. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 312.

  81. Ibid., page 326.

  82. Ibid., page 329.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Ibid., page 330.

  85. Ronald Wright, Stolen Continents: The ‘New World’ Through Indian Eyes, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992, examines five New World civilizations–Aztec, Inca, Maya, Cherokee and Iroquois–and their reactions to invasion. Wright describes, for example, the Incas’ vast storage systems, their complex irrigation networks, their synthesis of earlier civilisations. It is a fascinating attempt to get inside the mind of the Indians and then goes on to explore their reactions, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to the takeover of their land. (See this chapter, pages 454–455.)

  86. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 343. But see Coe, Op. cit., pages 59–60, for Aztec/Inca chronology.

  87. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 343.

  88. Ibid., page 367.

  89. Ibid., page 372.

  90. Ibid.

  91. Coe, Op. cit., page 118, for a diagram of how Aztec writing could be built up.

  92. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 375.

  93. Ibid., page 375–376.

  94. Ibid., page 377.

  95. Ibid., page 381.

  96. Furnas, Op. cit., page 166, notes some instructive parallels between Aztec religion and Christianity, including the equivalent of Eve, the serpent and the Flood.

  97. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 389.

  98. Ibid., page 392.

  99. Ibid.

  100. Coe, Op. cit., page 58, for Mayan attitudes to wildlife.

  101. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., pages 402–403.

  102. Ibid., pages 408–409.

  103. Ibid., page 409.

  104. Ibid., page 412.

  105. Furnas, Op. cit., pages 179ff, for the ‘engineering marvels’ of the Incas, gold-covered stones and weaving skills.

  106. Ibid., page 413.

  107. Ibid., See Coe, Op. cit., pages 242–243, for a discussion of gods.

  108. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 413–414.

  109. Other aspects of divinity lay in the fact that a creator of likenesses was believed to have some control over the person represented, and in the fact that the objects created were more important–more divine–than their creator. Josephy (editor), Op. cit., page 416.

  110. Ibid., page 417.

  111. Ibid.,
page 419.

  112. Terence Grieder, professor of art history at the University of Texas at Austin, has compared the early art of the Americas with that of Australia, Polynesia, Indonesia and south-east Asia and offers some fascinating observations. He finds in both realms that there are three basic types of civilisation and that the art of these three civilisations varies systematically in both form and symbolic content. He argues that this supports the idea that the Americas were peopled by three separate migrations. Grieder’s main point is that there is a cultural gradient which shows parallels between the Americas and the Australian–south-east Asian landmass. For example, in Australia and the Atlantic coast of South America, furthest from the Eurasian landmass, were found the ‘most primitive peoples’, areas populated by bands of hunter-gatherers without permanent shelter, without agriculture or specialised techniques. Melanesian people, on the other hand, and the inhabitants of the Great Plains of North America, and some areas of South America, lived in settled villages and practised agriculture. Finally, in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and on the Asian mainland, and in Central America, there were large populations who lived in towns, with temples of stone, and specialist occupations. In both locations (Australia to south-east Asia on the one hand, the Americas on the other), similar levels of civilisation had similar symbolic art. The first wave, as Grieder calls it, was characterised by primitive vulva and phallus signs, cup-marked stones, face and body-painting. The second wave was typified by the holy tree or pole, masks and bark cloth. The third wave showed geometrical symbols (cross, checkerboard, swastika, S-design) and often represented the cosmos (celestial symbolism), which was also reflected in the use of caves and mountains as holy sites, including artificial mountains, or pyramids. Tattooing was introduced in the third wave, and bark paper books. Of course, in many areas the different waves came into contact and affected one another (Iroquois symbolism, in particular, is a mixture of all three waves, a conclusion supported by blood-type analysis). But Grieder finds that the three-wave symbolism is still strong and that it is unlikely to have been invented twice. He therefore concludes that not only were there three waves of migrants into the Americas, but that these three waves were paralleled in the migrations from south-east Asia to Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Grieder, Origins of Pre-Columbian Art, Op. cit.

  113. Wright, Op. cit., pages 53–54 and 165. See also Moynahan, Op. cit., page 513 for ‘Christian’ forms of killing.

  114. Elliott, Op. cit., pages 81 and 86.

  115. Ibid., page 87.

  116. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Historians of the Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962, page 184.

  117. The whole process was underlined by an idea that had begun with the Church Fathers–that civilisation, and with it world power, moved steadily from east to west. On this account, civilisation had begun in Mesopotamia and Persia, and been replaced in turn by Egypt, Greece, Italy, France and now Spain. Here, it was said (by the Spanish of course), it would remain, ‘checked by the sea, and so well-guarded that it cannot escape’. Elliott, Op. cit., page 94 and Fernando Pérez de Oliva, Las Obras, Córdoba, 1586, 134f.

  118. Elliott, Op. cit., page 95.

  119. Ibid., page 96.

  120. Earl J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1934, page vii.

  121. Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Frontier, London: Secker & Warburg, 1953. See pages 239ff for the role of the revolver and two new methods of farming. See also: Wilbur R. Jacobs, Turner, Bolton and Webb: Three Historians of the American Frontier, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965.

  122. Though Michael Coe says that even today the population of, say, the Mayan Indians is unknown. Op. cit., page 47.

  123. Elliott, Op. cit., page 65.

  124. Royal Commentaries, translated by Livermore, part II, ‘The conquest of Peru’, pages 647–648. Quoted in Elliott, Op. cit., page 64.

  125. Elisabeth Armstrong, Ronsard and the Age of Gold, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1968, pages 27–28.

  CHAPTER 22: HISTORY HEADS NORTH: THE INTELLECTUAL IMPACT OF PROTESTANTISM

  1. Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire, Op. cit., page 132.

  2. Ibid., page 130.

  3. Ibid., page 131.

  4. Manchester, Op. cit., pages 134–135.

  5. Moynahan, The Faith, Op. cit., pages 346–347, for the rest of Tetzel’s ‘patter.’

  6. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490–1700, London: Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2003, page 14.

  7. Ibid., page 17.

  8. Ibid., page 51.

  9. Ibid., page 73.

  10. Ibid., 88.

  11. Ibid., page 113.

  12. Bronowski and Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition, Op. cit., page 80. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 347.

  13. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 81.

  14. Boorstin, The Seekers, Op. cit., page 116, casts doubt on whether the theses were actually nailed to the doors.

  15. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 84.

  16. MacCulloch, Op. cit., page 123.

  17. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 76.

  18. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 350–351, for Luther’s battles with the church.

  19. Manchester, Op. cit., page 167.

  20. MacCulloch, Op. cit., page 134.

  21. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 85.

  22. Ibid.

  23. W. D. J. Cargill Thompson, Luther’s Political Thought, Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester, 1984, page 28.

  24. Ibid., page 160.

  25. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 88.

  26. See the discussion on Innerlichkeit in Chapter 33 and in the Conclusion.

  27. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 352–353, for the ferocity–and popularity–of Luther’s writings. Boorstin, Op. cit., page 115, says these writings, and Luther’s translations of the Bible, established German as a literary language.

  28. Boorstin, Op. cit., page 119.

  29. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 92. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 384–385.

  30. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 93.

  31. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 386.

  32. Boorstin, Op. cit., page 120.

  33. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 94. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 386–387, for the operation of the Consistory.

  34. Boorstin, Op. cit., page 121.

  35. See Harro Höpfl (editor and translator), Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  36. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., pages 96–97.

  37. It was the artisans who flocked to Geneva at this time who created the watchmaking business for which Switzerland is still known. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 396.

  38. In Geneva no deviation was tolerated. But foreigners who came to Switzerland to learn from Calvin–John Knox, for example–had to return to their own countries, where they were very much in a minority and therefore often had to ask for religious toleration. In general then the Calvinists became ‘anti-absolutists’, supporting the rights of minorities. In a sense this made them proto-democrats. It was another half-step towards modern political thinking. Bronowski and Mazlish, Op. cit., page 99.

  39. Ibid., pages 105–106.

  40. Manchester, Op. cit., page 193.

  41. Ibid., page 195.

  42. For the background, see: M. Creighton, A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome, London: Longman, Greene & Co., 1919, pages 309ff.

  43. Ibid., pages 322–323.

  44. Ibid., pages 340ff.

  45. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 421.

  46. Manchester, Op. cit., page 199.

  47. Ibid.

  48. Ibid., page 201. A papal reform commission was installed in 1536 but the differences with the Protestants were too large. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 422–423.

  49. Manchester, Op.
cit., pages 201–202.

  50. Jardine, Worldly Goods, Op. cit., page 172.