Scarrige's Blog

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

scarrige — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:15:50 +0000

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, “What are they marching for?”
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who’ll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?

The function of memory on historical narrative is something that is near and dear to my heart. On a more general level I am also interested in the ways that historians, with their educator hat on, interact with the general public. Basically, I’m a “public history buff,” so this week’s readings were right up my alley. (Despite my disdain for the word “buff”). I especially liked anything and everything having to do with the controversy over Onate’s statue.
Both the “civic warlords and the foot soldiers of the present” (From “History Hits the Heart (232)) do make a habit of collectively dredging the rivers of time looking for the fragile vestiges of their identities. (That’s my well-written sentence for the day). This is a common enterprise and one that fascinates me, tea-baggers, DAR, and founding fathers included. Both sides seem to cast their “ancestors” In a mold of suppliers of progressive technologies which made New Mexico what it is today. Another fact that I find fascinating is the ways that these smaller pools of collective memory are piped into larger circuits of national identity—here I am specifically thinking of the references to George Washington and Adolf Hitler.
Violence also seems to be a cool talking point for people involved in these debates. On the surface it would seem to connect modern activists and the people whom they claim to speak for. We can fight just as well as you can, or so they seem to think. But the past is a different world, as we seem to come back to. The things that are meaningful in the here and now are not always the same, despite a similar veneer, as things with the exact same name. I think few, though some, of the people who vehemently argued for or against the Onate statue, would publically maintain such polemical positions in the face of the events they’re arguing over.
So I guess this is a nice place for my own reflection on the Conquest and this class. What does the Conquest mean to me? It is certainly an exceptional event, but by the same logic that makes it exceptional, I think that any number of other events, in and of themselves, might also be exceptional. In a broader context, both spatially and temporally, it takes on a greater significance. The meeting of the two worlds seems important to me at for at least what we can learn from it. Perhaps there are some lessons here if we ever do meet extra-terrestrials, but my instinct is that if we ever do, it will either play out in a completely different way or one that is strikingly similar. (Writing this does make me wonder the literary influence of the Conquest on the genre of sci-fi.) There also are some lessons about history in general. Things can seem the same and be strikingly different. The past is a valuable tool for the present. I’m running out of steam at this point, probably because of my current fixation on “a-papering” but am glad that I got to take course on such an important time period. Important precisely because of the controversies brought out by this week’s readings. I wish I had nothing else to do for a few weeks but think about the Conquest. Perhaps I might come up with a better blog post.

Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm….but I’m just not feeling it today.

A Literary Atlantic

scarrige — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:53:05 +0000

I congratulate Canizares-Esguerra for succeeding in his goal of writing a book that doesn’t fit neatly into any genre. I’m a fanboy of the Atlantic World so approached his book with all the auspices in line. Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic is a confusing title. I certainly understand his point that the literary traditions of both England and Spain (for this is what is meant by Iberia) were part of larger “Purifying” discourse, but the title seems to indicate that there is a more direct process occurring. His conclusion also led me to believe that the title is indicative of a conscious effort to upset the more northerly orientation of Atlantic World historiography.
Canizares-Esguerra’s claims that he will write with a brash style that “seek[s] to reconstruct a worldview that is equally violent, alien, and offensive to our modern sense of what is physically possible” (17). Of course this begs the question: whose world-view. And what is physically possible? Though I don’t think he really follows through on this boast, it would seem to beat odds with his final purpose: to show the Atlantic as a whole. The opposition of modern sensibilities with those of the late medieval Atlantic undermines his critique of what he terms the “exclusionary force of the Western Civilizations Narrative”. One of his fundamental claims argues for the multiplicity and melding of world-views to make a “pure” Atlantic. In this vein the book seems to follow the work of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, whom he quotes fairly often in his conclusion. Canizares-Esguerra, at least in his Introduction and Conclusion, writes with a style that is reminiscent of Armesto. Arguing, without qualification or support, that sixteenth and seventeenth century Europeans were “obsessed with demons” (31). Granted demons were a part of the “religio-literary” (not sure if this works) iconography, but I think obsessed is too strong a word. The last chapter of the book follows in this same vein, but I think, probably due to my sympathies, that it works better in that instance.
Now for the rest of the book. I have to point out first that I think its argumentative heart is in the last chapter. I often felt that he wasn’t saying anything differently throughout the book: “the people who colonized and conquered the Americas thought about their conquest in terms of an epic battle with diabolical forces, be they human, animal, vegetable, or mineral”. That being said he does a great job of detailing his “Satanic discourse,” at least in terms of Puritan England and Roman Catholic Spain. He claims that the “Satanic epic” colored the perceptions on many European countries (81), but they are conspicuously missing from the book. At least he’s honest about it in his title, but shouldn’t someone so interested in shaking up conceptions of the Atlantic World at least note the participation of others in his view of their world-view, or lack thereof. Of course if he’s responding to a preponderance of such works then my criticism is withdrawn.
A final note. I may be part of his conceptualization of the Iberians/ Puritan Atlantic, but it is interesting to note that there are no entries in the index for Spain, Portugal, Iberia, or England. A literary genre is his patient here, so I suppose I can’t fault him too much for sticking to his guns/ arqubuses?.

Are pens, gestures, and astrolabes mightier than swords?

scarrige — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:25:32 +0000

Patricia’s Seed’s book was a nice read. My initial reactions to many of her statements ran the full gamut, depending on the situation described, from: “Ok, that makes since, so what.” To Wow, I never really thought about it that way.” She does seem to draw a line between the “mundanities” of the English, the more elaborate and ritualized expressions of possession of the French and Spanish, the intellectual culture of Portugal, and the scriptuous toponyming of the Dutch. I am not so sure that her delineation is fair. She does a great job of laying out the intellectual history of all these ceremonies, I disagree with her separation of the systems of possession. She does try to point out the culturally specific significance of similar acts, it wasn’t always enough for me. While I admit that the English didn’t have anything as regular as the Requirimento, there were definitely legalities and documents involved on a very mundane level. Holes and fences were quite important as she rightly and effectively points out, but they do not utterly define the English experience of conquest. It may simply be because I’m an English historian, but the scene that she portrays as a miscommunication between Queen Elizabeth and the ambassador from Portugal seems not so much an unintentional misunderstanding, but a rational choice to disagree. Another point that she doesn’t seem to tease out is her assertion that these countries were actively and perhaps even to a degree unthinkingly pursuing an association with romanitas. This point is brought out in her conclusion, but is not something she really touches on in the rest of the book.

My blah, blahish complaining aside, I was pleased that I got to read the book. I see it more as a history of the early modern evolution of nationalism in individual European countries than a history of possession. Possession involves the taking of something from another, whether or not they are aware of it. Eventually privation must be noticed in order for there to be a loss. While she duly notes current reactions to these possessings, I wonder, despite its difficulty, whether or not a reading of indigenous sources might have strengthened her argument. Again though this isn’t really her project, but just a thought I had. In her defense though, I think she rightly points out, these ceremonies have less to do with indigenous denizens of the Americas, than affirming social structures of the colonizers. There is not a lot of room for cultural plagiarism in this book which does make me wonder if this book would look similar is a place like colonial China, where, if I remember correctly, so many European spheres of influence overlapped regularly. Her book was also fun in that it was well paced. Since each of her chapters stands alone, I was able to stay pretty well attached to the book.

Where have all the Corn Mothers gone?

scarrige — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:26:23 +0000

This is a very odd book. Ramon Gutierrez wants to deliver to his readers a fair and balanced account of the colonization of the Pueblo world. He begins somewhat admirably. The first part of his book presents an ethno-historical account of the Pueblo world on the eve of the Spanish conquest. His use of later sources can be somewhat forgiven here since nothing remains outside archaeology to represent the Pueblo world before the coming of the Spaniards and their written record; if only he had used it. Yet he represents the observations of early twentieth century anthropologists as windows into the unchanging world of Pueblo society.
Had he then went on the do the same with Spain, the other “world” that he describes, this might be forgiven. To be fair, he does offer a small account of the end of the Reconquista, but there is no “fictional” narrative constructed to help the story along, and it’s pretty much all downhill from here on in. And what about the Corn Mothers, they pretty much disappear after the first few pages of the book. They truly “go away”. Perhaps this is also defensible, simply because the Pueblos in general pretty much disappear as well. Once he gets into what seems to be his favorite part of the book, i.e. anything with lots of statistics on Spanish ideas of honor and marriage, the Pueblo people are irrelevant, only the progeny of his two worlds: the genizaros.
His sources are another source of befuddlement. Among other things he claims to have defined “honor” for 17th century New Mexico through the citation of Hobbes’s Leviathan. He also claims a more intimate knowledge of Pueblo life, often citing in support of his observations: “to this day.” As a corollary he even changes tense when he is supposedly offering an analysis of early modern New Mexico. I am certainly not an expert, but imagine that understandings of honor have significantly changed in the intervening 300 or so years. He also includes a façade of statistics which seems only to serve to “scientificize” his un-even analysis.
This book claims to give “vision to the blind,” but only ends up hiding the culture of the people who inhabited the Pueblos after the Conquest. One would think that there would be more sources available through Spanish documents, but the best analysis of Pueblo culture that we have is reserved for the pre-Spanish era. For Ramon Gutierrez the Corn Mothers leave, only to return when they can usefully serve as a stand-in for Pueblo culture.

Corn Mother Commentaries

scarrige — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:13:44 +0000

Here are links to the seven pages of Gutierrez commentaries:

Again, I had to use my *old* scanner to make these so they may not be the best quality. There is online access to the journal that this is from (American Indian Culture and Research Journal 17, no. 3 (1993), 164-77), but UT doesn’t pay for it.

On Passivity and Virginal Readings…

scarrige — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:18:38 +0000

Four-and-twenty Highland men
Came from the Carron side
To steal away Eppie Morrie
Cause she wouldn’t be a bride, a bride
She wouldn’t be a bride

They’ve taken Eppie Morrie
And a horse they’ve bound her on
And they’re away to Carron side
As fast as horse could gang, could gang
As fast as horse could gang

Haud away from me, Willie
Haud away from me
There’s not a man in all Strathdon
Shall wedded be by me, by me
Shall wedded be by me

Then mass was sung and bells were rung
And they’re away to bed
And Willie and Eppie Morrie
In one bed they were laid, were laid
In one bed they were laid

He’s kissed her on the lily breast
And held her shoulders twa
But aye she gat and aye she spat
And turned to the wa’, the wa’
And turned to the wa’

They wrestled there all through the night
Before the break of day
But aye she gat and aye she spat
But he could not stretch her spey,
He could not stretch her spey

Haud away from me, Willie,
Haud away from me
There’s not a man in all Strathdon
Shall wedded be by me, by me
Shall wedded be by me

Then early in the morning
Before the light of day
In came the maid of Scallater
In gown and shirt alone, alone
In a gown and shirt alone

Get up, get up, young woman
And take a drink with me
You might have called me maiden
For I’m as whole as thee, as thee
For I’m as whole as thee.

Then in there came young Breadalbane
With a pistol on his side
O, come away, Eppie Morrie
And I’ll make you my bride, my bride
And I’ll make you my bride

Go get to me a horse, Willie
Get it like a man
And send me back to my mother
A maiden as I came, I came
A maiden as I came

Sex and Conquest was a strange book. Trexler, came off to me (certainly, no pun intended) as a very excited writer. I cannot remember when I have seen so many exclamation points in a given book. While his organization seems fairly clear, the argument seems to be a little muddled. Exactly what is he trying to prove? I get that he is analyzing the role of the berdache as a focus for his study of the sexuality of the Spanish conquest and he definitely makes some interesting (and often blunt) points about this role. His analysis is quite skillful in an acrobatic and flexible sort of way (again, no pun intended), but I’m not sure that, at this point anyway, that I’m entirely convinced. Convinced of what you might ask? There, at least to my mind, seems to be a subtext throughout challenging modern and often uncritically inherited notions of gender and, at least for him, its intrinsic partner sexuality. And there often are unveiled references to modern practices which emulate aspects of conquest society in the regions he discusses. This is fine and probably needs to be shaken up often, but I’m not sure what it adds to his book, especially since it is mixed in throughout. In his excitement to make a point about sexuality and all its social implications, he sometimes left me a sentence behind, a passive reader. I’m glad for the opportunity to read the book, as I am with any work that seriously treats violence and gives me a deeper, more penetrating understanding of its role in societies, and now only hope that I can get some of it out of my head….

From Moon Goddesses to Virgins seemed to be a compliment to Sex and Conquest. Whereas Trexler emphasized the European approach to sexuality in the Americas, Sigal tries to tease out the ways in which sexuality was experienced by the Maya both before and after Spanish authorities tried to change sexualized practices. This book was my first experience with psycho-analytic thought used in a historical setting and so I am not quite sure what to make of it. I know that I thought Trexler’s argument was complicated, but it was nothing compared to that if Sigal. This book also came off more clinical than Trexler. I don’t know if it was the different style or simply the vocabulary, but Sigal’s argument definitely seemed more technical and theory driven than that of Trexler. It’s nice, in a way, to see someone who is able to break with the “let’s use a theory of modern western psychology” on a non-western society, but being so different also means being less intelligible. It could be that I simply don’t get what Sigal is trying to do here because my mind is so inscribed with Freudian conceptions of sexuality, but the latter part of the book seemed paradoxically the most direct, but also the most confusing. A non-gendered phallo-centric world is certainly not something I have any familiarity with and in this respect, it was a good read.

Perhaps the best result of these readings was that the way I think about sexuality will never be the same. I will never look at a person bent over the same way after reading Trexler. At the same time I think that Sigal’s book might require another go-through at some (indeterminate) time in the future. Together these books give it to you both ways: sex as a mechanism for control and sex as an experience of control and subversion.

Fun times and Choices???

scarrige — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:18:41 +0000

I really enjoyed Malintzin’s Choices. But it also had its problems. It was perhaps the quickest read that I have ever worked through. Townsend’s style is, I think, the reason for my enjoyment. For a historical work it is unusual. She combines academic techniques from ethnography, anthropology, and history and produces a book that reads somewhat like a novel. I admit, there were times in this book when I was a little shocked at the claims she makes…the weather at a given time is probably unrecoverable and her “setting the stage” so to speak is probably not the best way to win friends and influence in academia. But I’m not sure if I would like anyone who would disparage her book for simply this. Refreshing breezes need to occasionally blow…
I do have some mixed feelings about this book. My initial reaction was WOW, what s smooth read. I remember my initial reaction to someone who attempted a similar approach but bizarrely gave it up and definitely fell short (Ramon Gutierrez) and I was angry that a book could claim so much from the letters of a friar. I am worried that I am running away with a “fun” read and being un-critical. Now comparing both books in my mind I think the sources make all the difference. Townsend actually uses work that looks at the lives of the Nahua and Maya before the arrival of the “men from the boats.” I like that this book makes the conquest more of a process, but does it through a lack of effort. What I mean by this is that Townsend shows us how the Conquest was a process, intricately connecting events, people, and intellectual processes, before and after the grand narrative poured down by men like Cortes and Diaz.
But there are problems too. This book is the inverse of the conquest as seen through Cortes and Diaz, but I don’t think Townsend is able to break away from their paradigm. Where are the choices? We get a nice foundation for the opening up of a new reading of the conquest, but then it is simply trying to find Malintzin in the sources. Not that there is anything wrong with this approach, it just doesn’t seem to effectively reveal her “choices”. I feel like I get glimpses of Malintzin, but she has been “anthropologized” (kind of like a transformer) into something more evocative of a desire for liberation than one who lived her life in prospect and made decisions.

Executions are fun….as long as you’re not dying

scarrige — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:29:41 +0000

Everybody likes a good execution story…especially people who are going to write dissertations about them. I especially like his interpretation of violence as a receivable text. I study executions in terms of the text of the event. Though it is often gruesome, the process of imposing violence is often very informative. His accounts of the trials, tortures, and executions do a good job of showing exactly how violence was envisioned and used as a tool in the “vision of the victors”. Though I think he might have more usefully entitled this chapter: visions of the victors, since conceptually, he seems to aim at the multiplicity of perspectives over time.
His account of violence even helped me by illustrating the ways in which violence was linked to gender. Honor is the most important concept here. Previously I had looked at scenes of execution as purely political scenes, basically the first chapter of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. This adds an additional element. As a text one might use different inks to really a similar message: while the ultimate message might be political, the pictures on the lienzo of a violent scene might have different colored inks and pictures in addition to words.
The one quibble that I have with this book is the last chapter. Admittedly, Krippner-Martinez presented his book as a series of essays intimately tied to historiography, but while the last chapter was interesting in a very particular way and as an illustration of the ever-popular “shifting trends” in scholarship, I don’t know if it added greatly to my understanding of the conquest. Certainly this chapter has a specific purpose, which, it seemed to me, was to outline historiographical trends through the changes in fortune of the memory of Tato Vasco. My reaction here I think might also be because, until now we have only read sources concerning earlier eras and Krippner-Martinez takes his reader to the present with this chapter.

A couple of final links to images of interest…

scarrige — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:28:48 +0000

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6293

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/8000/8680/ISS016-E-031056_lrg.jpg

A link to something I couldn’t find in print for the bibliography…

scarrige — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:21:31 +0000

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/cline/testaments_of_culhuacan.pdf