Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios

by Ramón Pané

La Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios, del fraile Jerónimo Ramón Pané, marca un hito en la historia cultural de América. Compuesta en la isla Española en los primeros días de la conquista, es la única fuente directa que nos queda sobre los mitos y ceremonias de los primitivos moradores de las Antillas. Y como fray Ramón fue también el primer misionero en aprender la lengua e indagar las creencias de un pueblo indígena, su Relación constituye la piedra angular de los estudios etnológicos en este hemisferio.

Su inclusión en la colección América Nuestra, serie que habrá de reunir los textos fundamentales a la comprensión de los problemas americanos, responde a la necesidad de que tales documentos logren una difusión mayor.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Indigenous, Spanish Literature

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1498

Reviews

[Eneas Núñez]

Unfortunately, this is a book everyone from the Caribbean/South America should read. I say unfortunately because this is an account of a 15th century Catholic Friar about the religion of the aborigines and it goes exactly how you would expect. He mixes the names of different fruits and herbs and constantly confuses the fauna of the Island. He refers to the Tainos as ignorant, heathens and discards their religious belief in every chapter. However, this book contains a lot of very interesting elements of their gods and legends that are alive thanks to him so it's a mixed bag that will make you love more the Tainos and hate Columbus, if you haven't hate him already.

[Luis]

3.5 - interesting narration of the Taíno from Hispaniola with a few mentions of other islands. Sadly, there aren’t much details about the rites/rituals or other traditions of the Taíno recorded by fray Ramón Pané; however, at least there are some details gathered from those times.

[Thomaz Amancio]

Deve ser só o jeito que eu aprendi, mas sinto que existe um senso comum que trata a história como algo já-escrito, já-definido. O passado não tem nada de novo a dizer ou mostrar e não há nada de novo a ser dito sobre o passado. Se a história se baseia em documentos e já foi escrita, então o único jeito de dizer algo novo é encontrando um novo documento, porque os que já foram encontrados já foram também lidos e não tem como eles dizerem nada de diferente... Ou tem?

A Relación é um dos documentos mais curiosos e difíceis da colonização da América, o primeiro tratado escrito sobre um povo ameríndio, uma espécie de modelo de tudo que veio depois: evangelização, escravidão, mestiçagem, antropologia... Como outros dos documentos da conquista, muito já foi dito sobre ele. Como todo texto, sempre existe a possibilidade de encontrar um caminho pouco explorado, de fazer perguntas diferentes.

[Oswald]

This is about a guy who lived among the Natives of Hispaniola. His account is very interesting and can help one understand the Natives, but I wish there was more to his journal.

[Cosette]

I really enjoyed this book, although “enjoyed” feels like a slightly strange word for something I also found a little sad.

Ramón Pané’s An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians, written around 1498 after Pané had lived among Hispaniola’s Indigenous people, is the only surviving direct early source on their myths and religious ceremonies. He recorded creation stories, zemis, cohoba, healing practices, ideas about the dead, and other aspects of Taíno life that might otherwise have disappeared almost completely.

José Juan Arrom’s scholarship makes this edition invaluable. The original manuscript is lost, and what survives has passed through translations and garbled transcriptions. Arrom works through them carefully.

A lot of personality survives in these fragments. The zemis are far more interesting than the simple category of “idols” suggests: they have names, histories, relationships, powers and agency. The myths can likewise be funny, strange, violent, and puzzling, fragments of a living religious world caught mid-disruption.

That’s where it turned painful. By the mid-sixteenth century, Taíno society had largely collapsed due to conquest and disease. As a descendant of Indigenous Cubans, I felt everything left unrecorded.

This book left me grateful it survived, fascinated by what it reveals, and grieving somewhat for what didn’t.

[Carla]

Fray Ramón Pané fue un misionero de la orden de San Jerónimo, y será quién escribe el primer escrito acerca de los indígenas.
Viajará junto con Cristóbal Colón a la Isla Española y en este manuescripto anotará mitos correspondientes sobre las creencias de los indios taínos.
De esa forma sabremos más de los indígenas taínos, los diferentes nombres que atribuyen muchas objetos o profesiones, por ejemplo “Cohoba” como una sustancia alucinógena, “Behiques” que eran los sacerdotes taínos que realizaban ceremonias y curaciones, “Guabonito” que era alguna forma de escritura, “Tona”asi se la llamaba a las ranas, entre otras palabras.