1673 Engraving of Indigenous People of Paria with a Hammock
DESCRIPTION
An engraved scene of Indigenous people of Paria with a hammock appears in this excerpted leaf from the America's Discoverers chapter of the 1673 German edition of Arnoldus Montanus's account of the Americas.
In the center of the scene, a line strung between two trees is hung with fish, fishhooks, gourds and baskets. Beneath it, two figures recline in a hammock while a seated man in a feathered headdress, a club at his side, holds out a round fruit toward them. At right, a woman carries a dish of produce on her shoulder and a tray of fish in her hand, and ships ride at anchor on the sea behind.
The scene matches the reverse, which follows Vespucci's account of the people of Paria. They slept in cotton nets hung between two posts, with a gentle fire beneath at night and fish, fishing gear, gourds and baskets hung on a pole above. Vespucci, the text adds, tried one himself and slept very well. The text below describes bell-shaped houses of great beams thatched with palm leaves, some holding six hundred people. It reckons their wealth in colored feathers and strings of fish bone and green and white stones rather than gold or pearls. It goes on to their burials, including the custom of carrying the dying into the forest in a hanging net and dancing around them for a whole day.
Arnoldus Montanus (ca. 1625–1683), a Dutch minister and schoolmaster, compiled De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld from earlier chronicles and travel accounts without ever crossing the Atlantic. The Amsterdam publisher Jacob van Meurs issued it in 1671 with a wealth of engravings. John Ogilby's English adaptation followed the same year, and Die Unbekante Neue Welt, the German edition attributed to Olfert Dapper, followed in 1673. Its illustrations were drawn by artists who had mostly never seen the Americas either. They mix reported detail with European invention, and they shaped how a generation of European readers pictured the New World.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622