Author: weh3

Libreta by Lydia Cabrera

Post author By weh3
Post date May 25, 2021

Courtesy of the Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries

A handwritten text that contains religious information from not just the Lucumí religion, but also the Congolese Palo Monte tradition, and the Dahomean/Beninois-derived religion known as Arará.

Creators: Lydia Cabrera

Date of Creation: ca. 1950

Place of origin: USA

Physical measurements: 3 5/8” x 5 1/2,″ 100 pages.

Materials: Notebook with printed, illustrated cover.

Process by which it was made: Machine-made book with handwritten text and illustrations.

Current location: Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida. Part of the Lydia Cabrera Papers.

Information contributed by Martin Tsang.

Tags 20th century, Cuba, lucumi, notebook, religion, United States

Small Brass Image of a Man

Post author By weh3
Post date May 25, 2021

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Described in a 1653 letter by the Puritan John Eliot, no known version of this object exists today.

Creators: Unknown, likely French.

Date of Creation: ca. 1650s

Place of origin: Likely France

Physical measurements: Unknown.

Materials: Brass

Process by which it was made: Casting

Current location: N/A

Further Reading

Brooks, Lisa. Our Beloved Kin: Remapping a New History of King Philip’s War. 2018. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press.

Cipolla, Craig, editor. 2017. Foreign Objects: Rethinking Indigenous Consumption in American

Archaeology, Tuscon, AZ, University of Arizona Press.

Clark, Michael P., editor. 2003. The Eliot Tracts. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Greer, Allan, editor. 2019. The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth

Century North America, Second Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Information contributed by Marie B. Taylor.

Tags 17th century, brass, casting, France, indigenous, Puritan

Boi (Textile)

Post author By weh3
Post date December 19, 2020

Courtesy of the British Museum.

Found in a cave in the highlands of the northern Andes along with 28 mummies, a rare cotton textile a The British Museum holds, in its collections, a rare textile made from cotton and painted with brown, red, and blue inks.

Creators: Unknown, Muisca.

Date of Creation: 14th-15th century CE

Place of origin: Gachancipá

Physical measurements: 122 cm x 135 cm

Materials: Cotton, ink

Process by which it was made: Weaving

Current location: British Museum

Information contributed by Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez.

Tags 14th century, 15th century, Andes, indigenous, Muisca, textile, weaving

Proud Raven (“Lincoln”) Pole

Post author By weh3
Post date December 19, 2020

Courtesy of the US Forest Service, Ketchikan Ranger District

Erected in the early 1880s by a Tlingit leader, barely a decade after the United States had claimed Alaska from Russia, this pole became popular with white Alaskans who read it as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln.

Creators: Original pole carved by Thleda (Nisgaʼa) for a patron from the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Taantʼa kwáan (or “Tongass”) Tlingit; replica carved for the Saxman Totem Park by Charles Staastʼ Brown (Saanya kwáan Neix.ádi)

Date of Creation: Original c. 1882; replica June 1940

Place of origin: Kadukguká, Tlingit village on Tongass Island, Alaska

Physical measurements: Approx. 40ʼ high

Materials: Red cedar, paint

Process by which it was made: Carving, painting

Current location: Replica of entire pole in the Saxman Totem Park, Saxman, Alaska; original “Lincoln” finial in the Alaska State Museum, Juneau, Alaska

Information contributed by Emily Moore.

Tags 19th century, Carving, indigenous, Tlingit, Totem pole

Former Site of Printer Christoph Saur’s House

Post author By weh3
Post date December 19, 2020

The location of the house of the first German-language publisher in the United States.

Creators: Christoph Saur and Family, Trinity Lutheran Church, et al

Date of Creation: House built in 1731, torn down in 1860, site exists today.

Place of origin: Germantown, Philadelphia

Materials: Stone and wood

Current location: Germantown, Philadelphia

Information contributed by Bethany Wiggin.

Tags 18th century, building, German, house, Philadelphia, publishing, United States

Recording Ledgers of the Victor Talking Machine Company

Post author By weh3
Post date November 10, 2020

Courtesy of the SONY Archives.

In 1917, the Victor Talking Machine Company sent two of its recording experts on a phonographic expedition through Latin America and the Caribbean. On this ledger, the experts recorded various performers and pieces they encountered.

Creators: George Cheney and Charles Althouse

Date of Creation: 1917

Place of origin: From Camden, NJ to Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and back to Camden, NJ.

Physical measurements: 12″ x 7″, 380 pp.

Materials: Paper, ink

Process by which it was made: Handwriting

Current location: SONY Archives, New York City.

Further Reading

Gronow, Pekka. “The Record Industry: The Growth of a Mass Medium.” Popular Music 3 (1983): 53–75.

Katz, Mark. Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

Schmidt Horning, Susan. Chasing Sound: Technology, Culture, and the Art of Studio Recording from Edison to the LP. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Taylor, Timothy D., Mark Katz, and Tony Grajeda, eds. Music, Sound, and Technology in America: A Documentary History of Early Phonograph, Cinema, and Radio. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2012.

Information contributed by Sergio Ospina Romero.

Tags 20th century, handwriting, Latin America, ledger, recording, sound, United States

Codex Mexicanus

Post author By weh3
Post date November 10, 2020

Painted by Native artists in the late sixteenth century, it includes information on the Christian and Aztec calendars, European medical astrology, and a history of pre-conquest and early colonial Mexico City.

Creators: Anonymous Nahua Scribes

Date of Creation: ca. 1578, updated over time

Place of origin: Mexico City

Physical measurements: 51 leaves, 102 pages, 10 cm x 20 cm

Materials: Paint on Native bark paper

Process by which it was made: Painting

Current location: Bibliothèque National de France.

Further Reading

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mexica. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.

Delbrugge, Laura. Reportorio de los tiempos. London: Tamesis, 1999.

Diel, Lori Boornazian. The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018.

Information contributed by Lori Boornazian Diel.

Tags 16th century, Aztec, codex, indigenous, Mexico, painting, Spain

Codex Huejotzinco

Post author By weh3
Post date November 10, 2020

Manuscript Division; Huexotzinco Codex, Harkness Collection, 1525-1651, Harkness MSS 1531.

Created in the sixteenth century by indigenous scribes in the community of Huejotzingo, Mexico, its eight sheets offer a tally of goods delivered to their new Spanish overlords.

Creators: Unknown (Nahua)

Date of Creation: ca. 1530

Place of origin: Huejotzingo, Mexico

Physical measurements: 8 sheets of various dimensions: p.1, 45 cm wide x 44 cm. high; p. 2, 42 cm wide x 27 cm high; p. 3, 20 cm wide x 52 cm high; p. 4, 44 cm wide x 23 cm wide; p. 5, 52.5 cm wide x 41.5 cm high; p. 6, 42 cm wide x 43.5 cm high; p. 7, 24 cm wide x 45.5 cm high; p. 8, 40 cm wide x 26 cm high.

Materials: Amatl paper, agave paper, pigments

Process by which it was made: Painting

Current location: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Information contributed by Barbara E. Mundy.

Further Reading

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.

Mundy, Barbara E. “The Emergence of Alphabetic Writing: Tlahcuiloh and Escribano in Sixteenth-Century Mexico.” The Americas 77, no. 3 (July 2020): 361–407.

Wolf, Gerhard, Joseph Connors, and Louis Alexander Waldman, eds. Colors between Two Worlds: The Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahagún. Florence; Cambridge, MA: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut : Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; Worldwide distribution by Harvard University Press, 2011.