The bread of the Indies: the corn in the stories of Diego Durán and José de Acosta

Abstract

From the accounts of two religious of Hispanic America, the Dominican Diego Durán and the Jesuit José de Acosta, the article aim to analyze how these two authors sought to understand the indigenous universe that presented itself to the missionary work having as a focus the relation established by them between the eating (in which the corn has a fundamental role) and the indigenous beliefs. The eating and its relations with elements such as the Indigenous and the New World’s nature is a bias still underexplored by the historiography on the colonial period. Thus, we intend to identify the representations around the corn and its mediating role in the intellectual incorporation of a natural and moral universe distinguished from the Europeans.