Diaz vs. Montaigne Barbarism\' According

Diaz vs. Montaigne

Barbarism' According to Bernal Diaz and Michel de Montaigne

In his famous essay "Of Cannibals," the French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) observes that in general, humanity tends to criticize or degrade that which it does not understand, or that which feels or appears foreign. Nowhere is that more apparent than in various historical writings of European explorers and others about indigenous peoples of the New World, who observed and more often than not tried to 'civilize' them. In particular, I will compare and contrast two very different 16th century European viewpoints about indigenous peoples of the New World: those of Spanish conquistador of Mexico Bernal Diaz [del Castillo] (1492-1584) and French philosopher and essayist Montaigne.

Michel de Montaigne was not only a Renaissance thinker (and skeptic), but arguably an Enlightenment-style one as well: that is, someone who assertively questioned established beliefs about class; race; hegemony; authority, and hierarchy. The Renaissance of the mid-to-late 16th century (Montaigne's heyday) was a time not only of new expansive thought about human creativity and possibility, but also of increasing empirical knowledge worldwide - scientific; geographic, and otherwise. Columbus had encountered the New World in 1492 (the year of Diaz del Castillo's birth). In the early 1500's scientific facts were being empirically proven and acknowledged, challenging beliefs that natural occurrences and phenomena (e.g., floods; earthquakes, etc.), could only be explained as manifestations of God. New discoveries and ideas, scientific and otherwise, therefore made old "truths" seem (depending on who insisted on them, and in what circumstances) simple-minded and anachronistic, if not dogmatic, especially when they could be concretely proven false. Toward that end, Montaigne's writings of the time pointed out, often humorously, the relativistic nature of humanity's view of itself and the world, its familiar and unfamiliar aspects. Later, true Enlightenment era (about 1660-1770) thinkers were the likes of Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin. They, as Montaigne had done much earlier in his writings, continued to forcefully challenge conventional wisdom; traditional practices, and institutional authority, especially that of monarchy and the church.

Within Bernal Diaz's first-hand reflective account of the Spanish conquest of "New Spain" (areas of the New World now considered

Mexico and Central and Latin America) by Cortez and his soldiers, Diaz describes native peoples in ways condescending and derisive. For example, upon arriving at the Incan city of Cempoala with Cortez, Diaz describes the native leader there thus:

When we came to the buildings, this fat Cacique (chief) came out to receive us in the courtyard. He was so fat that I must call him the fat Cacique. He mad deep bow to Cortes and perfumed him as is their custom. (from the Conquest of New Spain 1560s).

Within Diaz's description, both tone and content are derisive, rather than open-minded, curious, or respectful, as, for example, Montaigne suggests in various parts of his essay "Of Cannibals." Here, Diaz may be reflectively justifying the war waged by Cortez against the native caciques, both in the name of religion (which pleased the Spanish Crown that funded the conquistadores), and also to glorify Cortes (a move Diaz apparently later regretted, when he sought his own credit for helping conquer New Spain). Whatever his reasons, however one thing is clear: Diaz's account glorifies Cortez; Catholicism; war and bloodshed; Spain itself, and the Crown in particular, while denigrating the indigenous peoples; their religious beliefs; their customs; their appearances, and just about everything else Diaz observes about them.

In sharp contrast, Montaigne suggests Europeans abroad would do well, in order to understand native customs, practices, and beliefs, to withhold judgment, or desire to conquer or dominate, and seek to value and appreciate natives as they are in their own environment instead of viewing them through an ethnocentric lens.

Diaz's account is typically scornful of native peoples' physical appearances (e.g., "large gold lip-rings and rich cloaks," material offerings, sexual and other practices, and most of all, their centuries old worship of idols. Diaz describes how, before leaving the area (with seven or eight native female "prizes") Cortez and his men forcibly replace idol worship with their own Catholicism. As Diaz writes at the outset, for example, of Cortez's usual interactions with the natives of the region: "Cortes... told them many things about our holy religion, as it was our habit to do wherever we went [emphasis added] (from the Conquest of New Spain 1560s). Cortez is especially adamant that religious idols of the natives must go. As Diaz states:

some fifty of us soldiers clambered up and overturned the idols, which rolled down the steps and were smashed to pieces. Some of them were in the form of fearsome dragons as big as calves and others half-man half-dog and hideously ugly. When thy saw their idols shattered the Caciques and the papas who were with them wept and covered their eyes; and they prayed to their gods for pardon. (From

The Conquest of New Spain 1560s)

In "Of Cannibals," on the other hand, Michel de Montaigne suggests instead that travelers to foreign places might do well to suspend automatic negative judgment of native peoples, and seek instead, to regard them from within their own indigenous geographical, social, and economic contexts, instead of their own. As Montaigne further observes:

every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. as, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason, than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live:

there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. They are savages at the same rate that we say fruit are wild, which nature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas in truth, we ought rather to call those wild, whose natures we have changed by our artifice, and diverted from the common order. ("Of Cannibals")

Montaigne suggests that the seemingly horrific cannibalism of native peoples of Brazil, who happen to kill and eat their war enemies, is no more barbaric in reality than are various European killing practices. As he describes the Brazilians' cannibalism:

Every one for a trophy brings home the head of an enemy he has killed...

After having a long time treated their prisoners very well... he to whom the prisoner belongs, invites a great assembly... he ties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner... And gives to the friend... The other arm... they two, in the presence of all... despatch [sic] him with their swords...they roast him, eat him...

A and send some chops to their absent friends. ("Of Cannibals")

Montaigne then suggests this practice is no more barbaric (and in fact, less so) than that of the Portuguese, of burying an enemy up to his waist, shooting him full of arrows, and then hanging him. Further, Montaigne finds it ironic, on the part of Europeans, that "seeing so clearly into their faults, we should be so blind to our own" ("Of Cannibals").