Colonial mediascapes : sensory worlds of the early Americas

"In colonial North and South America, print was only one way of communicating. Information in various forms flowed across the boundaries between indigenous groups and early imperial settlements. Natives and newcomers made speeches, exchanged gifts, invented gestures, and inscribed their intentions on paper, bark, skins, and many other kinds of surfaces. No one method of conveying meaning was privileged, and written texts often relied on nonwritten modes of communication. Colonial Mediascapes examines how textual and nontextual literatures interacted in colonial North and South America. Extending the textual foundations of early American literary history, the editors bring a wide range of media to the attention of scholars and show how struggles over modes of communication intersected with conflicts over religion, politics, race, and gender. This collection of essays by major historians, anthropologists, and literary scholars demonstrates that the European settlement of the Americas and European interaction with Native peoples were shaped just as much by communication challenges as by traditional concerns such as religion, economics, and resources."--Provided by publisher "In colonial North and South America, print was only one way of communicating. Information in various forms flowed across the boundaries between indigenous groups and early imperial settlements. Natives and newcomers made speeches, exchanged gifts, invented gestures, and inscribed their intentions on paper, bark, skins, and many other kinds of surfaces. No one method of conveying meaning was privileged, and written texts often relied on nonwritten modes of communication. Colonial Mediascapes examines how textual and nontextual literatures interacted in colonial North and South America. Extending the textual foundations of early American literary history, the editors bring a wide range of media to the attention of scholars and show how struggles over modes of communication intersected with conflicts over religion, politics, race, and gender. This collection of essays by major historians, anthropologists, and literary scholars demonstrates that the European settlement of the Americas and European interaction with Native peoples were shaped just as much by communication challenges as by traditional concerns such as religion, economics, and resources."-- Publisher's website Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 List of Illustrations 10 Foreword 12 Acknowledgments 14 Introduction 18 Part I. Beyond Textual Media 62 1. Dead Metaphor or WorkingModel? “The Book” in Native America 64 2. Early Americanist Grammatology 93 3. Indigenous Histories and ArchivalMedia in the Early Modern Great Lakes 116 4. The Manuscript, the Quipu, and the Early American Book 158 5. Semiotics, Aesthetics, and the Quechua Concept of Quilca 183 6. “Take My Scalp, Please!” 220 Part III. Sensory New Worlds 248 7. Brave New Worlds 250 8. Howls, Snarls, and Musket Shots 283 9. Hearing Wampum: The Senses,Mediation, and the Limits of Analogy 307 Part IV: Transatlantic Mediascapes 340 10. Writing as “Khipu” 342 11. Christian Indians at War 374 12. The Algonquian Word and the Spiritof Divine Truth 393 Contributors 426 Index 430 In colonial North and South America, print was only one way of communicating. Information in various forms flowed across the boundaries between indigenous groups and early imperial settlements. Natives and newcomers made speeches, exchanged gifts, invented gestures, and inscribed their intentions on paper, bark, skins, and many other kinds of surfaces. No one method of conveying meaning was privileged, and written texts often relied on nonwritten modes of communication.__Colonial Mediascapes__