Histoire Naturelle des Indes
80 of 122
Accession number: MA 3900
Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.
Title: Histoire Naturelle des Indes [supplied on an 18th century title page]
Contents: 199 images of West Indian plants, animals and human life, with accompanying manuscript captions written in late sixteenth-century French.
Medium: Most of the illustrations consist of a black chalk underdrawing and a combination of pen and brown ink with watercolor; on some images selected areas have also been glazed with a gum.
Dimensions: Binding: 30 x 21 cm; individual leaves: 29.3 x 19.7 cm.
Binding: Bound or rebound in brown leather in the late 18th century.
Pagination: Penciled folio numbers (1–125) in lower right corner of each page were added by The Morgan Library & Museum. Folios 92v–93, 93v–94, and 95v–96 are fold-out leaves.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Casiqve (Cacique)
This type of man is called Cacique. He is very much like a king to whom is paid honor and obedience and, to be recognized, they wear a ring hanging from their nose and a band on the forehead as you see it here on the picture, band and ring of gold, not tolerating—he as well as his subjects, as is their custom—any hair on their face or on their private parts, keeping only the hair on their head which they grow long to protect themselves from the heat of the sun.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 80v–81)
