Histoire Naturelle des Indes
88 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
Hinde De Caribara (Indian of Caribara)
To test whether their poison is effective, they aim their arrows at a tree and then retract them. When the poison is effective, the tree drops its leaves and dies in less than half a day. To make their poison, they mix the leaf of a tree called mensenille, the blood of a bleating toad, and the flesh of a centipede, mashing the whole, put it in a small clay pot, cover it carefully and buy it in the ground for six "limes," which is about six months. When the time is passed, they test the arrows as you see here.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 88v–89)
