Histoire Naturelle des Indes
108 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
Come Les Yndiens Ont Ordinairem[Ent] Des Illusions Du Maling Esprit (How the Indians Usually Have Visions of the Evil Spirit)
The Indians are much tormented at night by visions of the Evil Spirit whom they call in their language "Athoua." They do not dare leave their houses at night—only when day has come—and this is because they have no belief nor education and do not worship anything like the peoples of Barbary, Guinea, and Brasil. Sleeping one day in an Indian's house and leaving it at night, he begged me
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 110v–111)
