CULTURAL READINGS: Colonization & Print in the Americas

Jean and Jay I. Kislak Collection

Claude Guichard, Funerailles et diverses manieres d'ensevelir des Rommains, Grecs, & autres nations, tant anciennes que modernes. Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1581.

While Renaissance antiquarians had studied burial customs among the ancients, Guichard expanded the range to include New World funereal practices. In doing so, Guichard opened the door to an extremely fertile strategy for making sense of the Indians and their customs: a search in ancient sources for comparisons that might make Indian practices less exotic and more intelligible in terms of traditional antiquarian inquiries.

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