Japanese Ethnographic Portraits of South Americans, 1720

 I was surprised to find that these images exist, but I'm glad they do. Apparently produced as part of a visual ethnography of the world's cultures written by a Japanese interpreter for the Dutch merchant community in Nagasaki named Nishikawa Joken, they depict "people from each of the 42 barbarian countries outside of Japan." (My main source for this information, and the images themselves, comes from the wonderful database of early American images maintained by the John Carter Brown library.)

Alas, I have only found two of the forty two online, but those two are quite fascinating. The first appears to depict two South American Indians, perhaps Amazonian judging by their dress, while the second portrays a "Native American Patagonian giant." I would be fascinated to learn what the accompanying Japanese text has to say about these and other New World cultures. If anyone reading this has any further information, please contact me!

"Two South American Indians" in Nishikawa Joken, Shijûni-koku Jinbutsu zusetsu (Kyoto, 1720). Xylograph print on paper with hand coloring, 31.1 x 18.2 cm.

"Patagonian Giant" in Nishikawa Joken, Shijûni-koku Jinbutsu zusetsu (Kyoto, 1720). Xylograph print on paper with hand coloring, 31.1 x 18.2 cm. 

I have yet to read this particular work, but according to the JCB's online catalog entry the great historian Charles Boxer touches upon these images in his work Jan Compagnie in Japan, 1600-1850, pg. 18-19. A cursory Google search of Joken's name also turns up this interesting-looking recent essay on Merchants and Society in Tokugawa Japan by Charles D. Sheldon.

Europeans as 'Other,' Redux [February 2011 update]

A post today inspired by last week's post on early modern Japanese and Chinese depictions of Europeans. Thinking about that led me to look more closely at an image I've had filed away for awhile -- a remarkable example of sixteenth century Japanese Nanban ('Southern Barbarian') art depicting a group of Portuguese merchants at a Japanese port, apparently selling a small collection of exotic animals. Here is the image in full (or, at least, the most complete version of it I've found -- this is itself likely a detail from a larger painted screen):

Looking at the image more closely I realized that it could be cropped into detailed individual portraits. The result is a fascinating inversion of the early modern European ethnographic gaze -- one in which the Portuguese, rather than the Japanese, are depicted as exotic-looking foreigners.  The palpable strangeness that Portuguese clothing and physiognomy held for the painter is evident from the remarkable level of detail throughout, and especially the close attention paid to the figures' outlandish apparel.

Could this be an African slave or Afro-Portuguese crioulo?

What I find most interesting about these portraits is the acute attention given to ethnic signifiers, from skin color to clothing, and what they might tell us about the individuals of diverse backgrounds who were lumped into the undifferentiated category of 'Portuguese' in early modern Japan and elsewhere in the Portuguese empire.

(The role of animals -- some of New World origin -- in these images is another fascinating topic, one I plan to return to at a later date).

The Portuguese themselves, being, like other early modern Iberians, obsessed with limpieza de sangre, tended to depict themselves as exclusively Christian, European and, to use an anachronistic term, 'white.' Recent work on the Portuguese empire, however, is beginning to reveal a different picture. I've heard an estimate from one noted historian of slavery in the Lusophone world that up to one tenth of the population of Lisbon in the seventeenth century was of African origin, while another important recent work has revealed the pivotal role played by Portuguese Jews and Marranos in creating the networks of commerce and credit that were, in truth, the real substance of the Portuguese empire. Finally, in areas such as Goa, Sri Lanka, Cape Verde and East Timor, prominent Portuguese creole populations developed.

It is difficult to speculate about the backgrounds of the diverse Portuguese traders pictured in these images, but the potential countries of origins of these figures (from Malaysia and India to Angola and Brazil) is a testament to the truly global character of the Portuguese empire, and to the new perspectives which an outsider's gaze can bring.

A. J. R. Russell-Woods' The Portuguese Empire, 1415-1808: a World on the Move and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert's A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea are two books I've been reading on this subject, both excellent in different ways. I'm particularly enjoying the Russell-Woods book.


Finally, here's an example of Nanban cuisine -- a Japanese recipe that originated as a Spanish and Portuguese dish called escabeche (I have yet to try it myself, but it looks pretty good). Other culinary cross polinations abound: apparently we even have the Portuguese to thank for tempura.

The Drawings of George Psalmanazar

The brilliant eighteenth century impostor George Psalmanazar (1679?-1763) is one of my favorite historical figures and someone I'll return to at a later date to write about in more depth. Today I'm just going to post some of his drawings, which were discovered by the historian Frederick Folely, S.J., in a sheaf of Church documents held by the Lambeth Palace Library (in 1968 Folely reprinted the images below in his rare and out of print  Great Formosan Impostor).

Put very briefly, Psalmanazar was a mysterious young man who convinced a wide array of early eighteenth century British luminaries, such as Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, that he was a native of the island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan. In reality, he was most likely from southern France, and his claims about Formosa were almost completely fictional -- which makes them very interesting.

The rather crude drawings below were apparently drawn by Psalmanazar himself (in his posthumously published Memoirs he modestly admits to "some ability" in the visual arts, not evident here). They depict various Formosan stock types, from a rustic fellow labeled 'a Country Bumpkin' to a 'Vice-Rey' and 'King.' Below the drawings, I've included the actual engravings from Psalmanazar's published work on Formosa, the Historical and Geographical Description.

'Tabernacle in which God appears.'

Comparison of Psalmanazar's original drawing (left) with the published British (center, 1704) and French (right, 1705) editions.

The printed English versions of 'Rusticus' (Country Bumpkin) and 'Civis' (Burger) shown above.

For more on these drawings see Peter Mason's excellent article on them, "Ethnographic Portraiture in the Eighteenth Century: George Psalmanazar's Drawings" in Eighteenth Century Life. The best book on Psalmanazar's life and influence is The Pretended Asian: George Psalmanazar's Eighteenth-Century Formosan Hoax by Michael Keevak.