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De Obra y Palabra: Patterns of Insults in Mexico, 1750-1856*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Sonya Lipsett-Rivera
Sonya Lipsett-Rivera*
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
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Extract

Countless judicial complaints ranging from malos tratos (domestic mistreatment) to assault to insults contain the phrase de obra y palabra (by deed and word). Mexicans of the period 1750 to 1856 understood that the two aspects of injury—verbal and physical—were equally important. While violent acts harmed the body, words attacked an individual's honor and reputation. Therefore harm was conceived of as both physical and verbal, and the connection between the two was inherent in judicial formulations and the expression itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , April 1998 , pp. 511 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1998

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Footnotes

*

Research for this article was made possible by generous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Carleton University. I would like to thank Fritz Schwaller, Kimberley Hanger, Gustavo Alfaro Ramírez, Ulíses Osorio Guzmán, Rosalva Loreto López, Francisco Cervantes Bello, Amalia Ayala Figueroa, Francisco Rivera Aguilar, Jill St. Germain, and Sergio Rivera Ayala.

References

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23 See for example the actions of an alguacil in Mexico City who grabbed Juan Velásquez by the braid when Velásquez refused to give money he owed to the alcalde and was rude. Archivo Judicial del Tribunal Superior, Ramo Penales, volume 4, expediente 3, 1788 [hereafter AJTS, Penales, vol. 4, exp. 3, 1788].

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25 See for example, AGN, Criminal, vol. 222, exp. 15, fol. 283–313v, 1771.

26 Bajtin, , La cultura popular, pp. 132, 150. Google Scholar

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28 AJP, 1850 exp. 1287 8 fol.

29 Chasteen, John, “Violence for Show; Knife Duelling on a Nineteenth-Century Cattle Frontier,” The Problem of Order in Changing Societies: Essays on Crime and Policing in Argentina and Uruguay, 1750–1940, Johnson, Lyman, ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), p. 52.Google Scholar

30 AGN, Criminal, vol. 459, exp. 5, fol. 237–283, 1817; AGN, Criminal vol. 131, exp. 27, 1727; AGN, Criminal vol. 131, exp. 27, fol. 425–480,1802; AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Leg. 717, exp. 100, 1853; AGN, Criminal vol. 2, exp. 19, fol. 326–365, 1776; AGN, Criminal, vol. 12, exp. 9, fol. 276–289V, 1744; AGN, Criminal, vol. 275, exp. 1, fol. 1–101,1766; YL-PC, Box 5, Series 2, folder 75,1623; AJP, 1850 no 3394 and 1343 11 fol. (Proceso contra Micaela Armenta); AGN, Civil, leg. 39, parte 5A, no exp. number no fol. number, 1854 (Proceso contra Refugia Ramírez); AGN, Civil, leg. 133 parte 2, exp. 7,1838; AJP, 1846 no exp. number, (Proceso contra Mariano Gómez); AJP, 1836 paquete 1, no exp. number (Proceso contra María Pascuala Chávez); AJP, 1836, paquete 1, no exp. number, (Proceso contra María Lugarda Ignacio); AJP, 1850, exp. 3319; AJP, 1846, exp. 616; AJP, 1846, exp. 2249; AJP, 1850, exp. 915; AJP, 1856, paquete 2, no exp. number (Proceso contra Gertrudis); AJP, 1856, paquete 1, no exp. number (Proceso contra María de Jesús Arroyo); AJP, 1856, paquete 6 no exp. number (Proceso contra María de la Luz Romero); AJP 1856, paquete 6, no exp. number (Proceso contra Petra Briseño); AJP, 1856, paquete 4, no exp. number (Proceso contra Catarina Mendoza); AJP, 1856 paquete 4, no exp. number (Proceso contra Mariano Mendiola); AJP, 1856 paquete 2, no exp. number (Proceso contra José Trinidad Sánchez); AJP, 1850 exp. 3180; AJP, 1856, paquete 6, exp. 38; AJP, 1856, paquete 5, no exp. number (Proceso contra Juana Martínez); AJP, 1850 exp. 3329; AJTS, Penales, vol. 3, exp. 62, 1776.

31 AGN, Civil, leg. 39, parte 5A, no exp. number, (Proceso contra Refugia Ramírez), 1854.

32 AJP, 1846 no exp. number Huauchinango, (Proceso contra Marino Gómez).

33 In my sample, I found only six cases of cut faces with no sexual overtones whereas I encountered 28 cases that had definite associations with either jealousy or rejection. I found two more cases in which the scenario of rejection existed but it seems that the attacker was only able to cut the woman’s arm.

34 Gorn, Elliott J. “‘Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch’: The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry,” American Historical Review 1:90 (1985), passim.Google Scholar

35 AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Leg. 470, exp. 17, 1836.

36 AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Leg. 292, exp. 26, 1790.

37 AJTS, Penales, vol. 4, exp. 14, 1785. Interestingly, in her defense, Eusebia accused Don Pedro of grabbing her husband’s calzones (underpants).

38 AJTS, Penales, vol. 12, exp. 50,1804. Obviously, her husband’s actions were an imitation of public punishment by officials as well.

39 Pitt-Rivers, Julian “Honour and Social Status,” Honour and Shame; The Values of Mediterranean Society, Peristiany, J. George ed. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965), p. 25 Google Scholar; Bajtin, , La cultura popular, pp. 132 Google Scholar,150. Greenberg, Kenneth S. “The Nose, the Lie, and the Duel in the Antebellum South,” American Historical Review 95:1 (1990), 57–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, states that in the southern United States the act of touching the nose of another man meant an offense to his honor.

40 AJP, 1846 no exp. num., (Proceso contra María Luisa Torres).

41 AJP, 1834, paquete 1, Puebla, no exp. number, (Proceso contra María de la Luz Ruiz). For another example, see AJP, 1856, paquete 5, no exp. number, (Proceso contra Rafaela Pérez).

42 AJP, 1856 paquete 3 (Proceso contra Marcelino Carrión). For other examples, see AGN, Civil, leg. 39, parte 5A, no exp. number, 1854 (Proceso contra Refugia Ramírez); AJP, 1850, exp. 3390; AJTS, Penales, vol. 7, exp. 77, 1792.

43 AJP, 1856 paquete 6 exp. 2, (Proceso contra Guadalupe Salazar). See also AJTS, Penales, vol. 7, exp. 59, 1792.

44 de Trujillo, Fray Thomas Libro Llamado Reprobación de Trajes, Con un Tratado de Lymosnas (Navarra: no press, 1563), p. 84 Google Scholar, says that “El vestido deshonesto es mensajero del coraçon adulterino y la consciència mala.” de Astete, Padre Gaspar Tratado del buen govierno de la familia y estado de las viudas y doncellas (Burgos: Juan Baptista Varedio, 1603) p. 61 Google Scholar, “sea el vestido exterior del cuerpo tal que muestre qual ha de ser el atavio del animo interior.” For a general discussion of the symbolic aspect of clothes see Rubinstein, Ruth P. Dress Codes: Meanings and Messages in American Culture (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995).Google Scholar

45 Martin, , Governance, p. 46 Google ScholarPubMed, p. 142; Galindo, Pedro Excelencias de la castidad y virginidad. Divídese en dos partes (Madrid: Matheo de Espinosa y Arteaga, 1681), p. 45 Google Scholar, the wife of a poor official should not be like that of a rich gentleman; Martín de Córdoba, Jardín de las nobles donsellas (1542) Part II chapter 9 “según su estado vaya vestido” do not be hypocrite in dressing, for example, if a princess dressed like a the wife of a bourgeois. Trujillo, Libro Llamado, p. bb–iij, criticizes people who dress above their class, and recommends against this practice. de Talavera, Hernando Reforma de trages ilustrada por el maestro Bartolomé Ximenez, regente del estudio de letras umanas a Villanueba de los Infantes (Baeça: Juan de la Cuesta, 1638), p. 7 Google Scholar, approves of different clothes according to social station. According to Ferrer, Vicente Suma Moral para examen de curas y confesores en que a la luz del sol de las escuelas Santo Thomás, se desvanecen los perniciosos extremos de laxedad y rigor… (Valencia: Oficina de Joseph Thomas Lucas, 1736), p. 261 Google Scholar, garb could also symbolize religious adherence.

46 Thomas Gage’s Travels in the New World, edited by Thompson, J.Eric (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958, original edition, 1648), pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

47 Martin, , Governance, p. 97 Google ScholarPubMed, p. 111; Taylor, , Magistrates of the Sacred, p. 232 Google Scholar, equates the priest’s bastón with the vara.

48 Baroja, Julio Caro “Honour and Shame: A Historical Account of General Conflicts,” Honour and Shame, p. 91 Google Scholar, states: “A man may be insulted by deed, by a kick, or a blow of the hand, stick or stone, by pursuit with intent to wound, by tearing his clothes or by deliberate damage to his house or property.”

49 AJP 1856 paquete 1, Puebla, causa en contra de Antonio Flores.

50 AJP 1856 paquete 6 exp. 206 (Proceso contra Guadalupe Salazar).

51 AJP 1836 paquete 3 exp. 689.

52 For other examples, see AGN, Criminal, vol. 141, exp. 8, fol. 196-209, 1776; AGN, Civil, vol. 119, exp. 4, 1838; AJP 1856, paquete 1, no exp. number (Proceso contra Pascual Reyes); AJP, 1856, paquete 4, no exp. number (Proceso contra Juana María Bautista y Josefa Bárbara); AJP 1767 exp. 4020; AJTS, Penales, vol. 4, exp. 14,1785; AJTS, Penales, vol. 6, exp. 71, 1791; AJTS, Penales, vol. 11, exp. 16, 1750.

53 Taylor, , Magistrates of the Sacred, p. 134 Google Scholar, notes that topiles took clothes and other objects of those who were slow or unwilling to pay their dues.

54 AGN, Criminal, vol. 254, exp. 8, fol. 228–242, 1770.

55 AGN, Criminal, vol. 254, exp. 8, fol. 228–242, 1770. Another plaintiff also emphasized the loudness of public declarations, see AJTS, Penales, vol. 3, exp. 62, 1776.

56 Boyer, Richard “Honor Among Plebeians: mala sangre and Social Reputation,” in The Faces of Honor.Google Scholar

57 Gorn, , “‘Gouge and Bite,’” p. 19 Google Scholar, states that in eighteenth-century Virginia, to call a man “buckskin” was to imply that he was so poor that he had to wear leather clothing. The term “Scotsman” associated the individual with the inferior social standing of the Scots-Irish settlers.

58 Garrioch, “Verbal Insults,” passim.

59 Frye, , Indians into Mexicans, p. 91 Google Scholar; Martin, , Governance, p. 135 Google ScholarPubMed, also reports an incident between a Spanish shopkeeper and a mulato in which the former used the second person to emphasize the social distance between the two.

60 AGN, Criminal, vol. 27, exp. 14,fol. 495–499,1802.1 have discussed this case in greater detail in “A Slap in the Face of Honor; Gender, Violence and Social Transgressions in Colonial Mexico,” The Faces of Honor. Martin, Governance, p. 169, recounts an incident in which a complainant deliberately described a woman known as Spanish as a mulatta.

61 AGN, Criminal vol. 80 exp. 10 fol. 290–358,1808; also AGN, Criminal vol. 131, exp. 27, fol. 425–480, 1802.

62 Gonzalbo, Pablo Escalante “Calpulli: Etica y Parentesco,” Historia de la Familia, Aizpuru, Pilar Gonzalbo ed. (Mexico City: Instituto Mora and Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 1993), p. 96–99 Google Scholar. Taylor, William B. Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979), p. 82 Google Scholar, characterizes the statement “What are you doing in my neighborhood?” as a typically Indian insult.

63 Burkhart, Louise The Slippery Earth; Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogues in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), p. 63 Google Scholar; Taggart, James Nahuat Myth and Social Structure (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), p. 55.Google Scholar

64 AGN, Criminal, vol. 206, exp. 18, fol. 219–227,1771; AGN, Civil, leg. 199 parte 2 exp. 4,1846.

65 Martin, , Governance, p. 157 Google ScholarPubMed, states that insults associated with females usually impugned their sexuality while those aimed at men challenged their control over their women. She also says that during the eighteenth century insults directed at males were increasingly linked to economic matters.

66 AGN, Civil, Leg. 199, parte, 2, exp. 4, 1846.

67 AGN, Criminal, vol. 705, exp. 3, fol. 29–32, 1763.

68 AGN, Criminal, vol. 27, exp. 14, fol. 495–499, 1802.

69 AGN, Criminal, vol. 222, exp. 15, fol. 283–313v, 1771.

70 Taylor, , Drinking, pp. 117–118.Google ScholarPubMed

71 AGN, Criminal, vol. 148, exp. 5 fol. 150–155,1809; AGN, Criminal vol. 124 exp. 12 fol. 136, 1807; AGN, Criminal, vol. 221, exp. 1, fol. 1–48, 1804.

72 See Gowing, “Gender,” for a discussion of the reasons for women to insult from their doorsteps.

73 AGN, Criminal, vol. 27, exp. 8 fol. 230–231v, 1773.

74 Brandes, Stanley Metaphors of Masculinity, Sex and Status in Andalusian Folklore (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), p. 185 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the church can be considered a “symbolic home” and a “domestic domain.”

75 AGN, Criminal vol. 54 exp. 11 fol. 161–197; AGN, Criminal vol. 41, exp. 25, fol. 389–389v; AGN, Criminal, vol. 712, exp. 3, fol. 196v–229v; AJP, 1836, no exp. number (Proceso contra María Juana Carrera).

76 AGN, Criminal vol. 133 exp. 3 fol. 207 296v 1790.

77 AGN, Criminal, vol. 27, exp. 14, 1802.

78 AGN, Criminal, vol. 41, exp. 25, fol. 389–389v.

79 AGN, Criminal, vol. 206 exp. 18 fol. 219–227, 1771.

80 Martin, , Governance, p. 162 Google ScholarPubMed; Farge, Arlette Fragile Lives: Violence, Power and Solidarity in Eighteenth-Century Paris, Shelton, Carol trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, makes the same argument for the women of Paris.

81 AGN, Criminal, vol. 275, exp. 1, fol. 1–101, 1766.

82 AGN, Criminal vol. 65, exp. 8, fol. 460–483, 1820.

83 AGN, Criminal vol. 119, exp. 30, fol. 477–488v, 1806.

84 AGN, Criminal vol. 131, exp. 27, fol. 425–480, 1802.

85 AGN, Civil, Leg. 158, parte 5, exp. 3, 1837. Micaela Armenia tried to kill Carlos Bertier because he gossiped about her. See AJP 1850 no 3394 and 1343 11 fol. (Causa contra Micaela Armenia).

86 AJP, 1836, paquete 2, exp. 663.

87 AJP, 1789, #5281.

88 AGN, Criminal, vol. 119, exp. 29, fol. 441–474, 1753.

89 AGN, Criminal, vol. 139, exp. 9, fol. 139v–165v, 1799.

90 AGN, Criminal, vol. 221, exp. 1, fol. 1–48, 1804.

91 Taylor, , Drinking, pp. 81–82.Google ScholarPubMed

92 AGN, Criminal, vol. 118, exp. 5, fol. 158–183,1808. For other such cases, see AGN, Criminal, vol. 253, exp. 6, fol. 161–226, 1816; AGN, Criminal, vol. 262, exp. 11, fol. 160–201, 1803; AGN, Criminal, vol. 131, exp. 38, fol. 425–480, 1802; AGN, Criminal, vol. 46, exp. 3, fol. 89–125, 1806; AGN, Criminal, vol. 47, exp. 8, fol. 233–299, 1809; AJP, 1846 no exp. number, (Proceso contra Pedro Vásquez).

93 I found 27 examples. Taylor, , Drinking, p. 82 Google ScholarPubMed, lists puta, cornudo, alcahuete and cabrón as fighting words.

94 AJP, 1850, exp. 915.

95 Taylor, , Magistrates of the Sacred, p. 329.Google Scholar

96 Stern, , The Secret, p. 143.Google ScholarPubMed

97 My assertion is not particularly scientific but based upon conversations with about fifteen Mexicans.

98 I found only one reference to the word lépero in 1846. None of the nineteenth-century material I found in the Archivo Judicial de Puebla contains the word lépero.

99 Escalante, , “Calpulli,” p. 97 Google Scholar.

100 Martin, , Governance, p. 153.Google ScholarPubMed

101 AGN, Criminal, vol. 62, exp. 17, fol. 379–436,1804; AGN, Civil, vol. 113, no. exp. num. 1805; AJP 1856 paquete 3 Atlixco (Proceso contra Marcelino Carrión); AGN, Criminal, vol. 583, exp. 14, fol. 300–339,1803; AGN, Criminal, vol. 459, exp. 5, fol. 237–283,1817; AGN, Bienes Nacionales, leg. 905, exp. 24, 1777; AJP, 1836, paquete 2, exp. 663; AJP, 1856 paquete 3, no exp. number (Proceso contra Genovevo Robledo).

102 Martin, , “Popular Speech,” p. 317 Google Scholar; Taylor, , Drinking, p. 82,Google ScholarPubMed characterizes the sexual insults cabrón, joto, cornudo, pendejo, hijo de puta and carajo as declarations of manliness which did not necessarily imply that the recipient was actually a cuckold, a homosexual or the other direct definitions.