Sistema de castas
Zoological Basis of Casta Terminology
Ilona Katzew, "New World Orders: Casta Painting and
Colonial Latin America",
Americas Society Art Gallery,
New York, 1996, Plate 11: Indio × Mestisa;
Coyote, p. 80
To the reader: please do not take offense at the terminology
below. This terminology is clearly racist, and should be insulting
to many, many people. This terminology is here as it is a record
of how people were viewed.
Non-Christian and Mixed Races were often viewed as monsters
based on the Old Testament book of Leviticus (which in modern
times would be classified as racist, sexist and homophobic:
a view shared by Judaeo-Christian and Moslems). Because of these
racist views, these 'monstrous' people were often given names
that referred to animals.1 Examples follow.
Animal
Terminology
Kind of person
Region
Fantasmagoric monster
Al Borayque
Anti converso and anti-Jewish
Muslim or Morisco propaganda
2
Iberian world and Muslim world
Goat
Bôde
Elderly black man with white beard
3
Brazil
Cow
Boviander
Anyone with non-white blood
Dutch Guyana (Surinam)
Coyote
Coyote
Anyone with AmerIndian blood
Nueva España
Baby animal
Cria
Children containing non-white blood
4
Brazil
Livestock
Criollo
Slave or livestock
Nueva España
Hen
Hen Negro
Female Negro slave
English-speaking New World
Griffin
Griffin
Child of a white slave5
Famagusta, Cyprus (1299-1301)
Wolf
Lobo
Anyone with negro (black) blood
Nueva España
Mixed animal species
Mestizo
Mixed with (Spanish) non-white blood
6
New World Spanish colonies
Mongrel
Mongroo
Anyone with non-white blood
Dutch Guyana (Surinam)
Mule
Mulato
Mixed with non-white blood
7
New World Spanish colonies
Pig
Marrano
Jew (or converso)
Iberia
Vulture
Urúbu
Anyone with non-white blood
Brazil
Note that, just as Castas were often given zoomorphic names as a
way to show low status, zoomorphic names were also used by conversos,
to obscure non-Christian origin. Click here for examples.
1
"Medieval representations of peasants, for example, rendered them
as a lower order of humanity and associated them with animals, dirt,
excrement. The beastialization of the peasantry could reach such extremes
that a historian of slavery has suggested that it was an important
precursor to the early modern racialization of Jews and blacks."
See María Elena Martínez, "Genealogical Fictions:
Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial
Mexico", Stanford Univ. Press, 2008, pp. 9-10.
.
2
The Al Borayque was used as propaganda to depict Jews,
especially conversos or "New Christians" as fantasmagoric
monsters. Another way to justify the view of Jews as
being monsters, was to do as Alonso de Espina did, and
"[relate] the lineage of Jews to the offspring of, first,
Adam with animals and second, Adam with the demon Lilith."
See David Nirenberg, "Was there race before modernity?
The example of 'Jewish' blood in late medieval Spain,"
in Ben Isaac, Yossi Ziegler, and Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Eds.,
The Origins of Racism in the West, Cambridge
University Press, 2009, p. 256. Note that all the other
examples in the table on this page refer to castas,
but the Al Borayque
refers to raza.
Click here for additional information.
.
3
A Bôde's white beard reminds one of the name "goatee".
.
4
Often "cria" referred to the non-white children of slave's masters;
see Portuguese language dictionary.
.
5
Charles Verlinden, "The Beginnings of Modern
Colonization: Eleven Essays" (Yvonne Ferccero, Trans.), Cornell University
Press, Ithaca, 1970, p. 89. The term was used to refer to the offspring of Slavic
(white) slaves who were employed at sugar plantations at Genoese and Venetian
colonies. The use of this term suggests the beginnings of a caste system
based on status (slave or free man), pre-dating the use of caste in the New World, to
indicate race (color). To date, no terms have been found to describe "quarter-slave",
"one-eighth-slave", etc., equivalent to quadroon, octaroon, etc.
.
6
María Elena Martínez,
"Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion,
and Gender in Colonial Mexico", Stanford University
Press, 2008, p. 164.
.
7
The term mulatto, reminds one of "alboraico" and "alboraique",
pejorative for converso (roots similar to alcohol, algebra,
arroba, etc.) "Alboraico" and "alboraique" originally referred
to Muhammad's fabled animal, neither horse nor mule (New
Christians, or converso: neither Jews nor Christians).
María Elena Martínez, "Genealogical Fictions:
Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico",
Stanford U. P., 2008, p. 164. Also, see Magnus Mörner,
"Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown
and Company, Boston, p. 58, footnote 20.
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