Codex canadiensis
The Codex canadiensis is a manuscript that was written between around 1680 and 1700 and was written by the Jesuit Louis Nicolas (1638–82). Its special historical, ethnological and scientific historical value lies in the 180 illustrations depicting numerous plants and animals, but above all the Indians , their tattoos , their watercraft and tools. Since the author paid special attention to accuracy and comparison, he offers, in an almost modern-scientific manner, insights into the Indian history and ethnology of New France in the third quarter of the 17th century. However, when interpreting the illustrations, it should be borne in mind that Nicolas was not afraid to copy from master books.
The repository is the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa , Oklahoma , which together with the Library and Archives Canada and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art has made the Codex publicly available in a digital exhibition.
Emergence
The point in time at which it occurred cannot be determined with certainty. The mention of an event from the year 1700 is considered an addendum, since the Codex on p. 23, line 40 mentions a Histoire naturelle which in all probability already existed at this point in time. In addition, the author wrote a grammaire algonquine , an Algonquian grammar, which, however, is more of an Ojibwa grammar. This also shows the collecting and processing style of work that the author also displays in the Codex canadiensis: He collected existing grammars and put them together in a compilation .
description
The codex consists of 79 pages with 180 drawings. Drawings and descriptions were made partly with brown ink, partly with brown ink and watercolor on parchment . Hence the sensitivity of the handwriting and the resulting inaccessibility to the public.
53 panels are particularly important for natural history, as they depict 18 plants, 67 mammals, 56 bird and 33 species of fish as well as around 10 reptiles , as well as amphibians and insects.
Of particular importance are the panels that are dedicated to the indigenous people , more precisely members of 15 tribes ("nations"). Among them is one of the only two surviving portraits of an Indian from New France. In addition, the tattoos and body paints are only shown here .
The first three pages praise King Louis XIV and the French victory over Holland in the War of Devolution from 1667 to 1668, as well as in the war against the Holy Roman Empire from 1673 to 1674 . It remains unclear whether Philip V of Spain's accession to the throne was carried out by someone else in 1700. The first editor of the codex, Baron Marc de Villiers, dated the codex to the time after 1700.
The dedication is followed by 19 pages on the First Nations . The author apparently took over engravings from the Historiae canadensis seu Novae Franciae Libri Decem by the Jesuit François du Creux , which had been published in Paris in 1666. Hence the particular value of Nicolas' work lies in the added details. He added tattoos, pipes, of which one usually only finds the heads, hairstyles, clothes and jewelry. Thus, p. 6 shows a tobacco or medicine bag, tomahawks (p. 7 and 9), shield, bow and arrows (p. 12). The aforementioned portrait is that of Ottawa chief Iskouakite , who played an important role in the missionary work.
Pages 13 to 19 show tools in the broadest sense, e.g. B. fishing gear, means of transport such as a kayak , accommodation, even a torture scene where the author claims to have been present. He also describes an Iroquois mask that a healer Company, the False Face Society served.
Finally, this part of the manuscript contains two maps, one of New France and one of the upper Mississippi , an area which the author calls "Manitounie", in honor of the explorers Joliette and Father Marquette (1673).
The following section, which is devoted to the plants of the region, focuses less on classification and more on which plants and parts of plants are edible. For example, it represents the rhizome of Sagittaria latifolia ( arrowhead ). Apparently some of the plants were not known to him, such as Nymphaea odorata or tuberosa , others, such as maize , had not yet established themselves as a mass food in Europe.
A section on animals begins on page 27, illustrated with a tiger (?) And a unicorn . In these representations, the author was apparently inspired by the Historia animalium by Conrad Gessner (1516–1565). On page 37 he describes beavers , otters and seals as sea creatures, not unlike fishing. However, the focus is on the birds of the region, the description of which begins on page 41 and extends to page 54.
On page 55, following the tradition of the time, monsters, a merman ( Nix ), a frog with a snake-like tail, etc.
Eventually, marine creatures followed, generally thought to be fish, even if they were marine mammals such as whales .
The last pages are filled with Jacques Cartier's ship (67), with a portrait, a kind of saint figure, plus European animals.
Lost and reappeared
The codex did not reappear until 1930 when the publisher Maurice Chamonal published a facsimile under the title Les Raretés des Indes with a foreword by Baron Marc de Villiers, who ascribed the work to Charles Bécart de Granville (1675–1703). But the edition only comprised 100 copies.
In 1934 the codex appeared in the catalog of the Georges Andrieux library (no. 328) when an unknown buyer bought the book. It is said to have landed at Kraus in New York around 1939 . He sold it to Thomas Gilcrease in 1949.
Thomas Gilcrease (1890–1962) was a wealthy man. He acquired the Codex from Henry Stevens, Son and Stiles in London . Gilcrease, who had been offered land by the US government as a member of the Cree tribe (his mother was Cree), had made a substantial fortune from that land. In 1922 he was able to found the Gilcrease Oil Company . In 1954 he founded the Gilcrease Museum from his own resources , but the next year he had to sell the museum to the nearby city of Tulsa .
In 1974 the codex was published again (this time in Montreal ), this time in a small edition of only 110 copies.
literature
- Meridith Beck Sayre: Gagnon, François-Marc, Nancy Senior and Réal Ouellet - The Codex Canadensis and the Writings of Louis Nicolas , in: Histoire Sociale / Social History 46,91 (2013) 235–236.
- Francois-Marc Gagnon, Nancy Senior, Réal Ouelette: The Codex Canadensis and the Writings of Louis Nicolas , McGill-Queen's University Press 2011.
- Henry M. Reeves, FrançOis-Marc Gagnon, C. Stuart Houston: Codex canadiensis, an early illustrated manuscript of Canadian natural history , in: Archives of Natural History, 31.1 (2004) 150-166.
- Anne-Marie Sioui: Qui est l'auteur du Codex canadiensis? , in: Recherches amér Indiennes au Québec 7.4 (1979) 271-279.
Web links
- Codex canadiensis on the website v. Library and Archives Canada and Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
- L'Institut de recherche en art canadien Gail et Stephen A. Jarislowsky