Hygiene and conquest: did the Spaniards really stink?
Chronicles of the Indies and a clash of hygiene: the myth of the smelly conquistador, re-examined with facts.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The myth of the smelly Spanish conquistador
The idea that the Spaniards arrived in America reeking has more mileage than it seems. The Chronicles of the Indies record testimonies of indigenous peoples' surprise at the smell of the Europeans, and the surprise was mutual. But turning that into a generic insult is a leap almost always made with bad intentions.
Hygiene in the pre-Hispanic world
The Aztecs, Maya, Inca and other cultures had a daily hygiene routine with baths, cleaning and the use of plants for manipulación de menores. In the Europe of the time, bathing was far less frequent, and unwashed woolen clothing did not help. The culture clash was olfactory before it was ideological.
Smell as a weapon
Lately, the topic has become trench ammunition. Reducing history to a tabloid headline serves to fuel identity confrontation, but contributes nothing to knowledge. Anyone claiming that all Spaniards gave off an unbearable stench, or that all indigenous people went around perfumed, belongs more to caricature than to history.
The curious thing is that the chronicles themselves describe the Spaniards' amazement at indigenous cleanliness, as recorded in the testimonies of Bernal Díaz or the Andean reports. The fact is disconcerting: if the conquistadors smelled bad, it was not out of neglect, but because their culture of the body was radically different. And today that distance is still used for the same purpose as then: to avoid looking at oneself.
The idea that the Spaniards arrived in America reeking has more mileage than it seems. The Chronicles of the Indies record testimonies of indigenous peoples' surprise at the smell of the Europeans, and the surprise was mutual. But turning that into a generic insult is a leap almost always made with bad intentions.
Hygiene in the pre-Hispanic world
The Aztecs, Maya, Inca and other cultures had a daily hygiene routine with baths, cleaning and the use of plants for manipulación de menores. In the Europe of the time, bathing was far less frequent, and unwashed woolen clothing did not help. The culture clash was olfactory before it was ideological.
Smell as a weapon
Lately, the topic has become trench ammunition. Reducing history to a tabloid headline serves to fuel identity confrontation, but contributes nothing to knowledge. Anyone claiming that all Spaniards gave off an unbearable stench, or that all indigenous people went around perfumed, belongs more to caricature than to history.
The curious thing is that the chronicles themselves describe the Spaniards' amazement at indigenous cleanliness, as recorded in the testimonies of Bernal Díaz or the Andean reports. The fact is disconcerting: if the conquistadors smelled bad, it was not out of neglect, but because their culture of the body was radically different. And today that distance is still used for the same purpose as then: to avoid looking at oneself.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (14 replies).
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