Alcohol
Indian alcohol abuse
What theories that have been advanced to
explain Indians’ supposed proclivity to
drunkenness?
Was drunkenness a reaction to the trauma
and demoralisation of conquest?
Can it be explained by the introduction of
new and unfamiliar European drinks with a
higher alcohol content than native
beverages?
Can cultural and genetic factors account
for the Indians’ apparent susceptibility to
excessive drinking and inebriation?
Alcohol and Subversion
What was the relationship between
alcohol and violence in Spanish
America?
Could drinking lead to political
sedition?
What measures were taken by the
authorities to control drinking in
Spanish America?
Why did they generally fail?
Pre-Columbian drinking
Who was allowed to drink in American
society before the conquest?
What did they drink?
When and how much did they drink?
Pulque
Main alcoholic drink in Mexico prior to
the conquest.
Came from fermented juice of the
maguey plant.
Contains around 4% alcohol.
Believed to have medicinal properties.
Extracted from
maguey by
tlachiquero.
Left to ferment.
Roots and herbs
added to enhance
strength – e.g.
cuapatle, a type of
tree bark.
Pulque drunk in
religious
ceremonies.
Pulque Goddess
Magahuel.
Pulque given as
tribute
Restrictions on who could drink pulque among Aztecs.
Consumption confined to warriors and nobles.
Commoners could not drink it, and could be punished if they
did.
Priests forbidden from drinking.
Other Indian societies less strict about drinking.
Most drinking done
during ceremonies.
Heavy drinking
normal but
sporadic.
Drunkenness not
seen as shameful.
Post-conquest drinking
How did the Spanish conquest affect
Indian drinking patterns?
Was there more drinking after the
conquest?
Did increased drinking contribute to
destructive social behaviour?
Drinking no longer confined to the
elite – like chocolate.
More daily drinking at taverns or
pulquerias.
New types of drink – e.g. wine and
aguardiente (rum).
‘The men of Ocelotepec were said to
spend all their gold on wine’.
Colonising discourse
Indians not really drunkards
Image of drunken Indian fabricated by
Spaniards to denigrate Indians and
justify conquest.
Drunkenness a sign of barbarity.
Ernesto Restrepo Tirado (Colombia, 1892):
‘The mere number of drunken orgies
mentioned by the chroniclers of the fiestas
of the Indians leads us to form quickly a
very unfavourable impression of them.
Liquor was the fundamental base of every
celebration, and when the liquor ran out,
the function finished’.
Francisco Moreno (Argentina, 1870):
Patagonian Indians spend their lives in
‘uncontrolled binges and drink for days and
weeks on end’.
Trauma of conquest
Indians drank to obliterate suffering of
the conquest.
Heavy drinking evidences disruption,
death and despair engendered by
subjugation and disease.
Alcoholism the result of
demoralisation.
Clorinda Matto de Turner (Peru) Indians
‘sometimes get drunk, in order to forget their
miseries’.
Ecuadorian writer Pio Jaramillo (Ecuador): Indian
drunkenness a natural consequence of the
‘bitterness [felt] by a defeated race’.
José Martí (Cuba): Indians were ‘drunkards and
theives’ because ‘we [i.e. the Spaniards] ‘made
them that way. In order to console themselves, to
escape reality, they chew coca leaves and drink
rum, the two poisons of their race’.
[1] Aves sin nido cited in Nina Scott, ‘Juan Manuela Gorriti’s Cocina Ecléctica: Recipes
as Feminine Discourse’, Hispania 75:2 (1992), 312.
[2] Pio Jaramillo Alvarado, El indio ecuatoriano. Contribución al estudio de la sociología
nacional (Quito, 1925), I:230-1.
[3] Ventura García Calderón, ‘Un loable esfuerzo por el arte incaico’, 1927, La
polémica del indigenismo, comp. Aquézolo Castro, 64.
Cultural differences
Allegations of Indian drunkenness stem from
different drinking patterns.
Indians drink periodically but to the point of
inebriation.
Spaniards drink often but in moderation and see
drunkenness as shameful - ‘the most disgraceful
epithet you can fasten on a man is to call him a
drunkard; it is also true that they are very rarely
met with’.
New drinks also encourage greater alcohol
consumption
[1] ‘Account of a Journey to Madrid’, La Belle Assemblée, or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine, Wednesday April 1,
1807; Issue 16
Some Indians adapt to Spanish customs.
Mexican cacique, Don Fernando Tapia
apparently ‘ate and drank in the Spanish
manner with his high table, chairs and
tablecloths’ and never got drunk, even
though he always had ‘1 or 2 casks of wine
ready in his cellar’.
Ranquel Indians in southern Argentina
engaged in heavy drinking bouts. Lucio
Mansilla states that they ‘do not eat while
drinking’ and drink until they are virtually
unconscious. ‘They will drink for an hour, a
day, two days two months. They are
capable of drinking until they burst’.[1]
[1] Lucio Mansilla, A Visit to the Ranquel Indians, Lincoln, University of Nebraska
Press, 1997, p.137
Genetic factors?
Are they genetic reasons for alcoholism?
Various theories. Some scientists think
Native Americans actually have a gene that
makes them able to drink more.
Others think Indians are more sensitive to
alcohol’s effects.
Nothing conclusive, and anyway racial
distinctions are hard to define biologically.
Subversion and violence
Excessive drinking blamed for crime and violence.
Drinking often mentioned as a factor in murder
trials, though Taylor claims Indians may have used
it as an excuse for their behaviour in order to get a
more lenient sentence.
The Ayuntamiento of Mexico City declared in 1820
that ‘many quarrels’ broke out around pulquerías,
often with fatal consequences, ‘because most of
the public…are armed with knives and razors’,
which they were inclined to use when inebriated.
Concern that
pulque
consumption would
lead to gambling,
poor health and
immorality.
Belief that men
squandered their
wages on drink,
rather than caring
for their families.
Pulquerias seen as sites of political
subversion.
Fears that people would congregate there
and plot against the government.
Legislation
1529 - addition of herbs and roots to
pulque banned.
1650s - taxes were imposed on
pulque.
1693 – sale of pulque in Mexico City
prohibited following serious riot.
1671 Ordinance
Stipulates that male and female drinkers in
pulquerías should be segregated, in order
to avoid sexual immorality.
States that large numbers of people should
not be allowed to congregate around a
pulqueria, nor to ‘stay around after they
have drunk’.
Bans the use of ‘harps, guitars or other
musical instruments, dances or musicians’
in pulquerias.
1792 laws
Decree that no food may be served in
pulquerias.
Says all seating should be removed from
pulquerias.
States that pulquerías should be exposed
on 3 sides to public view, so that police
could monitor their customers easily.
Imposes harsher sentences for the drunk
and disorderly.
Legislation generally ineffectual.
Police corruption.
Contradiction between tax revenues and public
health.