Animalia of Peruvian and Southern America
The
Natural History, published by Pliny the Elder in 77 AD, was read by the learned men of his time and subsequent periods in Latin. From the third century onwards, the Christian church successfully integrated classical culture into Christianity (Signes 2005: 137). Likewise, the bestiaries, which reached their peak in the thirteenth century, are proof that Pliny was an important reference in the process. Translation activity in Spain was fruitful during the second half of the sixteenth century; later, in the last quarter of the century, there was a decline in the number of translations that lasted until the beginning of the seventeenth century. However, it was during this period that the first translations of technical writers appeared, including Pliny (Bravo 2023: par. 3). In the case of the
Historia Natural, as stated in the “Aprouacion” of the 1624 edition,
1 The editions of the Natural History translated by Gerónimo de Huerta are: Traducción de los Libros de C. Plinio Segundo, de la Historia de los Animales con Anotaciones curiosas, books VII and VIII, Madrid, 1599 and reprinted in Alcalá, 1602; Libro Nono de C. Plinio Segundo, de la de la Historia de los pescados del mar, de los lagos, estanques y ríos, Madrid, book IX, Pedro Madrigal, 1603; finally, the complete translation is published in two volumes as Historia Natural de Cayo Plinio Segundo, the first volume in 1624 and the second in 1629. “demas de la traducion de Plinio, [Gerónimo de Huerta] pone escolios y anotaciones tan importantes y prouechosas, que haze mas ilustre la obra” (
NH 1624: par. 3).
2 Regarding the methodological criteria adopted for transcription, the original text is respected as far as possible in the spellings, therefore, in the vowel value, the /v/ is maintained with the value of /u/; the /y/ with the value of /i/. Likewise, the spellings /x/, /q/, /b/, /ç/, /z/ are preserved. The system of accents is respected, although it differs from the modern one, and no accent is added that is not already present in the text. Even the grave accent of archaic Spanish is maintained. When the document has punctuation, it is also preserved. However, the reproduction of the old long /s/ in initial or medial position is omitted, and it is transcribed as the round /s/ that at the time was only used at the end of a word. In addition, typographical abbreviations are excluded. Thus, to the terrestrial, aerial, and marine fauna that Europeans had described for centuries, the marvelous animal life of the everyday reality of other lands was added in the encounter between cultures, especially when travelers arrived in the American continent to discover new territories.
3 Pliny classifies animals according to the plane they inhabit: Book VIII deals with land animals, Book IX with water, and Books X and XI with air (birds and insects). In such telluric, aquatic, marine and aerial spaces, in the realm of the imaginary, there exist beings with unimaginable attributes and an extraordinary capacity to attract the attention of scholars of nature. Or, as Hernando Cabarcas Antequera states:
With the marvelous medieval era as a precedent, the chroniclers entered the American territory; stupefied, astonished, and fearful, continually confronted with a universe in which things happened at a different pace than the one they knew, thus transforming ancient cultural content into an instrument of knowledge that contributes to perceiving the new, to giving meaning to the enigmatic universe discovered. (1994: 47–8)
For this reason, just as in the chronicle, our translator narrated the events contemporary to the exploration of America and, at the same time, declaimed the animal wonders of the New World without dissociating them from the known ones. That is, in a similar way to the writings of the historian who resorts to Ancient and medieval authorities (Gerónimo de Huerta, for example, to the monstrous and hybrid mirabilia that had their antecedents in the Greco-Latin tradition), he incorporates into the translation of the Natural History the medieval ones, and later, the Nordic ones and, finally, the American ones. In this sense, the wonderful animals of the Middle Ages, the Scandinavian sea monsters, and the fauna of America are abundantly illustrated and referred to with information augmented by Gerónimo de Huerta. Obviously, each contribution by Gerónimo de Huerta deserves a separate analysis; however, in this chapter I refer only to the last one.
Thus, within the boundaries of the Austral or Peruvian regions there are, according to Gerónimo de Huerta, exceptional animals such as those of the Cephalic Lake, referred to as “grandísimos cocodrilos,” which is opportune considering the American crocodile can reach 6 meters when compared with the average African crocodile (approximately 2.5 meters). Other large animals, although not sketched in the “Table,” are “murcielagos tan grandes y gruessos como codornizes, hormigas tan grandes como escarauajos” (
HN 1624: 235). By contrast, the American felines that live in Cartagena de Indias are described as lions “de menor braveza y ferozidad que los de Africa” (
HN 1624: 237) (Figure 2.1).
4 Certainly, the animal that the translator refers to as a lion must be one of the common felines of the American continent; among them probably the puma or mountain lion (Puma con color), the Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita), and the jaguar. Regarding the first, the puma is called a mountain lion because its appearance is similar to that of an African lioness. Similarly, the Spanish writer Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo calls the lions of “Tierra-Firme” felines that he describes as “algo menores [que los de África] y no tan denodados, antes son cobardes y huyen; (mas aquesto es común a los leones, que no hacen mal si no los persiguen o acometen)” (1999: 12). Clearly, Gerónimo de Huerta uses hyperbolic expressions to characterize the “curious” nature of the species referred to, which in no way correspond to everyday life. The result of this writing exercise is the feeling that what is happening and being seen on another continent is a great event and that we are reaching beyond what is commonly known in nature.
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Figure 2.1. Pigs, vipers, vicuñas, anteano, goat, cerigon, lion, humped cow, dog, armadillo, and iguana in a woodcut from the “Tabla de los efigies de gentes monstruosas, animales, pescados, aves e insectos.”
In Santa Cruz del Monte, according to Gerónimo de Huerta, there are vipers that the Spanish call “sonajas” because “tienen debaxo de la cola vna como nuez, en cuya cauidad estan vnas hojillas, que quando va andando suenan como sonajas, y se oyen a veinte passos; pero ella es tan corta de vista que no ve distando mas de tres passos. Es tan grande su veneno, y tan acelerada su accion, que inmediatamente acompaña a su mordedura la muerte” (
HN 1624: 246). The crawler in question is, of course, the viper endemic to the American continent that is commonly known as the rattlesnake (
crotalus), one among twenty-nine species that inhabit a zone stretching from the southeast of Canada to the north of Argentina.
5 The emphasis on the deadly consequences of the bite is justified, as the rattlesnake is considered an extremely dangerous animal for anyone who disturbs it, since, as recent studies mention, the “accelerated action” of its venom and the “effect of the toxins [of this] cause damage to the circulatory and nervous system of humans and other animals” affecting body tissue and circulation are scientifically demonstrable (Balveras 2009: 89). In this species, ferocity is a distinguishing feature, in others, corporality or ugliness; from that point of view, the description of American fauna highlights physical aspects and behaviors that represent that which does not lie within the realm of the normal but outside of everyday limits and is, therefore, transgressive.
The descriptive process at work in the enumeration of the characteristics inherent to each animal includes abundant comparisons to associate the known with the unknown; that is, to look for an equivalent between the European and the American; establishing, in turn, possible relationships between the European and American latitudes. In short, it arises from the astonishment felt in the face of daily contact with the American world and that allows the individual reality and cultural identity of each people to be interpreted. Hence, starting from similarities and differences, the reality of American animalia is presented with traits “similar to” or “like” those of European fauna. For example, Gerónimo de Huerta states that the inhabitants of Cartagena “tienen una especie de puercos sin cola” (HN 1624: 237). Perhaps the annotation refers to the peccary, a mammal that is often confused with the porcine species due to its resemblance to the wild boar (it is even called the American wild boar), or to some similar animal, which, at first glance, one might assume does not have a tail because it is tiny and therefore not visible. Here one should also remember that there are several types of Creole pigs with this characteristic that descend from the first pigs introduced from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth century.
Gerónimo de Huerta describes the iguana of the southern part of Peru as “semejante a lagarto, pero està cubierto de cortezas feas y gruessas, su cola es muy larga; la qual descortezada y cozida es suauissimo alimento y delicado […] sube a los arboles, y dellos salta en el mar, o rios donde viue tambien alegre” (HN 1624: 237). Gerónimo de Huerta’s notes contain reflections of a naturalistic kind, similar to those already studied by Marco Urdapilleta in a few chronicles of the Indies from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: habitat, the physical appearance and behavior of the animal, advice for hunting it, processing it and using it as food, clothing, or medicine, etc. (2014: 240). This animal, venerated and appreciated by various cultures in America, is introduced by the translator with preconceived ideas about other animals common in Europe. He then provides new information about it, what it is like, where and how it lives, what use it has. In short, he shares knowledge about the wealth of the continent but always based on European fauna.
On the other hand, South American camelids, including the vicuña, the guanaco, and the paca, offer the translator an opportunity to introduce notes of a zoopharmaceutical nature. Thus, he writes of the Bezaar or Bozoar stone, which was mistakenly used as a remedy for poisoning, as follows: “[las Vicuñas] son como cabras silvestres sin cuernos, cuya lana es tan delgada y blanca como algodon, de color entre rubio y canelado. En las tripas destas cabras se crian piedras Bezaares, aunque no son tales como las que se crian en las Indias Orientales en otras cabras silvestres” (HN 1624: 241–2). These stones began to be used in Europe together with the medicinal stones offered by the East, so the American bezoar stone was used to cure diseases, as recorded in some medicinal treatises (Llamas 2019: 46). Let us remember that Natural History was also a repository of pharmacological knowledge, the sources of which were other ancient texts consulted by Pliny. Likewise, Gerónimo de Huerta, when translating and writing his notes, did not fail to provide a referential link between animals and known therapeutic practices. For example, according to Grenón, among the colonial historical studies that mention the bezoar stone, there is the one by Nicolás Monardes, a doctor from Seville, who dedicates a chapter to it in his “medical book that he created in 1574 with the things of Nature that he had brought from America [and says that] Charles V used it to dispel sadness and melancholy” (1922: 291). In this respect, despite the enormous gap in the framework of scientific data, the translation into the Historia Natural continues to offer a compilation of information on remedies from the natural kingdom for the treatment of diseases; not for nothing does our translator refer to the bezoar stone at the same time as describing vicuñas.
Another peculiar animal is the Aranata “de grandeza de un lebrel con barba como cabrón, y boca, pies y manos de simia” (
HN 1624: 238). It is very likely that the animal referred to in the text is a dog,
6 The zoological lexicon records the aranata as a “term of obsolete use […] that refers to a carnivorous mammal that belongs in its taxonomic classification to the canid family, native to America and similar to the dog.” Definiciona, Definición y etimología, s.v. “aranata”, https://definiciona.com/aranata/ (accessed 11 August 2025). although not very common, since Gerónimo de Huerta indicates that this beast is also known as Succarathe and locates it in the Land of Maracapana and Cumaná in the Peruvian region. The engravings represent the Succarathe with a face similar to a bearded man but animalized with an elongated body in the shape of a lion and a long, thick tail that is useful for protecting its offspring (Figure 2.2 & 2.3). Among the first texts that included pictures and mentioned the strange creature, as David Williams (2011) has already verified, is the one written by André de Thevet:
Las Singularidades de la Francia Antártica (1557–8). The Franciscan friar and explorer Thevet gave the name Su to the beast and located it in Patagonia, although later the
Cosmografía Universal (1575) situated it in the Florida peninsula and a synonym, Succarath, was added to the name Su.
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Figure 2.2. Succarath in a woodcut from the “Tabla de los efigies de gentes monstruosas, animales, pescados, aves e insectos.”
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Figure 2.3. The honey bear in a woodcut from the “Tabla de los efigies de gentes monstruosas, animales, pescados, aves e insectos.”.
The description and drawing that Thevet gives in his writings are those that later texts, among them the translation of Gerónimo de Huerta to Natural History, take up again:
Esta bestia es muy asombrosa, constituida de una muy extraña manera, por lo cual yo bien he deseado representarla en una figura. Otra cosa: si es perseguido, como lo hace la gente del país, para obtener la piel, toma a sus pequeños sobre la espalda, y cubriéndolos con la cola gruesa y larga, se salva con la huida. (Thevet 2024: 108r–109)
7 On the Succarath, Thevet provides further information such as how the savages eventually catch this beast: “hacen un foso profundo cerca del lugar en donde ella tiene la costumbre de tener su residencia, y la cubren de hoja verdes, de tal forma que al correr, sin sospechar a emboscada, la pobre bestia cae en este foso con sus pequeños. Y al verse así presa, (como rabiosa) mutila y mata a sus pequeños: y emite unos gritos tan espantosos, que torna muy temerosos y tímidos a aquellos salvajes.” (Thevet 2024: 108r–109).Some posit that the Su or Succarath could be an opossum. Others, like Williams, conclude that “it receives the name and some features of the jaguar, combined with others of the maned wolf” (sp). It remains an enigma; the important thing in Gerónimo de Huerta’s translation is to introduce it as a revolutionary discovery.
On another topic, Gerónimo de Huerta says of the Tamandoa (Tamandua or Honey Bear) of Brazil that “es tan grande como vn puerco: pero tiene larguisimas vñas. Sustentase de hormigas: y auiendo abierto con la uña el hormiguero, mete dentro la lengua, y la saca llena dellas”. Likewise, the anteater “tiene la cola tan larga y pelosa, que cubre con ella todo el cuerpo” (HN 1624: 239). In the opinion of the sources on which the notes of the Historia Natural are founded, the Tamandoa does not differ much from the pig; but it is notable for the habits it follows to feed itself and the contrast of its physical attributes. Following this same rhetorical formula, as already mentioned, Gerónimo de Huerta makes use of comparisons between European and American animals. Consequently, nature in distant lands is presented as wonderfully exceptional. For example, the Spanish translation of the Natural History includes other animals native to Brazil, including the Antehanno (Figure 2.1), “algo semejante a la mula, aunque menor: tiene el labio baxo como trompeta, las orejas redondas y la cola tuerta; reposa de día, y apacientase de noche” (HN 1624: 239). Regarding the oldest fauna existing in America, the Flemish painter Stradanus drew on Theodoor Galle’s engraving the “Allegory of the Discovery of America” (c. 1600), where more realistic images of American fauna are projected than those we can observe in the “Table.” In this work the painter wrote the names of the animals next to them, so it is possible to verify that the name Tamandoa corresponds to the anteater and Anta to the tapir, an animal distantly related to the horse and mainly nocturnal. The word Anta or Antehanno, therefore, specifically identifies the Amazonian tapir, also known as beorí or danta, as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo names it: “Estos animales beoríes son del tamaño de una mula mediana y el pelo es pardo, muy oscuro y más espeso que el del búfalo, y no tiene cuernos, aunque algunos los llaman vacas” (1999: 11). In Central America it is also called anteburro. Similarly, “entre otros animales se cria alli vno llamado Tatusia, y de los Españoles Armadillo, es del tamaño de un lechon, y esta cubierto, o armado de conchas, como planchas; entre las quales retira y esconde la cabe a como el galapago para tenerla segura” (HN 1624: 239). The importance of including the discovery of both the Tamandoa and the Antehanno in the notes to the translation of the Natural History lies in providing more information about the species that live in other places in order to present an updated list of all the species of the known world. The same will be done with another animal endemic to Central and South America, el perezoso, the sloth, also called, as Gerónimo de Huerta points out, “pereza.” Following the practice of establishing similarities, the characteristic that stands out in the animal is that it is the size of a fox; to which is added a gait so slow and sluggish it seems unbelievable (HN 1624: 239).
Continuing on the subject, there are some animals that the book
Restauracion de la ciudad del Salvador i Baia de Todos-Sanctos defines as “raros del Brasil,”
8 The text from 1628 says: “su color es entre amarillo i pardo, su tamaño como de zorra. Cuelganles del vientre dos como bolsas, que la naturaleza previno para la carga de sus hijuelos, con que tienen el sustento de los pechos de sus madres tan a la boca, que hasta poder buscar por si el mantenimiento, no se apartan dellas” (Tamayo de Vargas 1628: 24). whose description coincides with those that Huerta locates in this same area in the Peruvian region and calls “Cerigones [que] tienen debaxo del vientre dos bolsas, donde viendose en peligro ponen sus hijos y huyen; y èstos se hallan tambien en las islas Malucas” (
HN 1624: 239). Tyson identifies that, among the names of American marsupials, in addition to the Cerigo there are the Carigueya, Chiurca, Tlaquatzin, Taquatzin, Tlaquacum, Sarigoy or Carigoy (1698: 106–7). For his part, Gerónimo de Huerta mentions these species on two separate occasions; the first time referring to the Cerigon, which he locates in the territory of Brazil, and the second (although not illustrated in the table), situating the animal in Norumbega (that is to say the Northwest of North America of the Mexican Part), to the “llamados Tlaquacos, los quales debaxo del vientre tienen vna bolsa, en la qual ponen sus hijos, [y vuelve a repetir que] viendose en peligro, y huyen” (
HN 1624: 233). This last animal most likely refers to one of the best-known varieties of marsupials, the Opossum, which can still be found from southern Canada to Central America.