Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures

To examine the significance and complexity of cross-cultural currents between Europe, in particular Spain, and the Americas, Marcy Norton probes the history of tobacco and chocolate, two now ubiquitous products that continue to captivate consumers. Norton takes readers back to Mesoamerican civilizations and the years prior to the arrival of the imperialist Spanish at the beginning of the sixteenth century to trace the evolution of social and sacred practices associated with tobacco and chocolate over the course of two centuries. She poses the following question: “What, exactly, did it mean for Europeans — bound as they were to an ideology that insisted on their religious and cultural supremacy — to become consumers of goods that they know were so enmeshed in the religious practices of the pagan ‘savages’ whom they had conquered” (p. 3)? Norton convincingly defends her “revisionist account” (p. 7) of the European encounter with tobacco and chocolate. The appropriation of these two goods by the Spanish and other Europeans was not primarily based on tobacco’s addictive qualities or chocolate’s intrinsic appeal. Nor was the attraction the straightforward result of a cultural constructivism or complete “Europeanizing” of these New World products. Rather, as Norton illustrates in this well-documented and engaging study, the assimilation of chocolate and tobacco by Europeans reflects the power of cross-cultural influence and syncretic blending of beliefs and practices from both sides of the Atlantic.Norton has constructed a navigable labyrinth of references to codices, chronicles, medical treatises, and other historical sources to tell the story of discovery, colonization, resistance, exchange, adaptation, and the bridging of cultures. The early chapters introduce the social and sacred features of tobacco and chocolate as seen through accounts by clerics and soldiers, both lesser known and well known, for example, Franciscan friar and early ethnographer Bernadino de Sahagún, missionary Diego Durán, Jesuit Juan de Tovar, conquistador Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, priest Baltasar de Herrera, soldier Bernal Díaz de Castillo, and the writings of Columbus and Cortés. Norton underscores the ambivalent European views of chocolate and tobacco as repugnant, diabolical instruments but luxurious indulgences, and she provides rich detail about ritual consumption through the chroniclers’ early connections with the novel products. Colorful examples illustrate competing tendencies toward rejection and acceptance. Oviedo, for instance, describes the use of cacao in blood rituals and his own use of cacao butter to cure a deep foot wound (p. 59). He also recounts the transformation of enslaved soldier Francisco Martín into a tobacco-using shaman healer among the Pemeno of Venezuela; he was later rescued by his Christian compatriots, escaped to return to Indian life, and was again recaptured and sent to Spain for sentencing (pp. 95 – 98). Herrera records the appropriation of Mayan rites of cacao drinking in sacrificial ceremonies by creole nobleman Francisco Pech and his family (pp. 73 – 74). Norton paints a vivid picture of the complex transmission of indigenous practices.The middle chapters focus on the Europeans’ view of the medicinal properties of tobacco and chocolate, the products’ place in ecclesiastical polemic, and their increasing commodification. Norton extracts from the sixteenth-century medical literature key information from the discourses of numerous Spanish and creole physicians and supports well her thesis that Europeans adapted the new goods as they adopted them. Noteworthy among the myriad particulars are Norton’s descriptions of the contributions of physicians Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera, Nicolás Monarde, and Bartolomé Marradón, who sparked interest and debate about the curative and/or diabolical powers of chocolate and tobacco in their pioneer works for European audiences. Also, Norton traces clearly the impact of different governmental policies on tobacco and chocolate as commodities and shows that ultimately, with or without official encouragement, Europeans acquired “American” tastes, demand grew, and both products ultimately flourished in robust markets.The final chapters demonstrate tobacco’s and chocolate’s ever complex and integrated usage in Spain and beyond, consumed now by all classes, having by the seventeenth century royal Spanish imprimatur and a powerful monopolistic trading framework flowing through Europe and the Americas. The epilogue offers a fast-forward look at the diffusion of these products and invites further in-depth study of the routes of tobacco and chocolate beyond Spain through Europe.Full of specifics supported by scholarly documentation, Norton’s work is a lively, readable narrative. Informative explanatory captions accompanying the book’s attractive graphics supply pertinent historical context and guide the reader through the details of the illustrations. Ideally, the endnotes would have been more accessible as footnotes, and the volume would have included a bibliography. A map of the entire Atlantic world would also have been useful. Norton’s fine contribution to the growing body of work on the history and significance of tobacco and chocolate should be of interest not only to scholars of the Mesoamerican conquest period and of the evolution of cross-cultural transmission of commodities but also to general readers interested in these ever-popular commodities

Appeal · Appropriation · Consumption (sociology) · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Culinary Culture and Tourism · History · Law · Philosophy

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