Through Their Eyes: Depictions of Human-Nature Relationships in the Americas

This entry on the Chichicpatli, a type of dahlia, is typical of those in the Nova Plantarum. Entries like this one include the plant's Nahuatl names (chichicpatli, techichic) usually accompanied by an assigned latin name and a description of the plant and its uses. Hernandez compares the chichicpatli's leaves to those of the Mediterranean wall germander so that his European audience can form a relation to it. However, he depicts the plant without its flowers and without any earth for it to grow in, removing it from the environment necessary for its health. His text does say it "grows in Itztoluca, in the sown fields," hinting at Native Mexican agricultural prowess, but provides little other information about how they would have grown it. He also acknowledges the presence of his Indigenous informants in writing, "It is an extraordinary medicine, used a great deal by the natives," then goes on to describe how they used it almost as a recipe for Europeans to replicate.

This foldout map of central Mexico in the first volume of Clavigero's Storia antica del Messico (1780), later printed in English (History of Mexico, 1787) and in Spanish (Historia antigua de Megico, 1826) notably includes Nahua place names as well as Indigenous iconography. 

This image depicts Powhatan Indians using fire to soften and seashells to carve out a tree trunk to create a canoe. The author observes that they do not use metal tools like the English might but instead use tools of nature to build these boats, which is only further emphasized by the image, where the canoe rests on wooden supports and other Powhatan in the background use fire to fell more trees. The image and its accompanying text suggest some amount of respect for Native ingenuity and deep understanding of the natural world.

This image shows the Powhatan canoes in action. The accompanying text again notes their lack of metal tools in the process of fishing, praising the ingenuity of using reeds and the spines of already-dead fish to lure living fish into the boats. Moreover, de Bry illustrates the many kinds of creatures that lived in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, hinting at the popular European narrative of American natural abundance. 

This is the first page of a massive dichotomous key written by the Italian prince and founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, Federico Cesi. He worked on this key from 1615 up to his death in 1630, and it was published posthumously here in the Nova Plantarum. It represents Cesi's attempt to observe (with the newly invented microscope!) and categorize the entire floral and vegetal world known to him. While not exclusively focusing on native Mexican plants, they are certainly included throughout this key. This key is one European intellectual's idiosyncratic way of making sense of the natural world, but his urge toward decontextualizing and categorizing is entirely congruent with contemporary trends in European natural philosophy. Thus, Cesi's extensive key, and its positioning at the tail end of Hernández's natural encyclopedia, represent one specific kind of relationship between humans and nature.