Inside a botany
Description
Interior view of a botany. There is a person behind the counter. The counter has display cases made of glass with candles and other products. The walls are covered with shelves with jars, bottles, candles, religious images, potted plants, books and other objects. On the wall you can see wooden beams and an incandescent lightbulb.| Origin Name |
Folio 0035, Caja 147_R
|
| Relation |
Archivo General de Puerto Rico > Colección Particular Felisa Rincón de Gautier (CP 85) > Serie Fotografías > Tema Obras Públicas > Caja 0147
|
| Geographical Coverage |
San Juan
|
| Date |
[1946-1968?]
|
| Descriptive Notes |
Title assigned by the cataloguing team.
Back. Stamp: "General Archive of Puerto Rico Felisa Rincón de Gautier Collection box #147 photo #35"
|
| Descripción decolonial |
The botany represents the great epistemological-religious complexity of the Puerto Rican idiosyncrasy. Much of the ancestral knowledge of medicine is not originally from Europe, but rather from a series of generational Afro-indigenous knowledge that were and are to this day home remedies to cure illnesses. The presence of saints and images of Jesus Christ suggests the present religious syncretism of Puerto Ricans with ancestral medicine. This is due to the systematic prohibition of the Spanish empire on the island to practice religions other than Catholicism. African slaves took advantage of the figure of the Virgin Mary to pray to their gods with a low profile without the Spanish authorities noticing. This counter-hegemonic knowledge was a resistance to American scientism on the island, which in the name of modernity carried out experiments against Puerto Rican citizens. There was scientific racism on the island accompanied by the marked socioeconomic inequality in which not all citizens had access to professional medical services. This distrust of modern Eurocentric epistemicidal science caused the jibaros to seek alternative medicines to avoid the expenses that going to the hospital could entail.
|
| Historical Background | |
| Architectural Subject |
|
| Decolonial Subject | |
| Rights |
English Rights. (hyperlink)
|
| Editor |
Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín
|
| Resource Format |
JPEG
|
| Resource Type |
Image
|
/Colección Particular Felisa Rincón de Gautier (CP 85)/Serie Fotografías - Tema Obras Públicas/Caja 0147/Folio 0035, Caja 147_R.jpg&action=download){kind=link}