Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 Public Domain. Release under the CC BY Attribution license--http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/--Credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library; From the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California Send requests to address or e-mail given USC Libraries Special Collections specol@usc.edu
Description
Photograph of a drawing of an Indian temescal, by Captain William Smyth, R.N., (or Day & Hughes?), "lithographers to the Queen", ca.1839. Ten "Upper California Indians" lounge in the temescal, a hot air bathhouse. The temescal is constructed of preconditioned tree logs or branches and hay or straw roof coverings. A window situated near the roof allows sunlight in. A campfire is pitched in the center of the room. Picture file card reads: "Capt. V. Smyton A.N. del. By Day & Hughes, Lithographers to the Queen, p.197 Forbes California 1839, first book on Ca. printed in English language." "When the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century, they found spirited use of the sweat house among scattered Mayan tribes and their new rulers, the Aztecs. The most common name for the sweathouse is temescal, an Aztec name from teme, to bathe, and calli, house. The largest Mayan dictionary, compiled shortly after the Conquest, gives the word for sweat bath as Zumpul-che, "a bath for women after childbirth and for sick persons used to cast out disease in their bodies." The Spaniards did not appreciate the elaborate bathing practices of these people. Spain wallowed in the dark ages of sanitation when it was the vogue not to bathe at all. The Queen of Aragon boasted she had bathed only twice in her life, once when she was born and once when she was married. The Spanish Inquisition was at its height and the native bathing rituals, combined with worship of gods not sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, made sweat houses doubly offensive. Later, as Spanish missionaries prevailed upon the Aztecs and Mayans to divest their baths of religious significance, the Spaniards began to appreciate the powers of the temescal. [...]" -- Mikkel Aaland. Photoprint reads: "This is a drawing of a semi-sabterraueau(?) sweat house by William Smythe who was with Beechey on the voyage of the 'Blossom' and visted California in the 1820s. Published only by Forbes, probably Central California".
Type
image
Format
3 photographs : photonegative, photoprints, b&w 10 x 13 cm., 19 x 25 cm. negatives (photographic) photographic prints photographs art
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