Marina Garone Gravier, "Calígrafos y Tipógrafos Indígenas en la Nueva España"
Many books addressing the contact and conquest of the New World, from major chronicles to various philological and religious works produced by Catholic clergy, reference the use of the Latin alphabet to write in indigenous languages. In her article, “Calígrafos y Tipógrafos indígenas en la Nueva España,” Garone Gravier contends that all of these accounts discuss how the alphabetic system transformed indigenous communication along western standards, opening new modes of expression. In New Spain, indigenous participation in book production was manifest not only by their labor as informants, translators, and correctors of Spanish missionaries' works, but also by their participation in the visual design and material production of colonial manuscripts and printed books. Garone Gravier analyzes the role played by calligraphers and typographers in using the Latin alphabetical model to create indigenous written records within religious and administrative contexts. She begins by providing a brief description of calligraphic and typographic training received by Mexican indigenous peoples in the sixteenth century. She then provides a series of examples of manuscripts and printed books incorporating indigenous languages written with the Latin alphabet that indigenous printers helped print at the Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. And lastly, Garone Gravier presents a brief summary of the indigenous language lexicons, dictionaries, and vocabulary guides printed throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Mexico.
This work helps us to better understand the role of indigenous calligraphers and typographers in coordinating the visual design and material production of colonial manuscripts and printed books. It also sheds light on their role in the creation of indigenous language lexicons based on the Latin alphabet. Garone Gravier’s research contributes to scholarship about the integration of print culture within colonial society and the hybrid, multicultural space where an indigenous writing tradition was developed. For my attempts to situate the discipline of Book History within the historical context of colonial Spanish America, Garone Gravier provides a much needed foundation in the involvement of Amerindians in developing written representations of their native languages using Western language constructs. Their direct involvement paradoxically both preserved and distorted their own linguistic sovereignty when confronted on a daily basis by the imposition of Spanish colonial rule.
