Adorno Examines the Emergence of Mythology

Jolene Patrina

Professor Rolena Adorno, Sterling Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, came to Colgate on Wednesday, February 22, as the visiting scholar for the Phi Beta Kappa academic honors society. Adorno specializes in sixteenth and seventeenth century American history and culture, and focused on the colonial genealogy of Latin America for her lecture. Adorno’s lecture, titled “Gonzalo Guerrero: Hearsay and History in Myth-Making about Colonial Latin America,” addressed how small pieces of history can become elaborated myths and reinvented history. She emphasized the difficulties in tracing history and distinguishing truth from fiction when these myths emerge, as well as the real impacts the myths can have on societies. Adorno used the case of Gonzalo Guerrero, a shipwrecked Spaniard who presumably adapted a Mayan way of life while stranded in Yucatán for nearly a decade, to demonstrate the origins and power of the myth.

Adorno described the three requirements that allow myth-making to occur: lack of historical knowledge on an event or person which creates a demand for historical explanations, the passage of time which allows reinvention of history and tales and, finally, the lack of details which enables elaboration. 

Adorno then explained her research on the tale of Gonzalo Guerrero, showing how this myth corresponds to her myth-making formula. In 1511, a shipwreck left Spanish sailors on the island of Yucatán. In 1519, Hernán Cortés, a voyager of the New World, found one of these survivors, but never mentioned Guerrero in his report at the time. In 1522, Cortés still never mentioned Guerrero in his letters, therefore no documentation was presented on the shipwrecked man. Finally in 1534, fifteen years after his original arrival to Yucatán, Cortés mentioned Guerrero in a testimony of his ventures in America, describing Guerrero as he remembered him in 1519: he was painted, had his ears pierced, thought his name was “Morales” and had an Indian wife and kids and therefore did not want to return to Spain. 

Adorno explained that, from this one sentence, people hooked onto the idea of a Spanish man completely assimilating to another way of life. She described how this thought was “delicious and scary” to anyone who heard about it, thus creating a multi-century myth in which each new narrative added more detail and became richer. 

These early manifestations highlighted the possibility of cultural adaptations of humans, and the failure of Spanish conquest over Yucatán, thus creating rippling effects throughout Spanish thought. The next generation of writers on Guerrero were the mestizo, the children of Spanish and Mayas, who included the notion that Guerrero had a good domestic life with his family.

Jumping a few centuries, the myth lived through Washington Irving, an American writer who composed the popular history of Christopher Columbus in 1828, thus taking up the characters of the Yucatán voyage as well. Irving emphasized Guerrero as a warrior and wildly romanticized his life. In the 1970s, a statue of Guerrero and his family in a loving and happy state was erected within Yucatán. In the 80s, Tzvetan Todorov, a Bulgarian-French historian, wrote of Guerrero and his unconditional assimilation to Mayan society, language and culture. 

In the 90s, Fernando Savater, a Spanish philosopher, wrote of Guerrero and emphasized the idea of escaping our society and adopting another. All of these additions to and interpretations of the myth of Gonzalo Guerrero started from Cortés’ one sentence, minimally describing Guerrero based on a memory from 15 years prior to his testimony. Adorno explained that this myth was able to flourish precisely because of the obscurity of the information and the desire to create a history around this figure.

First-year Matt Murphy offered his opinion on the lecture. 

“[Adorno’s lecture] was entertaining and informative, and emphasized the importance and impact of myths over time,” Murphy said. 

Sophomore Becky Gowen similarly reflected on the longevity

of mythology. 

“It was interesting that so many myths were created from such a small quote and piece of history; so much could come from so little,” Gowen said.