The Voice of the Brain: Humors and Wit in Diego Dávalos y Figueroa’s Miscelánea Austral (1602)

Abstract This article studies the importance of voice in the Miscelánea Austral (1602) written by the Spanish encomendero Diego Dávalos y Figueroa. Considering Davalo’s intellectual milieu, i.e. the so called Academia Antártica in Lima, it examines the connections between the debates on the nature of the indios and the circulation of medical, literary and philosophical knowledge. After discussing the roles of gestures, pronunciation, and etymologies in the treatise, it is suggested that Dávalos utilized humoral theory learned from Francisco de Figueroa to propose a modification of the presumed phlegmatic inclination of the indios without altering the encomienda system. In doing so, Dávalos y Figueroa’s idea of orality would show a particular use of European knowledge in order to establish an intellectual normativity at the beginning of XVIIth century colonial Peru.