Eating Like an Indian: Negotiating Social Relations in the Spanish Colonies.

Food and eating were important aspects of the negotiation of social relationships and power in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. A comparison of archaeological assemblages in Spanish households in sites in Florida, the Caribbean, and the Andes reveals a variety of patterns of incorporation of indigenous pottery, especially serving vessels, into the daily lives of the colonizers. Archaeological patterns in several Spanish houses in Mexico City, combined with historical documents, reveal that patterns of incorporation of indigenous pottery, food, and eating practices varied also at a local level from household to household. Focusing on pottery and food remains in these archaeological assemblages, I argue that in spite of moral judgments against Spaniards for "eating like an Indian," some colonizers ate with Indians and incorporated indigenous food and pottery to negotiate social relationships with indigenous elites. These relationships provided the Spaniards with material rewards and served to negotiate power. This model challenges the common assumption that the Spaniards generally used cultural separatism as a strategy for obtaining power and demonstrates the roles of material culture in the negotiation of power between Spaniards and Indians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]