#christopher fletcher

“The Grumpy Turtle”

by Christopher Fletcher (Australia).

“This photo was taken on a dive in Moalboal, Philippines. There were turtles everywhere! However, this one caught my eye as he was perched on a coral outcrop catching up on some sleep. When I turned on the dive lights, he raised his head as if to say, “How dare you interrupt my sleep?” The look was priceless. Once I captured the shot and turned off the lights, his head drooped as he went back to dreaming whatever turtles do….”

Thought, speech, and deed can lead to good or ill, as Diego Valadés illustrates here in The Rhetorica Christiana (1579), an illustrated manual for colonial missionaries to the Americas. As the title suggests, the text focuses on rhetorical strategy, but it includes the content of that rhetoric as well, like the nature of the battle for salvation or damnation.

Valadés, Diego, Rhetorica christiana ad concionandi et orandi vsvm accommodata,vtrivsque facvltatis exemplis svo loco insertis; qvae qvidem ex Indorvm maximè deprompta svnt historiis. Vnde praeter doctrinam, svm̃a qvoqve delectatio comparabitvr, Perugia, 1576, p 216. [Wing ZP 535 .P447]

Because it so dramatically illustrates the conflicts central to themes of religious upheaval, it is also the source for illustrations in the Religious Change, 1450-1700 logo! To explore more about the book, you can see the full text at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/rhetoricachristi00vala 

Broadly speaking, this page of illustration is talking about sin and its prevention, specifically idolatry, which is how Valadés understood indigenous peoples and their religious practices. Within colonial contexts, Valadés viewed invoking and sacrificing to non-Christian deities as the root of spiritual danger, inimical to salvation. The images are a “genealogical tree” that dissects different facets of this particular sin. To breakdown that tree, starting with the top of the image:

1) Valadés claimed in his text that sacrificing to demons, as this first image illustrates, is “the cause of all of their evils”, which is signified by the snakes coming out of the central figure’s head.

Then he turns to the branches:

2) This illustration represents speaking at the right time and place: when anyone speaks at an inopportune time, inappropriate place, or in a way that is not appropriate for the audience, their words tumble out as snakes and other “pestilential creatures,” to the destruction of themselves and others

3) Speaking falsehoods directly harms oneself and others in this image, where we see more of the pestilential creatures. Guardian angels can guard against serpentine lies, either by grounding us in authority so we actively reject the lies (shown by the listener grabbing the snake) or by stopping up our ears so that we can’t hear them.

4) This panel shows ways of guarding against falsehood: those who “gather in God’s name” are protected from harmful speech as if they were in an invincible fortress or as if they had guardian angels, who force demons to keep a safe distance away.

5) From right to left in this image, we see sin in youth to old age: when people are young and naïve they do sinful things and don’t know any better, so it’s like playing with a dog (wild ones, more risky than a retriever!). As one ages, the same behaviors become more menacing: instead of dogs one plays with demons.

6) The final illustration of sin refers to the three levels of suggestion, consent, delight, and the corresponding three ways we commit it, in heart, deed, and habit. Here rocks represent sins as literal burdens, and the figures must battle with sins by doing penance to try to gain salvation.

Finally, Valadés illustrates his point, that the consequences of this are:

7) Hell.

In all, this is in a treatise on rhetoric for teaching missionaries what they need to do in order to convert indigenous people, including understanding the nature of sin and its spiritual consequences. But the illustrations also function as a visual (and terrifying!) teaching aid. This illustration of the good and evil forces battling over souls helps explain what the audience is doing wrong, why it is wrong, and to instill the kind of fear (what will happen if they keep doing it and how they might avoid that unsavory fate) that will convince them to stop.

The text is both a way to train preachers and a resource for them to show their charges the nature of the battle over their souls.

Diagnostic Histopathology of Tumors.

Plymouth Philharmonic Choir – The Big Sing

Plymouth Philharmonic Choir press officer writes: ‘Raise the Roof!’  No, not the City’s latest construction project, but an invitation from Plymouth Philharmonic Choir to join them on Saturday May 16 at their ‘Big Sing’ event, which is being held as part of their 50th Anniversary celebrations

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Plymouth Philharmonic Choir – Congratulations and Celebrations

Plymouth Philharmonic Choir (PPC) has just made the following exciting announcement:

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