But on a walking tour of Santa Catalina, my guide told me that the nuns bred cuy for their own consumption, housing them near the warm stoves in their private kitchens. On this trip I did not have the heart to sample cuy, also known as guinea pig. That gave me time to feast on Peruvian specialties for lunch like chupe de camarones - a delicious shrimp stew - or rocoto relleno - spicy red peppers stuffed with ground beef served up with a tasty side dish of potato cake. Mercifully, the Archivo Arzobispal, where I conducted the majority of my research, closed every day by 1:00 p.m. It can be exhausting plowing through complicated handwriting. 3 Some of these same remedies were also being used in convents across Europe, such as in Renaissance Florence, where there was a strong culture of nun apothecaries. I found references to coral, nitrate salt, tincture of castor, spermaceti (derived from the sperm whale), extract of palo santo ( Lignum vitae), rhubarb, melon seeds, mustard, saffron, manna, and violets. The accounting ledger from Santa Rosa in 1795 provides a fascinating snapshot of the types of items used to treat the nuns and their servants. While wading through archival documents from three convents in Arequipa, Santa Catalina, Santa Rosa, and Santa Teresa, I found convent ledgers that list many of these remedies and their costs. Religious communities not only grew some of their own healing herbs in the convent garden, but also purchased other medicines, powders, stones, syrups, and unguents from local pharmacies and suppliers. Most nunneries kept an ample stock of herbal and medicinal supplies. Although many convents employed male doctors, surgeons, and blood-letters to attend to chronic and acute illnesses such as breast cancer, they mostly relied on their own trained nurses and servant class to tend to patients on a daily basis. 1 Well-run infirmaries, staffed by nurses and servants of indigenous and African descent, provided sick patients with diets rich in proteins and the comfort of prayer and companionship. Some of the best health care in colonial Latin America was found in female convents. One can walk the streets of the convent, visit the reconstructed cells of nuns, peruse the large collection of religious art, and, from a rooftop balcony, admire the snow-covered volcano of El Misti. It covers several city blocks and is open to tourists for a nominal fee. The Dominican convent of Santa Catalina de Sena, founded in 1579, still houses cloistered nuns, but a large portion of the convent serves as a museum. I’ve always wanted to visit Arequipa especially because it holds one of the largest convents from the Viceroyalty of Peru (an enormous political jurisdiction run by Spain during the colonial period, covering most of South America west of Brazil). I love to combine archival research with convent tourism. I was not disappointed because not only did I find a bundle of fascinating documents, but I also got to ramble the colonial streets as a tourist. I went in search of fodder for my new research project on health and healing in colonial Latin American convents. Last May I had the opportunity to conduct archival research in Arequipa, Peru.
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