“LA BARBARIDAD NO ES TANTA”

Etnografia e Discursos de Racialização dos "Tártaros" pelo Jesuíta Martino Martini (1655)

Abstract

The present article consists of a discussion on racialization discourses of the “Tartars” in the 17th century based on the Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655), an atlas of China made by Tyrolean Jesuit Martino Martini. Through an analysis of the ethnographical descriptions present in the atlas (in which habits and phenotypes of different East Asian societies are detailed), we point out the author’s attempts to minimize the barbarity and violence attributed to groups coming from Manchuria, who at that time had invaded China and established the Qing dynasty. We propose that Martini effectuates a process of racialization of the Manchus (here called “Tartars”), based on geographic, cultural and environmental criteria that demonstrate the malleability and heterogeneity intrinsic to the narratives of categorization of human populations before the emergence of the “modern” idea of race.