Corpus delicti: The body as a clue in a 16th century murder

Abstract

This paper analyzes the criminal process on the death of Juana, an indian of Acatepec – current state of Guerrero in Mexico –, who was found hanged on August 16, 1548. On the one hand, its objective is to show the application at this period of an indexical method for the resolution of homicide in which the body occupied an essential place. In other words, this paper seeks to establish some analogies of these past deaths with current violence. In other words, this work focuses on the history of a type of "language" and communication that is supported by the body and its environment. On the other hand, and in a more tangential way, it seeks to show the resonance of these past deaths and, above all, of methods of their decipherment in actual deaths. Thus, it is shown that the semiotic reading of dismembered bodies of contemporary violence is nothing but the persistence of an old epistemology.