Abstract: In the 16th century, “Cemilhuitlapohualtepoztli” meant “clock” to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. This neologism was shaped by themselves through three words from the Nahual language: “cemilhui” (the passing of a day); “tlapoaliztli” (to count); and “tepoztli” (bell or iron). This linguistic evidence, in conjunction with other documents found in Spanish and Latin American archives, unfolds that autochthonous people came into early contact with these mechanisms and promptly assimilated quantified time. Historiography has neither recorded the presence of indigenous clockmakers in the New World, nor has it explored the relationship they had with European schedules after their contact with the Spaniards. Over and above exposing the cases of some indigenous clockmakers, this paper intends to go beyond the general comments that focus on the imposing role played by the Catholic Church with its canonical hours, to unveil that the appropriation by the indigenous peoples of a more accurate and quantified time took place in the offices of the colonial administration and not in the churches and parishes. This type of time, numerical, synthetic and to some extent secularized, allowed the inhabitants of the Old and New World to synchronize with each other, beyond their ethnic and linguistic differences. This research on the expansion of clocks to the New World seeks to propose the genesis of a time that today is exhibited to us as universal through the clock, which does not signify that other ways of measuring time or of perceiving it have been eliminated, but quite the contrary: from the 16th century onwards, quantified time and schedules allowed that a steadily growing number of individuals were able to coordinate themselves despite the different rhythms and temporalities.

Recent publications by Ricardo Uribe:

2022. “El calendario gregoriano en el Nuevo Mundo: historia global, cultura escrita, tiempo universal”, Nuevo Mundo, Mundos Nuevos.

2021. El arte del reloj en las manos del lector. Impresos de relojería mecánica en el mundo hispánico del siglo XVIII. Oviedo, Spain: Universidad de Oviedo).

2019. “Los extraños hombres de segundos. Medición y percepción de las fracciones del minuto por parte de los ilustrados neogranadinos”, Llull: Revista de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas, 42, 86: 121-143.