HIS108 - Andean Worlds

Dr.
Marco Curatola Petrocchi

HIS108 - 307
ANDRIEN, Kenneth
2001 Andean worlds: indigenous history, culture, and consciousness under Spanish rule, 1532 1825. Alburquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press. Pp. 103 - 152; pp. 153 - 191.
102
or religious payments.
such as purchasing livestock or making tax
exchange in a marke
Quite apart (rom their value as a means of
nings to the Lym1
economy, coins also have ritual mea
or the local mmes:
associated with the fertility of people. herds.
between the Laym1
Coins also have come to symbolize the pact
ents have bee
and the Solivian state. because cash paym
short, the Laym1
In
.
required since the colonial period far taxes
but traditional
,
accept the realities of the market economy
.
ange lmger. The
cultural attitudes about economic exch
colonial era were
socioeconomic changes imposed during the
l Andean cultural
tiona
tradi
certainly pervasive and real. but more
attitudes persist even to the present day. 25
5
ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY
UNDER COLONIAL RULE
BY HIS OWN ACCOUNT. in the year 1615 an aged Andean named

Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala began a long overland trek from
his native province of Lucanas in the central Andes to the Spanish
viceregal capital of Lima, accompanied only by his young son, a
horse, and two dogs (see figure 4). Despite his humble
appearance, Guarnan Poma represented an emerging class of
bicultural Andeans, called indios ladinos, who knew both Castilian
and their indigenous torrgue, and he carried in his possession a
massive manuscript (1,189 pages with 398 illustrations) that he
had personally written over a period of thirty years. entitled El
primer nueva cornica y buen gobierno. This impressive tome. written in
a mixture of Castilian and his native Quechua, detailed life befare
and after the foundation of Tawantinsuyu, along with the abuses
visited upan native Andeans by their Spanish overlords since
1532. The intended audience far the text was none other than
King Philip III. Upan finishing his opus, Guarnan Poma was nearly
eighty, impoverished, and scorned by colonial authorities. yet he
bolstered his right to speak far the Andean peoples by claiming
103
f 04
CHAPTER FIVE
the status of an indigenous prince. having descended on his

father's side from the Yarovilca dynasty of Hunuco, which
predated Tawantinsuyu, and on his mother's from the Inca royal
family. Beset by robbers, vagabonds. low-bom indigenous ne'er
do-wells, and a host of rapacious Spanish officials and priests on
the road to Lima. Guarnan Poma still managed to reach the
capital and arrange for his precious manuscript to be sent to
Madrid. Although it is unlikely that King Philip ever read El primer
nueva cor6nica y buen gobierno, the work remains an outstanding
artifact of the hybrid colonial culture that had emerged in the
Andes by the early seventeenth century.
Guarnan Poma's achievement in writing El primer nueva cor6nica
y buen gobierno is ali the more impressive because the Andean
peoples had no alphabetic writing befare the European invasion.
As a result, Spanish friars entrusted with converting the Andeans
to Catholicism had to learn the principal indigenous languages
and translate them into European alphabetic script. The
complexity of this task delayed until 1 560 the appearance of the
first Quechua-Castilian dictionary by Fray Domingo de Santo
Toms. More complete versions of Quechua and Aymara diction
aries and grammars carne only in the early seventeenth century,
roughly contemporaneous with the publication of Guarnan Poma's
work. At the same time, European missionaries opened schools to
teach Andeans Castilian, the most common language in Spain.
Both of these enterprises ultimately made possible the production
of literary texts written in that language and in indigenous tangues,
such as El primer nueva cor6nica y buen gobierno. About the time that
Guarnan Poma finished his opus. the Andean author Juan de Santa
Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua already had written his
Relaci6n de las antigedades deste reyno del Pir, and the mestizo author.
El Inca Garcilaso de la Vga, also had produced the first segment
of his famous history, Comentarios reales de los Inca y historia general del
Per. Meanwhile. the Spanish priest, Francisco de Avila, had
compiled a series of religious traditions, written entirely in
Quechua, known as Ritos y tradiciones de Huarochir. By this time other
indigenous forms of artistic representation (such as painting,
ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE
CAMllllAELAVTOR
Fig. 4. Tfte autftor, Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala, on tfte

road to Lima. (Guarnan Poma, Nueva cor6nica, 1095, 1105)
105
i 06

CHAPTER FlVE
with Spanish rnodes

textiles, cerarnics, and wood carving) rnerged
culture that was
nial
of expression, leading to a distinctive colo
nteenth century
neithet-entirely European nor Andean. By the seve
re; instead the
European rule had not destroyed ndigenous cultu
ually entangled,"
European and Andean cultures becarne "rnut
ure. European
mixt
ing
producing a cornplex and constantly evolv
but as time
res,
cultural forrns rnay have dorninated in rnost sphe
d an interweav
progressed colonial artistic production represente 1
an.
ing and integration of the Spanish and the Ande
re and society
cultu
s
Any effort to address how indigenou
a wide array of
on
changed under colonial dornination rnust rely
ed in previous
sources, rnost quite different frorn those utiliz
to consider written
chapters. Here, the rnethod of analysis shifts
"texts." Analyzing
docurnents, paintings, and other artifacts as
records, textiles,
va!
these cultural productions-chronicles, archi
inate Andean
cerarnics, ritual objects, and paintings-can illurn
rnerging it with
efforts to understand and reinterpret their past,
e around thern.
their views about the colonial society taking shap
changing patterns
These varied cultural representations reflected
history, law, and
n.
of language and literacy, artistic productio
provide valuable
concepts of geographical space. which ali
s identities in the
insights into the construction of indigenou
Andes over time.
Literacy and Numeracy in the Andean World

The cultural rarnifications of irnposing both European-style
alphabetic writing and the Castilian language have provoked
considerable debate frorn the sixteenth century to the present.
Sorne rnodem scholars have viewed the expansion of alphabetic
literacy frorn Europe to parts of the world where it did not exist.
such as the Andes. as a positive or even as a "civilzing" process.
Frorn this perspectlve literacy was a "tool" that allowed the
Andean peoples to benefit frorn translating their own thoughts
and words into signs or alphabetic syrnbols that could be read
nd understood by ali. According to this viewpoint, alphabetic

hteracy was rnerely a useful "technology of the intellect."2 The
ompilers of the Huarochir rnanuscript presented literacy-ln this
light. seeing writing as a new way to preserve the past. As it was
expressed at the beginning of the manuscript: "If the ancestors of
the people now called Indians had known writing in earlier times
then the lives they lived would not have faded frorn view unti
now. As the mighty past of the Spanish Viracochas is visibl until
now, so too would theirs be."3 Seen in this light. writing provided
the power to transform thoughts and ideas into permanent,
understandable syrnbols, capable of linking the past to the
present.
Since the sixteenth century many other scholars have
connected the introduction of alphabetic literacy with colonial
domination and Andean cultural subservience. From this perspec
tive, literacy and language depended on deeply ernbedded societal
beliefs and institutions.4 Teaching Andeans to spell was not rnerely
transmitting a "technology of the intellect," but enforcing alien
methods of belief, understanding, and learning that had little to
do with indigenous cultural experiences. The early Spanish friars
certainly viewed literacy in this way, as a vehicle for evangelization
and spreading European culture. One modern scholar has even
termed the expansion of alphabetic writing as the "darker side of
the Renaissance," enforcing a "colonization of language, of
memory, and of (geographical) space."5
Other specialists then and now have taken stands sornewhere
between these two positions. They tend to link the expansion of
European languages. law, and religious beliefs more than
alphabetic writing with the colonial subjugation of the Andean
peoples.6 Regardless of whether alphabetic literacy produced
cultural subservience or represented a mere "technology of the
intellect," it dearly forrned part of a sequence of cultural changes
that had a profound long-terrn rnpact on the Andean peoples
between 1532 and 1825.
The sixteenth-century expansion of Spain into the Andes
coincided with efforts in the late Middle Ages and early
! 07
108
CHAPTER FIVE
Renaissance to codify Castilian grammar, voc abulary, and

orthography, and to privileg e the us e of alphabetic writing over
oral traditions. Just as Spain ente red its period of glo I
o d e Nebn_ a
expansio n in 1492. th e humanist Elio Antoni
published his grammar of Castilian. fallow ed in 1517 by hrs
orthography, which both linked the invention of the_ alpha_bet and
language with the consolidation of a Christian emprre ruhng or
less "civilized" peoples. The ideas of scholars such as Nebna
provided the rationale far teaching Castilian to the indi_genous
peoples. and they also laid the faundation far allowmg the
grammar to
colonizers to use the Latn alphabet and Castilian
s.
e
transfarm Andean tangues into written languag
D espite the ideas of Castilian humanists about th importace
of language and writing as c ivilizing tools. the f1 rst Spanish
invaders of the Andean world had no such grandios e ideas. Most
were unlett ered or only functionally literat e m en themselves. and
thei r imm ediat e goal involv e d simply communicating with
Andean peoples. The most p ragmatic solution was to rely on
indigenous interpr eters (called lenguas). who were fluent in both
castilian and Andean languages. The most famot.s of these early
lenguas was Felipillo. apparently a coastal Amerindia (and tus
not a native Quechua speaker) captured in an earher Spanish
invasion of south Am eric a. V{ho a ccompanied the Pizarra
exp edition from Cajamarca to Cusca. Neverthe l e ss, th e
limitations and potential dangers of using interpr et ers such as
Felipillo. particularly far the friars intent on converting the
Andeans, soon b ecame obvious. As this letter from 1542 (only a
decade alter the initial Spanish invasion) warned:
The interpreters in this land are native Indians who know
something of the Castilian language.... It should be made
known that in certain important situations when it is
against the interests of the Spanish, and as these Indians
are tacking in any moral consdence, they 'say what they
please or what they have been told to say, and it may be in
their own interest or because they have been frightened
into doing so, and thus, in matters of importance, the

truth will not be known as it should be ... 1
By the early l 540s. th e invad ers und erstood that governing th e
Andes and the process of religious conversion required both the
spread of Castilian among th e indigenous peopl es and that sorn e
priests and colonial officials learn indigenous tangues. Both tasks
involved teaching alphabetic writing in Andean soci eties.
Indig enous civilizations in the Americas could communi cat e
sp ecific. concrete. and abstract ideas in a manner that res embl ed
European writing syst ems. but they <lid so in very different ways.
In M esoam erica, the Nahuas and th e Maya had d evelop ed
advanced typ es of pictoral and even sorn e farms of phonetic
writing, so that transferring their languages into Europ ean script
carn e relatively quickly and easily. Within the first generation.
AmeriJ;1dian scribes produced texts in th eir native tangues and in
Castilian, a practice that continued throughout the colonial era. In
the Andes the situation was much more complex, and Europ ean
alphabetic symbols proved more al en and difficult to learn.
In Tawantinsuyu the only analog to Europ ean written symbols
was the quipu, a system of knotted cords arranged to pres ent
ideas. Ouipus communicated m eaning through th e color. texture.
size. farm. and arrangement of the knotted cords. but th ey w ere
not an attempt to reproduce phonetic sounds as in European
script. Instead. they imparted num erical infarmation and sorn e
basic narrativ e id eas much as math ematical symbols or
international road signs do (such as the common red, octagonal
"stop" sign). without using any farm of alphabetic symbols.
Interpreters of the quipus, known as quipucamayocs. d eciphered
this infarmaUon both by touching and looking at th e knott ed
cords. They could communicate this infarmation to int er ested
parties. much as literate Europ ean scribes <lid (s ee figure 5) . As
Jos de Acosta-one of the most important early Jesuit scholars
responsibl e far creating th e first OuechuaAymaraCastilian
s ermons. and oth er doctrinal mat erials
c at echisms.
comm ented:
109
1 10
CHAPTER FIVE
ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE
The Indians of Peru. before the Spaniards carne. had no

sort of writing, not Ietters nor characters nor ciphers nor
figures. like those of China or Mexico; but in spite of this
they conserved no less the memory of ancient !ore. nor did
they have any less account of ali their affairs of peace, war
and government.s
Like most Mesoamerican writing systems. quipus were not tied
to a phonetic reproduction of sounds in any single language or
dialect. which was particularly advantageous in regions with a
multiplicity of different languages. Whereas a Frenchman could
not necessarily understand a document written in English (if he
was not conversant in the language). a Mexican pictogram or an
Andean quipu could be understood by an indigenous "reader" of
the text. independent of any system of phonetic signs associated
with a specific language or dialect. Nevertheless. as a system of
communication quipus differed in fundamental ways from
European writing, and so the tradition of indigenous scribes using
alphabetic script to write in Quechua. Aymara. Uru. or any of the
plethora of Andean tangues never became common as in
Mesoamerica.
According to Spanish chroniclers. quipus were used primarily
as mnemonic devices to record and communicate numerical
information. Ouipucamayocs could use the knotted cords arranged
on a quipu to add, subtract, multiply, and divide quantitative infor
mation. The tribute assessments of Tawantinsuyu, for example,
were recorded on quipus. Since taxes were levied in labor, the
numbers of workers assigned to perform state service could be
registered on quipus in decimal units of 10. 20, 50, 100. and so on.
These groupings and the tasks assigned were encoded in the
arrangement. color. texture, and size of the knots for each kinship
group and moiety. Such quipus were also used by Inca authorities
to record the amounts of corn. potatoes. freeze-dried meat, and
maize beer (chicha) kept in storehouses along the network of Inca
roadways. Likewise, quipus recorded calendrical information,
listing the number of days and months in their various lunar or

o
o
Fig. 5. A quipucarnayoc. (Guarnan

Poma, Nueva cornica, 360, 362)
J 12
CHAPTER FIVE
solar cyde. The Inca used different calendars to organize time for
religious rituals and public affairs. and each of them would have
been recorded on quipus. Moreover. quipus were not merely
"legible" or understandable to the original maker of the arranged
cords, but to any local official trained in interpreting them.9
In early legal disputes over taxes and labor services. Spanish
authorities often relied on quipus and the interpretations of
quipucamayocs. Spanish officials understood that quipus
recorded the past. law. ritual. business matters. and to a limited
degree, written information in much the same way as alphabetic
writing. As Jos de Acosta stated:
And In every bundle of these, so many greater and lesser
knots, and tied strings; sorne red, others green. others blue.
others white, in short. as many differences as we have wlth
our twenty-four letters. arranging them in different ways to
draw forth an infinity of words: so did they with their knots
and colors. draw forth innumerable meanings of things.10
Jn 1578. for example. in a court case in La Plata (present-day
Sucre) in Upper Peru (Bolivia). a dispute over tribute assessments
between a local encomendero and the Andean community of
Sacaca led the judges to summon local quipucamayocs for
testimony. By feeling the knotted cords and using sorne stones
(apparently to determine exact quantities). the quipucamayocs
verified the types of items required and the amount of laborers
assigned to make them (see figure 5). In this way the quipus
communicated both nouns (the items) and their quantities. Sin ce
the required tasks demanded different labor assignments,
however. these quipus may even have encoded a number of
different verbs, indicating the various types of labor service being
performed (i.e.. to make. to take, to guard. to plant. to carry.
etc.). 11 While this does not necessarily make the quipu a formal
system of writing. the knotted cords probably served sorne of the
same purposes, even if they could not relate complex narratives
or abstract thoughts about particular events and ideas.
Despite their importance early in the colonial period, Spanish

authorities became suspicious and later hostile to evidence
drawn from quipus. The information contained in quipus was only
decipherable by an Andean quipucamayoc. and it could not be
independently verified by European scribes. Clerical authorities
also feared that the mysterious quipus represented a link with
Andean religious beliefs and hence idolatry, particularly after the
I 560s, when the millenarian Taqui Onqoy movement emerged in
the central Andes.12 After the Third Lima Church Council in 1582.
colonial authorities began systematically destroying quipus and
ignoring the evidence presented by quipucamayocs. These early
concems continued into the next century, prompting the famous
seventeenth-century jurist. Juan de Solrzano y Pereyra, to
complain:
I would not venture to give any or such great falth and
authority to the quipos sic!. because I have heard lt said
... that the manner of making and explaining them is very
uncertain. deceitful and convoluted; and furthermore. 1 do
not know how it can be afflrmed that the quipo-keepers are
selected with the authority of the general public for this
post. . . When ali is said and done, they are Indians.
whose faith vacillates. and thus also, they will equivocate
in the explication they give of their quipos.13
In essence. the quipu represented a forro of communication
that was too exotic and unintelligible to Spanish settlers of the
Andes, so these devices had to be discredited and later destroyed.
Spaniards could not invest the power of record keeping solely to
native leaders and quipucamayoc. and besides. they judged the
knotted cords much inferior to European alphabetic writing.
Although in Solrzano's lifetime Andeans still used sorne simple
quipus. this important indigenous forro of communication had
largely given way to alphabetic writing in Castilian. and to a lesser
extent. in the principal indigenous languages. Quechua and
Aymara.
J J3
1 14
CHAPTER FIVE
Language, Writing, and the New Colonial Order

After rejecting the use of quipu, Spanish authorities relied
exclusively on alphabetic writing in establishing a stable colonial
political and religious order. Roman Catholicism and Castilian
law were the twin pillars of the colonial regime in the Andes and
both depended fundamentally on alphabetic writing. Christianity
was a religion based on a book. the Bible, and without the spread
of literacy among the Andeans. even this canonical Christian text
had little practica! value in everyday religious rituals. Moreover.
Castilian Iaw was codified in written statues. which the Andeans
had to Iearn and obey for the stability of the colonial regime. As
a result. the Crown ordered that schools be established for
Andeans so that they could learn "Christianity, decent morals.
good government. and the Castilian language." 14
Since the promulgation of the Laws of Burgos (1512-13). the
Crown demanded that encomenderos teach their charges to read
and write Castilian. This program was later amended by King
Charles I in 1535, when he transferred this responsibility to the
regular clergy. The "Statutes Concerning the New Discoveries and
Settlements in 1563" well summarized the aims of this
educational impulse:
Teach them good manners; have them dress and wear
shoes and !et them have many other good thlngs
heretofore prohibited to them. Take away their burdens
and servitude; give them the use of bread, wlne, oil. and
other foodstuffs. cloth. silk. linen, horses. cattle, tools.
arms and ali the rest that Spain has had; and teach them
the arts and trades by which they may live honestiy, and
that ali of these things may be enjoyed by those who come
to the knowiedge of our holy Catholic faith and to Our
obedience.15
These sentiments were echoed in the royal instructions given

to Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in 1569, who implemented this
royal mandate by ordering the foundation of schools to instruct

the indigenous peoples, beginning with their hereditary Ieaders.
the kurakas. By 1594, the Crown and the clergy had even issued a
set of formal instructions for teachers in indigenous schools.
directing them to provide a broad religious, social. and academic
program for their students. Decrees ordering the spread of
primary schools throughout the Andes continued even into the
late eighteenth century, indicating that the task of spreading
literacy was far from complete in the late colonial period. 16 The
principal dilemma, however. was how to provide effective
instruction for Andeans, given the many indigenous Ianguages
spoken by different ethnic groups living in the former
Tawantinsuyu.
From the early writings of Elio Antonio de Nebrija, many
Spanish intellectuals and policymakers favored teaching Castilian
as the standard language for the entire empire, arguing that
language, religion, and civilization were deeply intertwined. Given
the practica! difficulties of converting people and conducting
public business in a multiethnic empire with so many different
Andean languages, successive monarchs encouraged school
instruction in Castilian. In the indigenous Colegio de San Andrs
in Guito, for example, teachers taught Andean students in
Castilian for two reasons: first. because the indigenous peoples
spoke sorne twenty different languages within forty Ieagues of the
city, and second, to train a generation of indigenous interpreters
who could then spread European religious and cultural
principies. A royal edict in 1605 explained additional compelling
reasons for using Castilian in indigenous schools:
Because it has been stated that in the best and most
perfect language of the lndians it is nct possible to explaln
well or properly the myster!es of the Faith. but only with
much difficulty and imperfection. and that even though
chairs have been established where the priests who
indoctrinate the lndians have been taught. this is not a
sufficient remedy because of the great var!ety of tangues;
115

\ !
CHAPTER FIVE
but since it would be more common and practica! to

introduce Castilian, I order you that you should, in the
best way possible and with the least trouble to the Indians
and without cost to them, provide teachers for those who
voluntarily wish to !eam the Castilian language ... 17
Sorne colonial authorities even felt that maintaining indige
nous languages and cultural traditions would allow Andeans to
hatch conspiracies against the Crown and even persist in the
heretical religious beliefs.
To encourage the spread of Castilian and Reman Catholic
doctrine, the Crown. clergy, and local colonial authorities focused
their initial educational efforts on Andean leaders, the kurakas. At
the request of the first bishop of Cusco, Fray Vicente de Valverde.
colonial authorities founded a school to educate Andean lords
and their male offspring in l 535. Only five years later, the Crown
also enjoined local officials to found similar schools in every
major town or village. King Philip II issued two additional edicts
to implement this program: in l 576 he gave the task of instruction
in the academies for kurakas to the Jesuits, and in l 578 he
ordered that funds from vacant encomiendas be set aside to
support the effort. 18 Two of the most famous and long-lasting of
these schools for indigenous leaders were the Priest's Academy in
the indigenous sector (cercado) of Lima founded in 1616, and the
Academy of San Francisco de Borja, established in Cusco in 1621.
The Jesuits operated both schools. and although sorne of the
faculty were fluent in indigenous tongues, Castilian remained the
primary language of instruction.
The religious orders and the secular clergy apparently served
as the principal force behind founding schools for Andean
kurakas and even for commoners throughout the Andes by the
seventeenth century. The numbers of schools, the clientele
admitted, and the quality of instruction undoubtedly varied. In
the Audiencia of Quito, for example, the Mercedarians,
Augustinians. and Jesuits operated schools scattered throughout
the district, while local secular clergy supplemented these efforts
by providing sorne rudimentary instruction in local parishes.

Details about the quality and extent of such educational efforts
remain sketchy, but by the early seventeenth century these
schools apparently served as an important vehicle for spreading
alphabetic literacy in Castilian among Andeans.
While the Crown vacillated about promoting indigenous
literacy in Castilian, many regular clergy favored following the
dictates of the Council of Trent ( 1545-63). which called for
utilzing indigenous languages to spread the faith. The incredible
linguistic diversity of the Andes, however. seriously complicated
this task. According to Jos de Acosta, there were over seven
hundred languages spoken in the former Inca domains, and sorne
eyewitnesses argued that "every village and every valley has its
own language." 19 The expansion of Tawantinsuyu did encourage
Quechua as the principal administrative language in the empire,
but there is no real evidence that it became widely spoken in
everyday life before l 532. Faced with this plethora of tongues,
members of the regular clergy decided to focus their energies on
learning Quechua and Aymara, a major language of the highland
peoples in Upper Peru, particularly around Lake Titicaca. To this
end, the Dominican, Fray Domingo de Santo Toms (a strong
advocate of indigenous rights and a collaborator of the legendary
Fray Bartolom de Las Casas). compiled the first Quechua
Castilian dictionary in 1560. In addition, during the Third
Provincial Council of Lima ( 1581-83) clerical authorities
published the first standard catechisms. confessionals. and
sermons in Quechua and Aymara.
Another problem in establishng Quechua and Aymara as
standard languages in the Andes was the difficulty in converting
them to the phonetic Latin alphabet. The Crown ordered the
establishment of university professorships in the sixteenth
century both to teach indigenous languages and to begn turnng
them nto alphabetc languages. While the first dictionary of
Domingo de Santo Toms clearly advanced this process. it was
not until 1607-8 that the Jesut, Diego Gonzlez Holgufn,
published his more complete. standard Quechua grammar and
1 17
118
CHAPTER F[VE
Quechua-Castilian dictionary. This was followed in 1612 by a

similar grammar and dictionary for Aymara by a fellow Jesuit.
Ludovico Bertonio. Making these landmark works available to
regular and secular clergy greatly facilitated instruction and
proselytization in both languages. Indeed. the indigenous
language sermons of preachers. such as Francisco de Avila and
Fernando de Avendao, became famous in the Andes as eloquent
tools to advance the process of evangelization. Sorne modern
linguists have even argued that the process of converting
Quechua and Aymara into a more standardized phonetic alphabet
and using them as languages of religious conversion may have
been a principal force in making them so widely spoken in the
Andean world by the end of the colonial era. 20
Overall, the Crown and the church pursued two distinct
language policies in the Andes simultaneously. a strategy that
sometimes worked at cross-purposes. The Crown usually encour
aged education in Castilian, but at various times it also supported
efforts by clerics. particularly the Jesuits. to use Quechua and
Aymara in evangelizing. Such activities faciltated the conversion
of these languages into alphabetic script during the sixteenth
century, a process that was completed by the publication of the
grammars and vocabularies of Gonzlez Holgun and Bertonio in
the early seventeenth century. Utilizing Quechua and Aymara.
however. also prompted considerable criticism. The Council of the
Jndies recommended that the Crown ban any official use of both
languages in 1596, as it had outlawed Arabic in the Iberian
peninsula a generation earlier. King Philip II refused to do so, but
his successors grew increasingly skeptical about instruction in
indigenous languages. giving an added impulse to teaching
Andeans Castilian. These periodic shifts in language policy
continued throughout the colonial period, as authorities period
ically feared that preserving Andean languages ensured the
continuation of native religious heresies and even fomented
periodic rebellions. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that
the use of Quechua and Aymara never led to the creation of any
large-scale production of routine administrative documents by
indigenous officials during the colonial period, as happened in

New Spain. Instead, indigenous scribes in the Andes commonly
wrote in Castilian.
An Andean Literary Awakening

By the early seventeenth century, the spread of alphabetic writing
and Christianity in the Andes led to the production of three major
literary-historical texts-one by the mestizo author El Inca
Garcilaso de la Vega, and two by Andean writers, Juan de Santa
Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua and Felipe Guarnan Poma de
Ayala. Each in his own way sought to place the disruptions of the
early colonial era within the context of the Andean past. in an effort
to understand, explain, and better the plight of the subjugated
indigenous peoples. El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega wrote in an
elegant Castilian prose, which drew inspiration from Renaissance
humanism current in Europe. For their part, Santa Cruz Pachacuti
Yamqui and Guarnan Poma employed a mixture of Castilian.
Quechua, and pictorial representations to present their ideas.
Each of the three authors entered actively into the ongoing
intellectual and poltica! debates about the formation of a new
colonial order taking place around them. In their hands, writing
became a political act.
In his two-part opus, Comentarios reales ( 1609) y historia general del
Per (1617). El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega attempted to write an
account of the Inca past and the Spanish conquest, capable of
empowering the indigenous peoples. His father had been a
prominent Spanish conquistador and his mother an Inca princess,
which gave Garcilaso an opportunity to learn stories about the Inca
past and to experience the turbulent early conquest era. Sorne
time alter his father abandoned his indigenous partner in favor of
a European bride, Garcilaso made his way to Spain in 1560, where
he spent the remainder of his life and composed his literary works.
Whereas most European accounts of the conquest celebrated
the triumphal victory of the Christian invaders over the "pagan"
l J9

J
20
CHAPTER FIVE
Andeans. El Inca Garcilaso attempted to use his history to

reconcile both worlds. Garcilaso argued that the Incas governed
according to the dictates of natural law. venerating a single god
and imposing justice and arder in their empire. In his account of
the conquest, the Inca voluntarily submitted to the Chri.st!ans.
rather than being conquered militarily. Garcilaso used this
argument to undermine Spanish jurists who sought to justify
European rule in the Andes by right of conquest. Moreover. his
portrayal of the many misdeeds of the conquistadors and the first
viceroys (particularly Francisco de Toledo) represented a thinly
veiled criticism of Spanish colonialism. Using a variety of rhetorical
strategies to convince his European reading audience. Garcilaso
sought to demonstrate that a stable. colonial society could only
emerge from a fusion of Andean and European cultures. 21
While El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega drew on ideals of
Renaissance humanism to write his history, the indigenous
author Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua used a
mixture of Castilian. Quechua, and pictorial images to reconcile
his vision of Andean history with the conquest era. According to
his autobiographical statement in the Relacin de antigedades deste
reyno del Pir ( 1613). Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui was born in a
region halfway between Cusca and Lake Titicaca into a prominent
Andean family. which was among the first voluntary converts to
Christianity. According to Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui. the
apostle St. Thomas had arrived in the Andes long befare the
Spaniards. Although Andean peoples rejected the apostle's
preaching, his presence in the Andes had paved the way for the
region's eventual evangelization alter 1532. The principal aim of
this relatively brief work. using both bilingual Iiterary and visual
cedes, was to present "a history of the evangelical preparation of
Peru" to receive Christianity. 22 While Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti
Yamqui's !iterary work pales in comparison to the complex and
elegant arguments of El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, his Relacin de
antigedades represents one Andean's attempt to use an alien
medium, alphabetic writing. to rewrite the history of his people
and to reconcile their traditions with those of the European
conquerors. For Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, writing was a way

to correct the misleading accounts of European chroniclers and
to resist the subordination of his people by the colonial regime.
Te se of writing to rework history and to oppose European
dom1at1on emerged most eloquently in the richly complex study
of Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva cornica y buen
gobierno ( 1615). 23 Guarnan Poma. a self-proclaimed Andean noble
man. apparently learned to write Castilian from his half-brother a
priest. and from his service as an interpreter in the campaigns of
Cristbal de Albornoz to root out the Ta.qui Onqoy movement.
Although he declared his account an objective history of events
from the creation to his own day, Guarnan Poma actually wrote a
polemical contribution to contemporary political debates. He
condemned Spanish clerics and colonial officials alike, arguing
that Andeans were the only "civilized" Christians in Peru. Coming
from an Andean ethnic group conquered by the Inca. Guarnan
Poma also denounced Tawantinsuyu as an illegitimate pagan
empire that had usurped power from the preexisting polities. Like
Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui and El Inca Garcilaso, Guarnan Poma
also argued that a Christian prophet. in this case St. Bartholomew
carne to the Andes and taught the indigenous peoples (who wer
"white" descendants of Adam) how to live according to Christian
precepts. This moral arder was later extinguished by the Inca
usurpers. who brought pagan beliefs and idolatry to the Andes.
Furthermore. Guarnan Poma drew on arguments advanced by two
prominent Dominicans, Fray Bartolom de Las Casas and Fray
Domingo de Santo Toms. to propase that the Crown give political
power to the indigenous peoples themselves. Specifically, he
urged the Kng to establish a sovereign Andean empire. with
Guaan Poma's own son as ruler. but still loyal to King Philip m.
the mtended reader of the manuscript. Guarnan Poma used
Castilian, Quechua. and a host of pictoral images to fashon his
complex but cohesive argument-repudiating the Inca past.
scornful of clerics and colonialism. but pro-Andean and orthodox
in his Christianty. 24
Despite claiming that the first portian of his manuscript. El
0
21
122
CHAPTER FIVE
primer nueva cor6nica, represented an accurate. objective history of
the Andes, Guarnan Poma used a number of discursive strategies

to advance his own "moral vision" of the past. He used Andean
oral traditions and earlier European chronicles to construct a
history of the indigenous peoples from the creation of humankind
to the first troubled decades alter the Spanish invasion. Guarnan
Poma's argument that Andeans had adhered to Christian values
befare 1532 sought to undermine those Spanish chroniclers who
used the paganism of Andeans as a justification for the Spanish
military conquest. Moreover, Guarnan Poma patterned his
biographies of the Inca rulers and their coyas, at least in part,
alter European biographies of kings and saints in arder to
establish both the vices and virtues of Inca rule. in a style
intelligible to his intended audience. In this way he was able to
make a subtle argument: despite extinguishing the moral arder of
the Andes and imposing idolatry, the Inca also had established
ethical laws and a just social arder, which he could later contrast
with the disorder and corruption of Spanish colonialism.
The conquest of the Andes served as the link between both
sections of Guarnan Poma's work. Like El Inca Garcilaso, Guarnan
Poma contended that the Spaniards had not vanquished
Tawantinsuyu militarily. Instead, he averred that Andean leaders
(including his own father) had voluntarily submitted to Francisco
Pizarra as the ambassador of Charles l. Miraculous appearances
by the Virgin Mary and St. James vanquished the Inca captains
and prevented subsequent indigenous resistance. In arder to
demonstrate the fitness of Andeans to rule, he also chronicled the
steadfast loyalty of prominent Andean lords, particularly his
father. Guarnan Malqui, amidst the ruinous civil wars of the
conquistadors. Throughout this disorder, the indigenous leaders
did their best to ensure peace and tranquillity, while the
Spaniards tontinued to squabble and to destroy everything
around them. In short, the discursive strategies utilized by
Guarnan Poma in the El primer nueva cornica allowed him to rewrite
history and advocate a new future for himself. his lineage, and the
Andean peoples. 25
The final two-thirds of the opus. Buen gobierno, purported to be

a literal. factual account of the abuses perpetrated by Spanish
officials and clergymen against hapless Andeans. Guarnan Poma
structured his account much like a Roman Catholic sermon, enu
merating the sins of Spaniards and invoking divine punishment
on them. By extension he hinted (like Las Casas) that such
punishment might even befall King Philip III, if the monarch
allowed these evils to continue.26 The only way to impose a moral.
Christian arder amid the corruption and sinfulness of the colonial
era was to give power to Andean elites, led by Guarnan Poma's
ownson.
Throughout the Buen gobierno, Guarnan Poma presented a long,
repetitive litany of Spanish abuses that formed the basis for his
sermon and supported his moral and political argument. While
the author listed a host of Spanish crimes-such as greed,
corruption, envy, and unwarranted violence-he directed sorne of
his most scathing criticisms against the sexual immorality of the
Spaniards and mixed-bloods in the Andean provinces. In describ
ing this wanton licentiousness, Guarnan Poma skillfully
integrated both textual arguments and pictorial images to
reinforce arguments. In figure 6, for example. he depicts a drunken
banquet offered by a Spanish priest for a mestizo, an Andean, and
a mulatto, al! being served by a diminutive indigenous waiter. The
small figure on the tray resembles the body of a headless woman,
while the fruit on the priest's lelt resembles a phallus, with an
arrow pointing to his own groin. Guarnan Poma seems to suggest
that the surly priest and his companions intend to seek sexual
favors from "unspecified" Andean women. He continued this
theme even more graphically in figure 7, which shows a corregidor
and his lieutenant peering into the room of a naked, sleeping
Andean woman; both men point to her exposed genitalia.
Moreover. in Guarnan Poma's visual presentation the woman
appears to be a willing, wanton coliaborator in her own sexual
exploitation, which only adds to the author's outrage over the
corruption accompanying Spanish rule. Finally, figure 8 demon
strates how Guarnan Poma condemned the endemic lust and
123
124
CHAPTER F!VE
licentiousness among Spanish men and women. With one hand,

the Spanish man makes a sign of the figa (a crude symbol for sexual
intercourse). while the other symbolically grasps the hilt of his
sword. positioned like an erect penis. For her part, the woman
offers a rose, a symbol of the fema le sex, while her other hand rests
over her pudendum. In ali of these cases the text, written in
Castilian and Quechua, and the drawings together communicate
the author's outraged morality, reinforcing his thesis that noble
Andeans were abused by a motley mixture of Spaniards, renegade
indigenous accomplices, and the ignoble mixed-bloods. 27 Such
graphic depictions of Spanish sins, conveyed in the text and the
drawings, served to advance the author's polemical argument
about the need to turn power over to the Andean elite.
Despite his carefully constructed arguments, Felipe Guarnan
Poma de Ayala emerged at the end of his manuscript as an aged,
broken. and unsuccessful petitioner. His utopian proposal to place
his son at the head of an Andean empire, ruled by Christianized
indigenous ethnic lords under the Spanish King's distant
supervision, remained an empty dream. He lamented a "world
upside down" (mundo al revs). with the King residing in Castile and
the Pope in Rome. leaving Andeans to be despoiled by corrupt
Europeans. His monumental opus had failed to unite the histories
of Europe and the Andes. Guarnan Poma tried using writing to
resist Spanish domination. but in the end, this did not empower
the Andeans. The old, broken man could only carry his manuscript
to Lima, perhaps knowing that it woi.Jld probably never be read by
his intended audience.28
The production of important written literary texts in Quechua
and Spanish by Andean authors. such as the El primer nueva cor6nica
y buen gobierno, did not continue into the eighteenth century. Only
the tradition of writing petitions and memorials to the Crown and
viceregal authorities persisted. A number of documents, written in
Castilian. to protest colonial abuses and propase concrete reforms
to the Crown remain in various archiva! repositories, including the
memorials of Vicente Morachimo and Fray Calixto de San Jos
Tupak Inka in the mid-eighteenth century (mentioned in :hapter 4).
ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOC!ETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE
Fig. 6. A dinner involving a priest, mestizo, mulatto, and

Andean. (Guarnan Poma. Nueva cor6nica. 603, 617)
125
l 26
CHAPTER FJ\E
Fig. 7. A corregidor and liis lieutenant uncovering a naked. sleeping

Andean woman. (Guarnan Poma. Nueva cornica. 503. 507)
Fig 8. Lust and licentiousness among Spanisli men and

women. (Guarnan Poma. Nueva cornica. 534, 548)
127
128
CHAPTER FIVE
The memorial of Fray Calixto even harkened back to earlier writings

by Domingo de Santo Toms and Guarnan Poma. calling for self
governance by Andean ethnic leaders. In addition. communiques
in Castilian from various rebel groups during the Andean
insurrections in the l 780s have also been uncovered, which
detailed Spanish counterir{surgency troop movements and
attempted to recruit local followers.29 There are even a very few
mundane administrative documents uncovered in Quechua from
the late seventeenth century, much like the sort of materials kept
by indigenous officials in Nahuatl and in the various Maya dialects
in Mesoamerica. While these very different texts represent
evidence of literacy among sorne ethnic and community leaders.
they nevertheless fall far short of the impressive indigenous
literary productions of Guarnan Poma, Santa Cruz Pachacuti
Yamqui, and El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
Even as indigenous literacy in Castilian spread during the
colonial period, traditional Andean oral and visual traditions
endured. According to the dictionary of Gonzlez Holgufn, the
Quechua word that best approximates writing, quillka, can also
mean painting or teaching, using repetitive examples. In the
Quechua-speaking world. writing, speaking, painting, and public
rituals could all communicate information.30 It is no small wonder
that Andean writers. such as Guarnan Poma and Santa Cruz
Pachacuti Yamqui. drew on this tradition by using so many
examples and mixing both Castilian and Quechua writing with
pictorial images to communicate their ideas. Even after this
literary awakening had ended, however. Andeans continued to
value documents. pictures. and signatures. viewing them as
important symbolic objects that could be stored, exhibited, or
utilized in a number of special ceremonies in their communities.
Throughout the colonial period Andeans continued such tradi
tions, using royal edicts (cdulas and reales provisiones) as documents
and as evidence in support of any legal claims. The King's formal
signature or sea! might represent the royal person or Crown
authority to an Andean audience, independently of the written
text's actual content. In this way Andean community leaders
learned to value written documents as legal texts and ceremonial

objects that transmitted a wide variety of meanings. Such
customs were neither entirely Spanish nor Andean, but repre
sented the sort of hybrid cultural practices that evolved over the
course of the colonial era. 31
Artistic Expression in the Colonial Andean World

Just as European alphabetic literacy marked a clear departure
from Andean traditions, various types of indigenous artistic
expression changed in distinctive ways during the colonial era in
response to Spanish influences. From approximately 1000 A.O.
figurative images as central motifs in Andean art virtually
disappeared. Although small figurines remained present. mimetic
representations of the human form. gods. and animals gave way,
particularly during the Inca period, to abstract geometric forms
and highly stylized animal representations in ceramics. wood
carvings, textiles, paintings, and metalwork. In their monumental
architecture, the Inca often used unadorned boulders and other
natural rock formations as the subject of art and architecture,
even carving and shaping stones into rough-hewn monuments.
such as at the massive fortress of Sacsahuaman outside of
Cusco.32 After 1532. however, these indigenous artistic expres
sions became transformed, as European notions about the
centrality of figurative art, particularly the human form, perme
ated ali aspects of Andean artistic production during the colonial
era. Over time, European motifs would appear alongside
geometric and stylized designs. even on traditional indigenous art
forms, such as textiles and ceremonial drinking vessels (keros). 33
Befare I 532 Andeans used abstract designs to convey meaning
within an indigenous frame of reference. Within Tawantinsuyu
artisans wove ceremonial tunics (uncu) with a wide variety of
checkerboard geometric designs. called tucapu, arranged in
distinctive patterns. As the tunic pictured in figure 9 indicates,
artisans wove these uncu in elaborate and beautiful repeating
129
130
CHAPTER FIVE
patterns of tuca pu, which formed an ordered iconographic system

understood by ethnic groups throughout the empire. The Sapa
Inca, for example. olten wore tunics with specific patterns for each
religious holiday (raymi) much as Roman Catholic priests would
later wear vestments of different colors at mass during specified
times in the liturgical calendar. The Sapa Inca also ordered ali
ethnic groups in the empire to wear clothing with distinctive
abstract designs so that they could be immediately identified by
their garb. Moreover. ceremonial keros were decorated with
tucati"u or other geometric designs for use on specific religious
and secular occasions. 34
When the Inca conquered a region, they traditionally gave
leaders of newly subjugated people presents of specially
designed textiles and keros as a sign of their incorporation into
Tawantinsuyu. Likewise. the Sapa Inca presented gilts of textiles
and keros with different designs to allied nations who had aided
in the conquest. The significance of these gilts continued long
alter their initial presentation, because they could be later
brought out and displayed to conjure up the original events
leading to their production. In this way, abstract designs on
textiles and drinking vessels could represent Inca historical
deeds. much like a written chronicle or a realistic European
painting could depict certain events. 35
With the disruption in traditional Andean artistic patterns
following the Spanish conquest, indigenous artists began to
employ figurative designs to convey knowledge directly rather
than using abstract. symbolic motifs. Ceremonial tunics
continued to be valued by Andean ethnic lords, but alter 1532
they displayed mimetic images from the natural world. As the Poli
uncu pictured in figure l O demonstrates. abstract tuca pu designs
were accompanied by two lions near the neck and repeated
representations of human heads in the upper section of the uncu
wearing the royal crown or mascapaycha. In a similar way, artisans
began mixing figurative and abstract designs on keros. The
colonial kero in figure 11, for example, is painted (rather than
carved as in the Inca period) with traditional abstract designs at
Fig. 9. Inca key checkerboard tunic. (No. 91.147.

Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.)
131
132
,1
CHAPTER FIVE
the center, while on the upper portian, the artist also painted a
more realistic depiction of the Sapa Inca and the coya.
The emergence of figurative art, in conjunction with alphabetic
writing, appeared most dramatically in Guarnan Poma's 398 pen
and ink drawings in his El primer nueva cor6nica y buen gobierno. The
European manuscript tradition tended to use pictures as mere
illustrations. drawing the literate reader from the picture to the
written words. Such illuminted manuscripts also allowed an
illiterate person to use the picture as a parta! "window" into the
text. For Guarnan Poma, however, the pictures and the written text
formed part of a seamless whole. Apparently, in the final version
of the manuscript he used the same ink source in both text and
pictures, indicating that both were written simultaneously.
Moreover, Guarnan Poma used words to integrate his composi
tions with the written text. Each drawing, for example, had a title,
which further explained its context. In addition. he frequently
used captions in both Quechua and Castilian to complete the
visual message, providing a deeper meaning not completely
captured in the drawing. Even the lack of color in the compo
sitions tends to blur any distinction between the written and
visual texts, encouraging the reader to consider both simultane
ously. Finally, Guarnan Poma placed the first word or two of the
following page of written text at the bottom right comer of each
drawing. In figure 5 showing a quipucamayoc, for example, the
word "contador" in the lower right is the first word in the ensuing
page, "contador mayor del todo este reyno." This resembles a
technique used by European manuscript publishers and may
have represented an attempt by Guarnan Poma to give his
composition the look qf a "published" book. By linking pictures
and written text in this way, however, he went well beyond any
European models.3
Andean ideas of space also inform the drawings in El primer
nueva cornica y buen gobierno. Guarnan Poma's map of the lndies,
Mapamundi. has Cusca at the center and is then divided into four
parts, representing the divisions of Tawantinsuyu-with Antisuyu
in the north, Chinchaysuyu in the west, Cuntisuyu in the south,
Fig. 10. Poli uncu. (Poli Collection, Lima, Peru)
i 33
J 34
CHAPTER FIVE
Fig. 11. Figure of Inca and female under rainbow on kero (quiro),
ca. 1700, gum-based paint on wood. (Museo Inca, Cusca)
and Collasuyu in the east (see figure 12). The northern and
western divisions conformed to the upper moiety of the empire
(hanan). which was associated with the sun, the masculine, and
ali that was dominant and superior. The southern and eastern
divisions corresponded to the hurin moiety, which was tied to the
moon, the feminine, and subordination. Guarnan Poma used this
symbolic division of space as a metaphor in approximately two
thirds of his drawings to diagram symbolically the defeat of his
people and to confirm his vision of a world turned upside down.
The beginnings of this catastrophe can be seen in figure 13, which
shows the Inca Atahualpa meeting the Spanish conquistadors at
Cajamarca. The Inca still remains at the center of the drawing,
syrnbolizing arder (much as Cusca did in the Mapamundi). while
his followers occupy the superior hanan space at the upper right
(viewer's left). Placed below the Andeans are the conquistadors
ranked on a scale of descending honor beginning with Diego de
Almagro on the left (in the hurin space) down to the least valued
position on the far right. taken up by the Amerindian interpreter
Felipillo. Nevertheless. the impending slaughter and the collapse
of the empire following Cajamarca would lead to the chaos and
disorder chronicled by Guarnan Poma in the Buen gobierno. 37
The union of word and image to portray symbolically Guarnan
Poma's vision of the social disorder can be seen most graphically
in figure 14, which depicts a corregidor exchanging drinking
vessels with an Andean. Here. the corregidor and his companions,
a mulatto and a mestizo, occupy the superior hanan space. In an
orderly world this space would rightfully belong to the Andean
kuraka and the diminutive indigenous servant, who are placed
instead in the inferior hurin position. The title at the top of the
drawing sets the context. while the dialogue flowing down the
arm of the corregidor and the Andean provide necessaty details
about the incident. The corregidor tells his Andean guest to drink
a toast ("brindes, tomes seor curaca"), who replies in a garble of
Quechua and Castilian. "! will serve you" ("apu muy seor nuqa
servisqayki"). The linguistic confusion of the kuraka is only one
sign of the utter collapse of arder. occasioned by the presence of
135
136
CHAPTER FIVE
983. ( Guaman Poma,

F.ig. 12. Mapamundi
Nueva cornica
-84, 1001-2)
137
[ 38
CHAPTER FIVE
the mulatto and the mestizo (identified by the words on their

hats). positioned between the Spaniard and the Andean. Guarnan
Poma saw racial mixing as the bane of the region. leading to the
disappearance of the Andean peoples. along with their language
and culture. 38 Words, pictures. and symbolic use of space come
together in Guarnan Poma to communicate his anger over a world
turned upside down. but figure l 4 achieves this end by mixing
Andean cultural beliefs and European figurative representation.
Painting proved another artistic medium in which indigenous
artists took up naturalistic figurative designs during the colonial
period. while imparting sorne distinctly Andean stylistic motifs.
According to numerous Spanish chroniclers. painting had existed
as a well-developed art form in Tawantinsuyu, and the halls of the
Coricancha certainly contained numerous historical paintings.
According to Jos de Acosta. Inca paintings were crude and much
inferior to their Mesoamerican counterparts. but in fact. this
probably only meant that indigenous artists employed abstract
and geometrical motifs. as on Andean keros and textiles, rather
than mimetic. figurative images. None of these early composi
tions apparently survived the turbulent conquest era, and with
the collapse of the Inca state. which had served as the principal
patron of the arts. indigenous painting traditions became radi
cally transformed by a European artistic ideology.
After the conquest the Catholic Church was in desperate need
of skilled indigenous artists and artisans to decorate their newly
built places of worship. and these people were trained to work in
the European figurative tradition. Unlike Mexico, where the church
organized craft schools. in the Andes most indigenous painters
received their instruction in religious houses or in the prvate resi
dences of European painters. One of the most prominent painters
of early colonial Quito, Pedro Bedn. founded j ust such a church
institute. the Brotherhood of the Rosary. Here Bedn trained one
of the late sixteenth century's most famous indigenous painters.
Andrs Snchez Gallque. who produced the first signed (and
therefore verifiable) paintings by an indigenous artist. After the
arrival of Bernardo Bitti. who brought the ltalian style to the Andes,
----
......
\' 'I,
1.,;. ..;.
Fig. 14. A corregidor exclianging drinking vessels witli an

Andean. (Guarnan Poma. Nueva cornica. 505, 509)
J 39
140
CHAPTER FIVE
Spanish clerical and secular authorities made more systematic

efforts to establish workshops for training indigenous painters.
Nevertheless. Andean painters produced works that mixed
European and indigenous artistic styles. 39
The apogee of indigenous painting in the colonial era carne
during the seventeenth century with the Cusco School. which
flourished until approximately 1800. The former Inca capital had
always been a center of Andean painting, but a devastating earth
quake in 1650 led to a tremendous architectural and artistic rebirth
as churchmen. public officials. and prvate citizens tried to recon
struct the city. The city's artists had formed guilds to control the
quality, quantity, and price of artwork. but in 1688 disputes within
these craft organizations led indigenous and mestizo artists to
form their own separate guild. Members of this Andean-mestizo
guild eventually developed their own distinctive, hybrid style.
The most famous paintings to emerge from the Cusco School
dealt with the Virgin Mary, the patroness of Cusco. who had
allegedly appeared in a miracle to save the city's Spanish popula
tion during the siege by Manco Inca in 1537. Many of Cusco's
indigenous citizens also embraced the veneration of the Virgin,
apparently because they identified her with the Andean earth
mother. Pachamama. or sorne other female deity. Regardless of the
cult's origins in the old Inca capital. the indigenous artists painting
in the Cusco style ignored European notions of perspective and
space. Instead, they created images of the Virgin that presented
her in a flat two-dimensional style. called "statue painting." Among
the many representations of the Virgin created by indigenous
artists. the Virgin of Bethlehem was much favored by the local
citizenry among Cusco's devotional images. As the painting in
figure I 5 demonstrates. artists in the Cusco school typically
depicted both the Virgin and her child dressed in elaborate
triangular-shaped vestments, which resembled the shape of a
mountain. Visually this technique merged the image of the Virgin
with the Andean landscape and also with its pre-Columbian
patroness. the earth mother Pachamama. Moreover. the intricate
floral brocade pattern of both gowns is composed of repetitive
geometric designs. reminiscent of tucapu patterns in Inca textiles.

What might appear an overly stylized, stiff. and archaic painting of
the Virgin of Bethlehem, merely conveyed Andean artistic prefer
ences in representing a European and Christian religious icon.
Many paintings produced by colonial artists (whether Andean.
creole, or castas) served political. not just religious and aesthetic
purposes. By the eighteenth century a tradition developed among
Andean kurakas to use traditional Andean uncu. keros. and oil
portraits to prove their hereditary claims to office. As late as 1780
a viceregal visitor general. Antonio de Areche. claimed that such
portraits in particular "abounded in the houses of Indians who
take themselves to be nobles in order to sustain their descent."40
Sorne of these portraits were even admitted as evidence in court
cases dealing with disputes over hereditary rights to ethnic
leadership. In 1738. for example, the Marqus de Alcanizes y
Oropesa attempted to remove Don Marcos Chiguan from his
office as kuraka of Huayllamba and Colquepata for abusing his
indigenous charges. To defend his claim to office. Don Marcos
provided an oil portrait of himself dressed in the style of a
Spanish royal standard bearer. wearing a mascapaycha of the
Sapa Inca. As figure 16 demonstrates. his arrogant pose was sup
plemented by including a coat of arms originally granted by the
Crown to Paullu Topa Inca, while the written text in the cartouche
on the painting's lower right lists both the honors bestowed on
Don Marcos by viceregal officials and his claim to be a
descendant of the Inca royal family. Such portraits defiantly
asserted Don Marcos Chiguan's right to his position by connect
ing his alleged Inca lineage with his many services to the Crown.
While Don Marcos chose to dress in Spanish garb. many other
members of the indigenous elite, such as the unknown Andean
woman pictured in figure 17 1 adorned themselves with traditional
Inca costumes to prove their claims to status and power in the
colonial society. lronically. colonial authorities accepted these
portraits as evidence until the l 780s, when royal officials began
confiscating them. fearing that any such overt links to the Inca
past would only inflame the passions of indigenous people
141
142
CHAPTER FlVE
Fig. 15. Virgin of Bethlehem, Cusca School. eighteenth

century, oil on canvas. (Museo Pedro de Osma. Lima)
ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOClETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE
Fig. 16. Portrait of Don Marcos Chiguan. ca.

1742, oil on canvas. (Museo Inca, Cusca)
143
( 44
CHAPTER FIVE
during what became known as the Great Age of Andean

Rebellions. 41
During the colonial period the artistic worlds of Europe and the
Andes merged, creating dynamic new artistic practices, spanning
a number of mediums-paintings, textiles, ceramics. and
drawings. In each area, indigenous artists participated actively in
shaping a colonial cultural and artistic arder. After the downfall of
the Inca state, Andean artists either went underground, stopped
composing, or more often, adapted to the new European artistic
ideo!ogy. lndigenous painters, writers. and weavers began
producing art in the European style for churches, public bui!dings,
and private homes. In this transformation, Andean artists
continued to produce textiles and keros, often with European-style
figurative images alongside more traditional designs. Even when
Andean painters of the Cusca School produced images of the
Virgin, they did so using a blend of European and indigenous
artistic forms. Finally, this new colonial art could even be turned
to political purposes, as indigenous leaders presented European
style portraits as evidence to prove their hereditary rights to office.
In short, over the long colonial era. indigenous artistic expressions
evolved by mixing Andean and Spanish traditions to link an
imagined Andean past with the ever changing cultural present.
Changing Views of Geography and the Law

The imposition of European ideas of space, geography, private
property, and written law produced long-term political and
cultural consequences over the colonial period. While Andeans
lacked a formal system of written law, exactly how they envisioned
geographical space, set poltica! boundaries, and determined land
ownership remains unclear. According to sorne experts. the Inca
state was turisdictional. and ethnic identity, huacas, and local
customs determined the boundaries among different groups. This
argument is strengthened by the Andean custom of having ethnic
groups cultivating land at different ecological levels, which made
Fig. 17. Portrait of an Unfmown Female, ca. 1690,

oil on canvas. (Museo Inca, Cusco)
145
J 46
CHAPTER FIVE
it difficult to establish well-defined territorial boundaries. Others

emphasize that Tawantinsuyu did indeed sanction the use of
territorial boundaries among the four provinces of the empire and
to differentiate among ethnic groups and their ancestral lands.
Despite these differences of opinion, most scholars agree that the
Andean peoples did not sanction individual ownership of lands.
and as a result, the spread of European ideas about prvate
property and maintaining written legal titles proved completely
alen to the peo ples of the Andes.
The Inca defined religious and ceremonial space by organizing
important religious shrines along lines of forty-one ritual sight
lines, or ceques, radiating from the Coricancha (the Inca Temple
of the Sun) in the heart of Cusca. Three of the four provinces in
Tawantinsuyu-Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, and Collasuyu
contained nine ceques, while Cuntisuyu had fourteen ceques.
There were between 328 and 400 shrines arrayed along these
irregular pathways, and at least sorne of them were astronom
ically aligned with certain solar or lunar risings and settings.
These ceques may even have represented a counting device for
the Inca calendar (if 328 is chosen as the official number of
ceques, it conforms to the number of days in their solar calendar).
Given the importance of Andean religious shrines (huacas) ir1
defining ethnic identities, the ceque system might also have been
used to determine boundary lines among ayllus and with royal
panacas (religious corporations to honor deceased rulers).
Despite this elaborate ceremonial organization of space, there is
at least sorne evidence that Cusca was not the only Andean site
to have a ceque system. Moreover, recent archaeological excava
tions indicate that the sight lines may have been quite irregular,
with sorne begtnning a considerable distance outside of the
Coricancha. In ali likelihood, the Cusco ceque system incorpo
rated preexisting systems of other Andean groups, and if it served
as a boundary among ayllu, it was an uneven one. Like the three
field system of assigning resources to the Inca, the priesthood,
and local communities, as well as the decimal organization of
ethnic groups. the ceque system was probably incomplete and
still evolving when the Spaniards arrived in J 532. It was an

attempt to assign ritual and ceremonial space and perhaps to
define ethnic boundaries, but the ceque system was apparently
not fully developed and did not extend in any clear way to
organize al! boundaries among religious shrines and ethnic
groups by the time of the European invasion. 42
Apart from the ceques, the Inca also appear to have employed
sorne jurisdictional and territorial boundaries in the empire. As the
name Tawantinsuyu implies, the empire was divided into four
unequal parts, which were partially defined by the four majar roads
emanating from Cusca. Moreover, no less astute an observer of
Andean customs than the sixteenth-century official and entrepre
neur, Juan Polo de Ondegardo, mentioned boundary markers in
individual communities and between and among provinces that
had sorne recognizable territorial definition. According to Polo,
The Incas . . . divided the land and set up boundaries
approprlate for each province according to the divlsion they
made of the livestock. Those that were dedicated to the Sun
had thelr territory delimited where they were to graze; the
livestock of the Inca had a bounded territory; and Iimits for
the livestock of the comm unity were also established. Ali of
the herds were pastured without taking anything from the
others. Ali in the same way that the boundaries and
pastures were delimlted within a province, the boundaries
were also set between one province and another.43
Guarnan Poma mentioned that Tupa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna
Capac established boundary lines between the ethnic communities
of the coast and the highlands, "so that each one would serve the
royal authority in their own territory. "44 Guarnan Poma also implied
that there were territorial disputes in these regions. so the Inca
clarified boundary lines and regularized the labor services that each
group would render to the state. In addition, severa! chroniclers
mention boundary markers on the frontiers of Tawantinsuyu,
establishing the state's territorial extent.
14 7
[ 48
CHAPTER FIVE
Apart from such basic demarcations of disputed territories and

community lands, it seems clear that more fluid ethnic boundaries.
determined by a multiplicity of factors, also characterized Andean
divisions of geographical space. In an ethnic mosaic such as the
Andes, where different groups lived in dispersed settlements up
and down the mountainsides, there could be no one-to-one
correspondence between language, ethnicity, and clear territorial
boundaries. Evidence from the colonial period indicates that
indigenous groups defined their territory by toponyms, such as
hills, swamps, mountains, roads. irrigation canals, deserts, or the
fields of neighbors. The Inca's decimal organization of the empire
and tribute assessments were also recorded on quipus according
to ethnic groupings, not necessarily by bounded territories. In a
region where temporary and permanent migrations to control
resources were commonplace and each region contained
multiethnic enclaves, this was infinitely more pragmatic than strict
territorial demarcations. Moreover, the Andeans did not sanction
the individual private ownership of land, and in sorne regions, such
as the north coast of Peru, ethnic groups determined ownership
by use, seeing unworked land as available to anyone capable of
4
cultivating it productively. 5 In short, ethnic boundaries within
Tawantinsuyu were unusually flexible by European standards.
Such Andean definitions of geographical space differed
markedly from those employed by the European invaders after
I 532. The Spaniards brought with them ideas about prvate
property that put a premium on precisely defined geographical
boundaries valdated by written legal documents. Moreover. the
Crown exercised control over the Andes through its poltica! and
ecclesiastical bureaucracies that demanded more clearly defined
territorial jurisdictions for its various agencies. Viceroyalties,
audiencias, and corregimientos, along with church divisions
among bishoprics. dioceses, and parishes ali depended upon
more precise demarcations of the landscape than had obtained
under Tawantinsuyu. As a result, King Philip II ordered his official
geographer (cronista mayor) for the Indies, Juan Lpez de Velasco,
to conduct a geographical survey of the entire empire. This
involved constructing a set of fifty questions to be distributed to

every administrative district of the Indies. including the vast
Andean region. These surveys, known as the Relaciones geogrficas,
were compiled in the Andes between I 579 and I 583.
As part of this massive survey, the Crown ordered (in questions
ten and forty-two) local Spanish and indigenous authorities to
produce European-style maps, complete with street plans,
landmarks, and major geographical features. The Crown further
.commanded that these maps be written on paper or parchment
and sent with the written responses to the remainder of the ques
tionnaire. Despite this direct royal command, the Relaciones
geogrficas produced for the Andean region contained only five
such maps, ali compiled by local Spanish authorities. In contrast,
the survey for New Spain consisted of ninety-two pictorial maps,
46
mostly drawn by indigenous authorities. Apparently, the lack of
a formalized system of alphabetic writing, mimetic figurative art,
and fluid geographical boundaries (based largely on ethnic or
poltica! considerations. rather than prvate property) ali con
tributed to the failure of Andeans and colonial officials to
respond to royal commands about producing maps.
Spanish ideas about maps, well-defined geographical bound
aries, and prvate property encoded in written laws, left an
enduring legacy for Andean societies. European concepts of
individual ownership of lands and formalized, written legal titles
proved particularly foreign and difficult to grasp for indigenous
groups. In fact, problems of determining land ownership and
assessing taxation forced the Crown to order a formal review of ali
landholdings, the venta y composicin de tierras of I 59 I . This
process required that Andeans provide legally approved written
evidence to substantiate claims to their lands. Because land use
was tied to local religious shrines and ethnic identities, this
ptoved an extremely difficult but important task. By this time.
however, written documents and Castilian legal principies had
forced Andeans to adopt foreign ideas about what constituted a
just claim to ancestral lands. As a result, identifying land parcels
by toponyms and huacas gave way to written descriptions of
149
! 50
CHAPTER FIVE
physical boundary markers. The imposition of a formal Castilian

legal ideology and ideas about ownership communicated by the
written word and European-style maps symbolized new ways of
thinking, of projecting poltica! power. and of exercising dominion
over the Andean peoples by the late sixteenth century.47
Castilan law also demanded that Andeans deal in a world of
official records, written in European alphabetic scrpt. Individual
or collectve memory, so precous to Andean communities befare
1532, was often ruled nadmissible as evdence n courts unless
supported by written documentation. Moreover. although alpha
betic literacy and the Castilan legal system proved foregn
mediums for the Andean peoples, they could not be circumvented
easily. Written documents required a functional leve! of literacy,
even if an individual relied on scrbes to produce documentaton
needed n court cases. This dd not mean that ali Andeans could
read and write Castilian. even by the eghteenth century, but it
does indicate that ever increasing numbers of indgenous people
had to operate in and become familiar with the lterate world of
colonial laws and customs. It is no small wonder that kurakas
such as Don Marcos Chiguan used European-style portraits and
wrtten documents to substantiate their claims to positions of
prestige and power in the Andean sphere.
Conclusions
The cultural interchange taking place between Europeans and
Andeans over the colonial era s symbolized by indios ladinos such
as Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala. Given their knowledge of
Castilian and ndigenous tangues. these pivotal figures could serve
a multiplicity of roles as interpreters. writers, church aides.
petitioners, and even as the leaders of ndigenous uprisings. As
Guarnan Poma indicated, they also stood outside both the Andean
and the European social spheres as "cultural mestizos," mistrusted
in both communities. At the same time. the indios ladinos were
also byproducts of the complex colonial sociocultural arder. For
his part. Guarnan Poma sought to take advantage of his ambivalent

societal role by serving the church in stamping out idolatry and
later as an author and reformer. He also recommended that the
King place an indio ladino in every community as an overseer
(veedor) to monitor the activities of both the European and Andean
communities. Although Guarnan Poma failed to get ths or any of
his other ideas implemented, the cultural evolution of the colonial
regime ultimately gave more power to indios ladinos such as
Guarnan Poma or to colonial kurakas who had the sklls to navgate
48
in both worlds.
The mutual exchange of cultural values during the colonial era
transformed the Andean worlds. By the eighteenth century the
establishment of schools for kurakas and later for the wder
Andean community spread literacy in Castilian. the language of the
nvader. rather than traditional indgenous tangues. Along with the
expanson of alphabetic writing carne a more intimate knowledge
of the twn pillars of Spansh colonial rule-Christianity and
Castlian law. A central legal precept was the idea of prvate
property, validated by written documentaton, which fundamen
tal ly altered the ways Andeans conceptualized geographical space
and rights to land. water, and other essential natural resources.
Simlarly, Andean artistc production changed under European
influences. as fgurative representations in painting. textiles.
carvings, and ceramcs replaced traditional Andean pattems of
abstract geometrical designs. In many ways the old Andean
cultural order seemed to pass slowly away during the colonial era.
Despite these cultural transformations, many Andean trad
tions have endured since 1 532 to the present. Textile weaving
remains an important art form that contnues to reflect distinctive
community dentites and values. Whle ndigenous weavers in
the Cusca region, for example, have incorporated new forms of
wool, different types of fabrics, and figurative pattems. their
unique textile designs still distinguish ethnic groups from one
another. symbolizing relationships within the community and its
ties to the outside world and the supematural. In this way, the old
Inca custom of using dress to define ethnicity endures even to the
! 51
l 52
CHAPTER FIVE
present. Moreover, indigenous textiles continue to function at

two levels. one European and the other distinctly Andean: they
are sold in marketplaces (first brought to the Andes by the
Spaniards) to tourists and other outsiders, but through their
distinctive traditional designs they retain definite links to the
Andean past. From the early colonial period onwards, it became
pointless to speak of authentic European or Andean cultural
values; these had become completely commingled, producing
new hybrid forms of cultural meaning, which each colonial social
group interpreted over time in its own way.
6
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION ANO THE
IMPOSITION OF RTHODOXY
A common error (among AndeansJ is thelr tendency to carry

water on both shoulders, to have recourse to both rellgions
at once .... Most of the lndians have not yet had thelr
huacas and conopas taken away from them. thelr festivals
disturbed, nor their abuses and superstitions punished, and
so they think their les compatible with our truth and their
idolatry with our faith.
Pablo Jos de Arriaga, 1621'
I found a variety of opinions about this when I arrived in
Lima; and among the serious and most important men there
were those who told me there was much idolatry....
IOJthers told me that it JldolatryJ was the lnvention and a
product of theJ greed of the visitadores who used their titles
to enrich themselves, and that this did serious injustice to
the lndians .... IO]thers said that there was sorne idolatry,
but not as much as was claimed.
Archbishop Gonzalo de Campo, 16252
153
154
CHAPTER SIX
THE SPANISH INVADERS justified their overthrow of Tawantinsuyu in

1532 by vowing to reap a harvest of indigenous souls for the
Roman Catholic faith. In later years Spanish jurists would echo
and refine such arguments to defend their continued occupation
and colonization of the region. Initially, the Andean peoples
seemed enthusiastic converts as thousands accepted baptism.
exchanging their adherence to official Inca rites for Roman
Catholicism. As the first priests introduced the rituals of their
faith. indigenous converts eagerly embraced outward displays of
Catholic worship-the veneration of the cross and colorful devo-
tional objects. ornate churches. cults of the saints. and the ritual
use of music, dances. and prayer. Over time, however. many
churchmen suspected Andeans of putting these Christian rites to
their own uses. Whereas clergymen demanded that converts
abandon their beliefs for Christianity, Andeans often incorporated
Catholic ritual and dogma into their own religious framework.
much as they had done with the official religion of the Inca gener
ations earlier. Just as European and Andean cultures became
commingled into new hybrid forms of meaning, so too did
Catholicism and !ndigenous religious practices become "mutually
entangled," producing a constantly evolving mixture during three
hundred years of colonial rule. Nevertheless. as the first quotation
above by the Jesuit Pablo Jos de Arriaga indicates. this situation
produced periodic tensions between Andeans and local clergy
men. By the seventeenth century Arriaga and others prometed
efforts to stamp out or extirpate ali "deviant" indigenous religious
practices by force. Indeed, Arriaga wrote a widely used manual for
Catholic inspectors on how to identify and obliterate such forms
of "idolatry" in 1621.
While clerical authorities experienced frustration over the
incomplete "spiritual conq uest" of the Andes, they differed sharply
about the problem's severity and how to <leal with it. For most
advocates of forcible conversion. such as Arriaga, the issue was a_
relatively simple one: after baptism the Andeans either renounced
ali "pagan" beliefs or they were apostates. Anyone who continued
worshipping traditional deities or huacas merely served the Devil.
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION AND THE IMPOSITION OF ORTHODOXY
and churchmen had the responsibility to eradicate such idolatry

by formal Church campaigns of extirpation. This led to legal trials
of suspected idolaters. the destruction of Andean religious icons.
and the imposition of punishments. followed by instruction in
Catholicism. As the second quotation above by Archbishop
Gonzalo de Campo indicates. however. not ali churchmen shared
this viewpoint. Indeed. for significant numbers of clergyrnen the
survival of ancient religious practices merely indicated the persist
ence of relig!ous "error." which could be combated most effectively
by persuasion and education. not forceful extirpation.
Like Church officials. Andeans differed in their responses to
conversion efforts. Sorne traditionalists favored resisting
Catholicism. which by the l 560s culminated in nativist move
ments. such as Taqui Onqoy in Huamanga. More often, however.
communities adapted and transformed their religious practices.
drawing spiritual power from a mixture of traditional and Roman
Catholic beliefs. These Andeans continued favoring their own
religious specialists, shamans. and healers. while still supporting
local priests and taking part in Christian religious rltuals. Although
Christianity continued making steady inroads within Andean
communities in the former Tawantinsuyu over time. elements of
indigenous religious practices endured alongside Christianity. as
they do to the present day.
The historical sources dealing with the processes of conversion
and imposing orthodox Catholicism in cities. towns. and villages
scattered throughout the rugged Andean landscape are both
limited and fraught with interpretative difficulties. Since Andeans
did not utilize alphabetic writing before 1532, only limited written
evidence about traditional religious practices remains. Moreover.
much of the early documentation compiled by Spanish priests and
laymen concerns the state cults of the Inca, not the more localized
network of gods. shrines. and rites among the multiplicity of ethnic
groups in the Andes. During the late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. clergymen and church inspectors attempting to
extirpate idolatry produced voluminous documentation. but this
too must be utilized with care. Spanish clergy and lay observers
155
156
CHAPTER SIX
interpreted Andean religous practices from ther own based

Christian viewpoint, often misunderstanding or misrepresenting
indigenous beliefs in their reports and letters.
The particular religious concerns of each judge and his assis
tants also influenced their notlons of what constituted idolatry or
merely represented "religious error." Even when Europeans
recorded the testimony of Andeans verbatim. translators had to
turn expressions in Quechua, Aymara, or a host of other indige
nous languages into Castilian, which led to serious distortions. A
Quechua word such as supay, for example, usually sgnified an
unpredictable spirit wth malevolent or more benign qualties, yet
most scribes in idolatry trials rendered it as Satan, which grossly
misrepresented the meaning. Indigenous defendants or witnesses
also mixed both Christian and traditional religious symbols and
mages in ways that represented the spiritual changes and mixture
that had occurred by the seventeenth century. Moreover, Andeans
under interrogation by priests or inspectors at idolatry trials often
lied to protect themselves or to deflect blame on others, particu
larly local enemies within the ayllu.
Finally, many Andean communites endured multiple vista
tlons by extirpators. and residents grew experienced in how to give
details or suppress vital information, depending on their needs.
When the extrpation trials Iost momentum by the I 750s, however,
clerical and lay officials expressed less interest in the persistence
of Andean religious practices. and any written evidence about
indigenous popular piety becomes much scarcer during the
remainder of the colonial period. It is no small wonder that
contemporaries and modern-day scholars alike have expressed
widely different interpretations about the process of religious
change in the Andes. Nevertheless, the tapie is central to
understanding the evolution of Andean societies under Spanish
rule, and scholars from severa! disciplines-such as anthropology,
history, and literary or cultural studies-have written volumin9usly
on the subject.
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION ANO THE IMPOSITION OF ORTHODOXY
The World of Andean Popular Religion

Within a generation of Tawantinsuyu's collapse, popular adher
ence to the state religious cults of the Inca faded, except in the
ethnlc heartland surrounding Cusca and in the remate mountain
exile kingdom of Vilcabamba, until its capture by the Spanish in
June 1572. 3 The whole nexus of personal. community, local, and
regional religious traditions, however. proved more difficult for
Spanish priests and friars to uproot. The Andean peoples believed
that the sacred penetrated every aspect of their world, profoundly
influencing daily life experiences. Mountains. streams, trees.
boulders. and even mundane objects, such as small stones, could
represent or evoke the divine. Religious specialsts. healers. and
even ordinary folk summoned these spiritual forces, spoke with
them, and prayed for their continued support of human activities.
The identification of divine powers with the material world also.
linked Andean men and women to specific geographical locations,
where their gods, shines. and holy places could protect them from
human enemies and arbitrary forces of nature. Religious myths
and practices united people with their land, their god, a.nd their
past.
The principal centers of divine power in Andean religions,
known as huacas, could reside in a variety of objects in the natural
landscape. According to most religious traditions, the huacas had
once been god-like men or women endowed, with ?upernatural
powers who roamed the earth and intervened in the affairs of
other deities and human beings. This legendary past had been a
time filled with uncertainty, when good and evil were pitted
against each other with varied and unpredictable outcomes. A
particular huaca often supported the efforts of one or more ethnic
groups, who sometimes saw themselves as progeny of the god.
Once the huaca had accomplished its destiny, it commonly turned
into a mountain. a stone, or sorne other object. The powers of
each huaca remained invested in this particular portien of the
Andean Iandscape, and people associated with the deity, called
llacta, would continue to worship the place. tying the community
157
[ 58
CHAPTER SIX
spiritually to the land itself. Myths about huacas recalled the

origins of ethnic groups and helped to make sense of their history
and customs. Andeans also prayed to their huacas for advice
about sowing, land fertility, access to water. and a host of other
human problems. For their part. huaca.s communicated through
Andean priests or religious specialists. Nevertheless. these
huacas could be benevolent. vengeful. or even capricious. and
they required constant prayers, sacrifices. and offerings of coca
leaves or maize beer (chicha). In this way Andean peoples were
wedded to cults of particular deities who helped them deal with
the vagaries of drought. pestilence. crop failure. disease. pain,
defeat, and even death in an uncertain world. 4
While most huacas exercised influence in only a limited
domain in the world. sorne exceptional deities had regional or
supraregiorial followings, such as Paria Caca and his sister Chaupi
amca. According to myths set down in the Huarochir
Manuscript, Paria Caca first appeared as five eggs that hatched
into falcons and then became men who founded the ethnic group
that ultimately settled in the province of Huarochir. 5 Paria Caca
was a wise and immensely powerful being of the highlands who
performed wondrous deeds, vanquishing other huacas and their
humm worshipers while advancing the cause of his favored
people. During these struggles he gained control over an awe
inspiring landscape of mountains and lakes that became the sat
of his spiritual power.
According to Andean legend. Paria Caca was closely associated
with his sister. Chaupi amca, whose power centered in the
lowland region surrounding the Rimac River. Again, the myths
compiled in the Huarochirf Manuscript indicate that the power of
these two siblings complemented each other in a perfect male
female symmetry atop the hierarchy of huacas. To augment their
already considerable spiritual power. Paria Caca arranged his
sister's marriage to another commanding coastal huaca. Pacha
Camac. In this way the dominant highland deity forged kinship
alliances with the two most influential male and female huacas of
the coast, giving them ali an identity and supernatural powers
I
that transcended any immediate locality or ethnic group.

Moreover. by pairing male and female deities, the Andean cosmol
ogy created a gendered hierarchy of spiritual power. in which gods
tended to control traditionally male activities and goddesses
female activities.6
Despite the extensive domain of powerful huacas such as Paria
Caca. most manifestations of divine power were more localized.
Special lineage gods (chancas), for example. operated within the
spiritual orbit of more powerful huacas. Whereas most huacas
resided in features of the natural world. chancas were usually more
humble figures of stone. sometimes adorned with coins. wax. or
other commonplace items. Christian priests often found it hard to
distinguish between lesser huacas and chancas. but the latter
belonged to smaller lineage groups or extended families entrusted
with their care, whereas huacas pertained to larger groupings, such
as an ayllu. The small. moveable chancas exercised spiritual power
over a host of household tasks. and according to custom. these
gods might be consulted befare approaching the local huaca. The
care and worship of a chanca was usually entrusted to a member
of the lineage group, and like more powerful deities. chancas
required prayers, sacrfices. and ritual chicha.
Less powerful household or personal deities. called cottopas.
were usually small stones, often shaped like an animal (usually an
alpaca or llama) or a food crop (such as corn or a potato). which
had a direct connection with fecundity. Conopas were numerous
and in 16 l 7 three Jesuit priests claimed to have confiscated over
2, 500 of them in the Chancay region alone. Andeans prayed and
made offerings to these deities to control the care and health of
livestock. agricultura! crops, and even to heal the sick. Whereas
entire communities worshipped huacas on given feast days,
individuals made entreaties to their own personal conopas. which
were passed on from one generation to the next. Sometimes
Andeans carried a pair of male and female conopas, which
continued the tradition of gender complementarity and also
contributed to the symbolic connection of these deities with
fertility. 7
} 59
160
CHAPTER SIX
An extremely important aspect of Andean religion was

ancestor veneration. and communities preserved the bones or
mummies of important relatives, called mallquis. A separate set
of priests made offerings to the mummies of deceased Incas and
other prominent figures, providing ritual meals of chicha and
other foodstuffs. surrounding them with utensils used in life
(such as textiles. hoes, or weapons). and conveying them to
community religious celebrations. It is unlikely that less promi
nent families maintained mallquis for most deceased relatives,
but the practice was widespread. According to Andean religious
traditions. by performing specific rituals and mummification. the
dead could reach their final destination or resting place, called
pacarina. This term also referred to the community's birthplace or
point of origin; in this way the dead returned to their ayllu's roots.
The recently deceased mallquis formed a link with the communi
ty's ancient and sacred ancestors. the huacas. Even after arriving
in pacarina. the mallquis would become angry if their living
relatives did not venerate them properly at important rituals and
on the anniversary of their death. which reinforced the ongoing
need to maintain a relationship between the living and the dead. 8
The entire indigenous panoply of huacas, chancas. conopas.
and mallquis .formed an essential part of the cultural and religious
identity of different ethnic groups throughout the Andean region.
As successive waves of conquerors (culminating in the rise of
Tawantinsuyu) exercised dominion over different ethnic groups,
the invaders appreciated these ties between local peoples and
their deities. As a result, the Inca forced subject peoples to
worship their gods. but they still respected local religious
practices. This relationship was symbolized by the Quechua word
maay, which can be translated as a compromise. a demand, or an
alteration in traditional behavior. This new religious compromise
evolved constantly, incorporating old and new belief systems that
' recognized the dominance of the Inca's spiritual power. without
abandoning local traditions. For this reason. regardless of the
brutality of conquest wars. the Inca and their subject peoples
recognized the new maay with an exchange of gifts (particularly
textiles and keros) that symbolized the acceptance of the new

relationship by both parties. For Andean peoples, abandoning
their deities and shrines meant forsaking their culture. traditions,
and history. When the Spanish arrived in the Andes, they neither
understood nor accepted such a spiritual compromise; conver
sion required a complete acceptance of Christian precepts. leav
ing behlnd any and ali aspects of the "pagan" Andean past.
Andeans. on the other hand. saw conversion to Catholicism as the
establishment of a new and continuously evolving religious pact
or maay, which allowed them to draw on both the spiritual power
of Christianity and traditional indigenous deities. Moreover. indi
viduals or groups might even make choices about which Christian
or Andean religious concepts to incorporate, only to reverse or
alter them later. Such fundamental tensions characterized early
efforts by Spanish clerics to convert Andeans and later to impose
orthodox Catholidsm in the region. 9
Early Efforts at Religious Conversion

Given the traditional missionary zeal of Christianity, clergymen
accompanied ali major military expeditions in the Andes, but the
process of evangelization proceeded slowly. The Dominican Fray
Vicente de Valverde accompanied Pizarro's army to Cajamarca,
and later became the first bishop of Cusco in 1537. Along with
members of the secular clergy, between 1533 and 1540 the
Franciscans, Mercedarians, and Dominicans sent missionaries to
the Andes. In 1543 the first bishop of Lima. Fray Jernimo de
Loayza entered the viceregal capital. and by the time that the
Society of Jesus began sending missionaries in 1568, the other
orders already had established monasteries in ali principal towns.
Both the friars and secular priests also had begun ministering in
rural areas. Despite these impressive beginnings, however. the
process of evangelization in the Andes was thwarted in many
areas by divisions within the church over how to approach the
conversion process, the apathy of many encomenderos (who were
16 [
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CHAPTER SIX
more often concerned with gaining wealth than saving souls).

bitter civil wars among the early Spanish settlers, a shortage of
suitable priests, and attitudes among the Andean peoples
themselves. 10
By the sixteenth century divisions had surfaced within the
Roman Catholic Church over the proper means of converting the
Andean peoples. Since the early days of the Church. evange
lization had involved reaching out to nonbelievers, often by
finding broadly similar religious symbols and practices that would
facilitate conversion. 11 Far sorne Church authorities, converting
Andeans involved little more than using approaches that mixed
both Christian and Andean concepts of the sacred, along with
reasoned arguments, to turn indigenous peoples from "darkness"
to the "light" of Christianity. Among the most vocal and articulate
advocates of conversion by persuasion were the Dominicans, Fray
Bartolom de Las Casas and his disciple in the Andes, Fray
Domingo de Santo Toms. Las Casas argued that only by evangel
izing the indigenous peoples could the Spaniards justify their
presence in the New World. Moreover, according to Las Casas, the
Church had to rely on peaceful conversion methods that would
allow Andeans to accept Christianity of their own free will. Las
Casas also favored using Andean religious imagery of the sun to
adorn churches, uniting indigenous iconography with Rol"r)an
Catholic tradition. Following this reasoning, the Augustinians in
Guamachuco (in north-central Peru) even employed indigenous
textiles to decorate Christian churches and buildings, and Fray
Domingo de Santo Toms compiled his Quechua-Castilian dic
tionary and grammar in the early 1560s to promote conversion
efforts in that Ianguage. While Las Casas firmly believed that
Satan had led the Andeans into religious error. he also thought
that demonic influence could be countered with gentle persua
sion and indoctrination. Las Casas insisted that Andean religion
was merely an erroneous reflection of Christianity, and that sorne
elements of the old ways could be salvaged and used in conver
sion efforts. Later churchmen and indigenous authors, such as
Guarnan Poma and Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, even proposed
that Christian saints had brought their faith to the Andes befare
1532, in arder to assert that conversion by persuasion would
promote a natural transition from paganism back to the true faith.
Disagreements among churchmen over the proper way to
evangelize the indigenous peoples abounded in this early period.
Sorne members of both the regular and the secular clergy, far
example, argued that syncretism and education were inadequate
conversion tools without the use of force. The Jesuit Jos de
Acosta articulated this position farcefully in his influential 1588
treatise on conversbn, De Procuranda indorum Salute. According to
Acosta, the simple-minded nature of Andeans and their barbarie
religious customs (inspired by the Devil) made most syncretic
methods dangerously ineffective. Acosta believed that conversion
by persuasion only worked with more civilized pagans, such as the
gentiles of the Mediterranean basin, whom St. Paul and his
disciples had converted using persuasive methods during the
early years of the Church. As a result, Acosta called far using
stronger tactics-forceful destruction of idols and pagan rituals,
followed by the imposition of rigid Roman Catholic orthodoxy.
Acosta even faund Quechua too unsophisticated a language far
conveying Christian doctrine effectively. Acosta did temper his
position. however, by placing most of the blame far the problems
of evangelization on corrupt or inadequately trained clergymen.
Nevertheless, the political efforts of Francisco de Toledo to
uproot Andean communities from their traditional lands and
huacas clearly reflected more hard-line approaches. Such ideas
also influenced the manuals and sermons of extirpators such as
Pablo Jos de Arriaga. This debate within the church never fully
ended. but it raged with particular vehemence in the second half
of the sixteenth century and during the periodic extirpation
campaigns between 1609 and 1750. 12
The hierarchy within the colonial church attempted to resolve
tensions over appropriate methods of indigenous conversion in
the three Lima Provincial Councils in 1551-52, 1567-8, ahd
1582-83, but they achieved only limited success. The First
Provincial Council called far dispatching regular nd secular
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CHAPTER SIX
clergy to found parishes (doctrinas) throughout the Andes.

extending the sacraments of penance and communion to converts
and encouraging priests to learn indigenous languages. In
addition. the council demanded that priests destroy pagan idols.
discourage the work of indigenous religious specialists. and
repress any lingering Andean religious practices. The Second
Provincial Council advanced these same points. and further urged
priests to take great care in stamping out ali signs of ancestor
veneration and the use of Christian festivals for clandestine pagan
rituals. It also encouraged priests to !et Andeans pray in their own
tongues and to utilize interpreters for confessions. whenever local
clergyman lacked suitable training in indigenous languages. The
Third Provincial Council in 1582-83 reflected reforms emanating
from the Council ofTrent ( 1545-63). and its resolutions attempted
to steer a moderate course in debates over conversion.On the one
hand. the council demanded that Andeans reject totally their
religious traditions. but it also emphasized the "timid" and
"childlike" nature of the indigenous people, recommending only
moderate punishments for religious error.In addition. churchmen
also called for instruction and confessions to take place in indige
nous languages and published a standard doctrinal manual and a
trilingual edition of thirty-one sermons (in Castilian. Quechua.
and Aymara) to ease this process. Nevertheless. by stee;ring a
middle course between advocates of voluntary conversion and
those favoring the use of force. the Third Council did little to
resolve the ongoing tensions within the colonial Church. 13
Quite apart from these clerical divisions over appropriate
conversion strategies. apathy among the conquistadors and
political turbulence during the first forty years following the
Spanish invasion also inhibited evangelization in the Andes.
Encomenderos had the responsibility of supporting priests to
oversee conversion efforts in their jurisdictions, but ali too many
conquistadors cared only about enriching themselves. not
spreading the faith. According to Fray Domingo de Santo Toms
in 1563,
Until now there has been great and extraordinary disorder

in this land. and it is that the encomenderos provide in their
encomiendas the priest that they want. for the instruction
ofthe Indians ... because they merely name those that help
them extract the most in tributes ... and the churchmen
can do nothing to get rid of them and put in these parishes
anyone but those favored by the encomenderos. t4
Such problems only worsened during episodes of civil strife
among the Spanish settlers. These conflicts led to the forced
impressment of Andeans into various marauding armies of con
quistadors and to widespread death and destruction.Ali impeded
any systematic efforts at evangelization. at least until the final
defeat of the rebellion of the encomenderos under Francisco
Hernndez Girn in 1554. Even alter the wars had ended, their
interest in exploiting silver deposits led many encomenderos to
focus on mobilizing Andean laborers for the mines at the expense
of sponsoring evangelization. In a joint letter to the Crown frorn
the provincials of the Franciscan. Dominican. and Augustinian
orders complained as late as 1562: "[W]ith the past tumults and
disturbances ...we have not been able to do much fruitful work
in the conversion of them." 15
When Francisco de Toledo arrived in Peru in 1569, he began
exerting pressure on both secular clergy and the religious orders.
such as the Franciscans. to undertake the massive job of evange
lization. In Europe, the Franciscans and other monastic orders
traditionally lived in monasteries. and papal decrees strictly
forbade them from administering parishes. This was the work of
the secular clergy. As a result, the first Franciscans to arrive in the
Andes in 1533 had little experience in evangelization and virtually
no training in parish work, if they had not worked elsewhere in the
Indies. Members of the order did not establish their first
monastery until 1548, and the friars only agreed to found parishes
in indigenous towns when Toledo ordered them to undertake the
task. In the central Andean province of Jauja, for example. the
Franciscans had arrived in 1534 and established their monastery
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CHAPTER SIX
at Concepcin fourteen years later. But. it was not until Toledo's

visita in 1570 that they agreed to set up eleven doctrinas in the
province. Even then, the parishes were badly understaffed. The
friar responsible for the doctrinas in Jauja initially had only nine
priests to tend to the spiritual needs of 21,894 Andeans, making
administration of the sacraments impossible, !et alone any
meaningful religious instruction. Over time the friars learned local
languages, utilized the sermons and catechisms circulated after
the Third Provincial Council in 1582-83, established schools, and
administered the sacraments, but the task remained enormous
and the numbers of weU-prepared, dedicated clergy insufficient. 16
Compounding the problems caused by shortages of priests
and friars were sinister chatges of clerical arrogance. inefficiency.
and even corruption. Royal inspectors found the Dominicans,
who administered the parishes among the Lupaka peoples in the
rich province of Chucuito, guilty of wide-ranging abuses. The
order began preaching in the region in 1542, but civil strife
delayed their evangelization efforts until 1547, when the friars
established seven parishes to propagate the faith. After twenty
years of effort, however. local Lupaka leaders complained that
friars seldom left their doctrinas to minister in the surrounding
rural areas. leaving over fifteen thousand people unbaptzed.
Moreover. because few Dominicans knew Aymara. the most widely
spoken indigenous language, religious instruction became a
farce; most of the Lupaka questioned by Church inspectors in
1567 did not know even the rudiments of Catholic doctrine and
few had received the sacraments regularly, especially penance.
Even more disturbing were the constant complaints by Andeans
of financia! corruption. Drawing on the immense prestige that the
order initially enjoyed in the region. the Dominicans allegedly
extorted excessive amounts in salaries, extraordinary donations.
fees. and fines. Ali this money went to enrich the friars and the
order. which managed to build seven churches and residences in
the provinces and renovated severa! others. Local residents also
complained of having to donate unpaid labor to construct these
buildings. The Dominicans apparently also demanded lands. from
,
1:
11
RELIOIOUS CONVERSION ANO THE IMPOSITION OF ORTHODOXY
the Lupaka, laborers to work them, personal servants. and porters

to carry goods for sale in Cusco, Arequipa, and La Paz. These
complaints about the Dominicans eventually led Viceroy Toledo
to expel the order from Chucuito in November 1572.
Responsibility for ministering to the Lupaka then fell to the
secular clergy. the Augustinians. and later to the Jesuits, who
established missions in Juli along the shores of Lake Titicaca. 17
Cultural difference also played a role in thwarting the complete
acceptance of Christianity by Andeans. and npwhere was this
more apparent than in the sacrament of penance. Because many
early friars and priests did not know indigenous languages.
hearing meaningful confessions was virtually impossible. despite
clear Church requirements that baptized Andeans confess at least
once annually between Septuagsima Sunday and the eighth day
of Corpus Christi. One of the principal complaints levied against
the Dominicans in Chucuito. for example. was their failure to
fulfill this duty, except for indios ladinos. who obviously knew
Castilian or Latin. To facilitate the task. Church leaders at the
Third Provincial Council commissioned confessional manuals in
Quechua and later Aymara, which listed detailed questions for
priests to ask each penitent. Nevertheless. the task remained
complex. Words conveying Christian concepts such as sin or
Satan did not have exact equivalents in most indigenous lan
guages. Moreover. the notion of what constituted sin differed in
European and Andean societies. Fornication, for example, was
viewed as a serious offense by clergymen. while many Andean
males apparently did not prize virginity in women and tended to
favor spouses with sexual experience and proven erotic appetites.
Couples often lived together for extended periods as a form of
trial marriage (sirvinacuy). a practice that the Spanish clergy
abhorred. viewing it as little more than a pretext for licentious
ness. In short, religion reflected deeply embedded cultural beliefs
and practices. and Andeans and Spanish priests took many years
to understand each other. As a result. Christian penance became
a common locus for cultural misunderstanding and contestation
during the early colonial era. 18
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CHAPTER SIX
Given the many problems in converting Andeans to orthodox

Roman Catholicism. it is hardly surprising that traditional Andean
religious practices and hybrid forms of religious expression per
sisted, even permeating Christian rituals such as the Corpus
Christi celebrations in Cusco. Although the old capital of
Tawantinsuyu, with its wealthy and powerful old Inca nobility still
intact, was hardly typical of most provinces. the Corpus Christi
celebrations did embody the mixture of indigenous and Christian
religious practices existing throughout the Andes. The feast of
Corpus Christi from late May to mid-June roughly coincided with
the ancient Inca ritual of lnti Raymi. commemorating the Sun and
the harvest season.Inti Raymi was last celebrated by Manco Inca
in 1535, but Corpus Christi celebrations in Cusco began as early
as the l 550s. From the outset important indigenous dignitaries
continued coming to Cusco for the festival. wearing traditional
ciothing and carrying emblems of their places Of origin, much as
they had done for Inti Raymi. The religious processions past
Christian churches-often built atop Inca shrines-and the
carrying of religious figures, particularly the saints, also resonated
with Andeans accustomed to similar processions with their gods
and mallquis. Such continuities between the Corpus Christi cele
brations and the feast of )nti Raymi provide eloquent testimony
to the ways that Andeans drew on the sacred powers of their
traditional beliefs and the new faith, Christianity.19 For them, one
did not exciude the other.
Taqui Onqoy: The Return of the Huacas

Amidst these early efforts to convert Andeans to Christianity, Luis
de Olvera. a Spanish priest in Parincocha (in the province of
Huamanga) discovered alarming news of an apparently millenar
ian. nativist movement called Taqui Onqoy in 1564.According to
leaders of the movement. the Andean huacas were no longer
confined to mountains. streams, and rocks, and instead possessed
human beings, called taquiongos. According to testimonies of-
Christian observers. those chosen by the huacas would "dance and

tremble and move in a circle, and in the dance they called on the
Devil and on their huacas and idols. at the same time abjuring ...
the true faith of Jesus Christ and al! the teaching they had received
from Christian Priests."2 The word taqui (signifying in Quechua a
historical dance) and onqoy (a feast to prevent disease or disasters)
together conveyed the idea of a "dancing sickness" that would
purge the taquiongos of Spanish-Christian impurities. leaving
them free to embrace their traditional deities. The huacas also
spoke through these taquiongos. complaining that they were
starving for sacrifices and chicha. Moreover, the vengeful huacas
warned of a convulsive struggle in which they would vanquish the
Spaniards and their God-which only looked after Europeans. not
Andeans.According to the taquiongos, indigenous peoples would
also perish in this struggle if they did not renounce Christianity for
the old ways, repudiate tribute payments. and refuse mita service.
The most prominent of these huacas were not Inca deities, but
regional gods, such as Tiahuanaco, Pacha Camac, Titicaca. and
Chimborazo. and there is no direct evidence that the taquiongos
attempted to join forces with the Inca rebels at Vilcabamba.
Instead, the movement was confined to the provinces of
Parincocha, Lucanas, Chocorbos, Vilcashuamn. and Andahuaylas
(al! in southern Huamanga), where it nonetheless attracted over
8,000 people in a region with no more than 150,000 inhabitants.21
The Taqui Onqoy movement emerged during a period of
political and economic crisis in the Viceroyalty of Peru. In Lima.
the fractious members of the audiencia and its weak-willed presi
dent. Lope Garca de Castro. attempted to rule a kingdom racked
by thirty years of civil war among the conquistadors and the
omnipresent Inca rebellion in Vilcabamba. Moreover. the silver
economy centered in Potos had reached a crisis, as labor
shortages and inadequate refining methods slowed production.
Meanwhile, a group of royal commissioners oversaw an acdmo
nious debate beginning in 1561 between advocates of making
encomienda grants hereditary and influential ciergymen urging
their abolition, led by the Dominican Domingo de Santo Toms.
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CHAPTER SIX
Powerful indigenous lords, represented by the sympathetic

mestizo lawyer, Francisco Falcn, also presented a plan to pay the
Crown to end the encomienda system and return political power
to Andean leaders, making the situation even more politically
charged. Moreover. regional economic crises and epidemic
diseases weighed heavily on poorer regions, such as southern
Huamanga where the mita for the Huancavelica mercury mines
already had produced hardships. In short, the years before the
arrival of Francisco de Toledo in 1569 were difficult ones for the
Spanish colonizers and the Andean peoples. Indeed. Taqui Onqoy
was only the most visible and prominent of severa! religious
movements and rebellions to erupt during these years of crisis in
the l 560s. 22
Spanish authorities responded quick.ly and decisively to the
threat of Taqui Onqoy, dispatching a dedicated and morally
upright priest, Cristbal de Albornoz, to capture and punish the
taquiongos. In an anti-idolatry campaign that !asted two years,
Albornoz arrested over eight thousand participants and meted
out punishments ranging from permanent exile for leaders to
requiring that lesser participants serve local priests or receive
mandatory religious instruction. Once Albornoz began his legal
proceedings, Taqui Onqoy also started to crumble from within, as
many participants soon denounced the movement, begged
forgiveness. and returned to the Church. In a public ceremony in
Cusco, the principal leaders even confessed that they had
deceived their followers because, "they did not know anything but
to be poor and to acquire food through the offerings [to the
huacasj."23 The available records indicate that few ethnic leaders
openly became taquiongos. and this brief popular outburst
quickly dissipated.
The radical message of Taqui Onqoy, calling for a pan-Andean
alliance of huacas and their human cohorts to expel the invaders,
had limited appeal outside of southern Huamanga. By the I 560s
most Andeans had already begun to accept sorne basic European
cultural and religious precepts and to incorporate them into their
own lives. That process could not easily be reversed. In fact, sorne
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION ANO THE lMPOSITION OF ORTHODOXY
of Taqui Onqoy's basic premises were mpregnated with European

and even Christian ideas. In calling for pan-ethnic unity, for exam
ple, the taquiongos referred to their followers as Indians (indios).
a homogenizing concept introduced by the Spaniards for the
multiplicity of indigenous ethnic groups in the Andes. The leaders
also rallied their disciples on a Iarge multiethnic encomienda in
southern Huamanga, ignoring traditional Andean ethnic cate
gories. Many of the leaders were also baptized Christians. with
names such as Juan Chocne and Mara Magdalena. Finally, despite
their complete rejection of Christianity, the taquiongos preached
that the old gods would initiate a new order purged of past
impurities. This messianic message certainly drew upon Andean
relgious traditions about cycles of cosmic cataclysm and renewal.
but it also resembled Catholic symbolism concerning apocalyptic
death and resurrection. In short, Taqui Onqoy was itself a cultural
and religious hybrid. By 1565 Christianity could not be excised
from the Andes; it was a growing part of the new religious
understanding that was emerging in the Andes since the overthrow
of Tawantinsuyu.24
The First Campaigns to Extirpate ldolatry, 1609-27

Graphic and deeply troubling evidence about the persistence of
Andean religious practices in 1608 set in motion events leading to
the first systematic campaign to extirpate idolatry in the
Viceroyalty of Peru. The news carne first from Francisco de Avila. a
priest who had served since 1597 in the parish of San Damin de
Checa (southeast of Lima in the province of Huarochir). Avila was
an ambitious churchman from Cusco of dubious parentage, who
ran afoul of his parishioners in San Damin in 1600 and again in
1607 for allegedly exploiting indigenous labor, taking long
absences from his parish, charging exorbitant clerical fees.
trading in agricultura! goods, and engaging in scandalous sexual
relationships with local women. Ali of these charges contravened
the directives of the Third Provincial Council. and clerical
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CHAPTER SIX
investigators removed Avila from his parish and incarcerated him

in a Lima jail. pending the outcome of a church investigation.
While in jail Francisco de Avila rallied supporters, who began
collecting information systematically on the existence of "pagan"
religious rituals in Huarochir, which prompted church leaders to
release him from custody. Avila then dramatized these discoveries
by relating an incident in August 1608 at a feast of the
Assumption from a nearby doctrina in Huarochirf, where he
alleged that Andean parishioners used Christian rituals to mask
traditional rites for the huacas, Paria Caca and Chaupi amca.
Avila presented ali of this information, along with a large cache of
conopas, chancas, mallquis, and a local priest of the Chaupi
amca cult (Hernando Pauccar). to the new archbishop of Lima,
Bartolom Lobo Guerrero. Such evidence of widespread idolatry
convinced many hard-line clerics to demand immediate action to
obliterate any residue of Andean religious practices. 25
Quite apart from the apparently mixed motives for Avila's
revelations, the persistence of Andean religious practices
produced little surprise among most knowledgeable clergymen.
The Lima Archdiocese administered a vast area with 162 parishes,
presided over by 108 secular clergymen and 67 friars '(35
Dominicans, 16 Mercederians, 15 Franciscans, and l Jesuit).
According to the dictates of the Council of Trent, each of these
parishes should have served no more than two hundred to three
hundred families, an ideal that was never achieved, even in Lima.
In more remate areas of the viceroyalty such as Chucuito, the
number of families seldom fell below four hundred to five
hundred per priest. Even after secular clergy, the Augustinians,
and the Jesuits had replaced the Dominicans in Chucuito by 1572,
the large numbers of indigenous parishioners scattered
throughout each doctrina forced the often ill-prepared clergymen
to hire assistants for administering the sacraments. Most clerics
and their assistants knew only rudimentary Aymara, and when
they tried reading prepared sermons in that language, the bored,
confused parishioners apparently found it difficult to understand
anything more than the most basic topics covered. Moreover,
church manuals required each priest to ask a battery of questions

in Aymara to each penitent at confession. a task that took at least
fifteen minutes for someone fluent in the language. For the
overburdened priests, hearing confessions once annually for
Easter was a gargantuan task that took months to do properly.
Systematic religious instruction and efforts to root out idolatry
were virtually impossible. Under these circumstances, clergymen
in Chucuito. Lima, and elsewhere must have known that the
mixtures of Andean and Christian practices uncovered so
dramatically by Francisco de Avila in Huarochir were actually
commonplace and understandable occurrences. 26
Nevertheless, Avila's revelations made an immediate impres
sion on Archbishop Lobo Guerrero, who was already sympathetic
to advocates of forceful evangelization and the extirpation of
Andean religious practices. The viceroy, the Marqus de
Montesclaros, and the provincial of the Jesuits shared the arch
bishop's enthusiasm, providing a strong group of advocates for a
legal campaign to extirpate idolatry in the archdiocese. As a result,
Lobo Guerrero permitted Francisco de Avila to give a formal public
sermon in Latin in the cathedral dealing with the problem of
idolatry befare an assemblage of the major clerical and secular
officials on 13 December 1609. The priest used the occasion to
denounce indigenous religious practices, praising the archbishop
for emulating the Catholic zeal of early Church evangelizers.
The sermon was a complete success for Francisco de Avila.
Along with the viceroyalty's key political and religious figures. the
now famous priest presided over a public act of faith (auto de fe) in
the central square of Lima on 20 December, where he gave a
public sermon in Quechua and Castilian, condemning idolatry.
Then, the various idols and mallquis collected by Avila in
Huarochir were publicly bumed. For serving as a priest of the
indigenous Chaupi amca cult, Hemando Pauccar was given two
hundred lashes, had his hair shom, and was sentenced to exile in
a Jesuit college in Chile to receive Catholic instruction. Four days
alter this spectacle, Francisco de Avila was cleared of ali charges
of wrongdoing in San Damin. 27
l 73
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CHAPTER SIX
Archbishop Lobo Guerrero built on the momentum created by

the auto de fe to name the ambitious Francisco de Avila judge
inspector of idolatry (juez visitador de idolatras) for the Lima
Archdiocese in early January 1610, with the authority to begin a
campaign against idolatry. In 1612 the archbishop granted this
same title to two fellow enthusiasts of extirpation, Diego Ramrez
and Fernando de Avendao. Avila's first inspections in Huarochir
and later Yauyos were improvised affairs, with the judge usually
accompanied by a notary, a representative of the viceroy, and two
or three Jesuits to instruct the Andeans on reforming their
idolatrous ways. Avila himself strongly favored Jesuit participa
tion, and severa! members of the order, such as Arriaga, even
became zealous proponents and theoreticians of extirpation. The
procedures employed in the trials, however, relied heavily on the
earlier campaigns of Cristbal de Albornoz against Taqui Onqoy
and rules laid down by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, which by
this time had no authority over indigenous people. Avila and his
cohorts conducted inquiries in each village, destroyed major
Andean religious shrines, and built a bonfire to bum ali idols and
mummies, followed by punishments and religious instructio11.
Over time, the visitations acquired a more definite set of legal
and religious policies governing their conduct, which culminated
in the publication of Arriaga's manual for extirpators in 1621. The
archbishop delegated his extensive powers over matters of reli
gious discipline to the judge-inspectors, who had jurisdiction
over ali ecclesiastical authorities, the right to inspect any doct
rina, examine the competency of local priests and dismiss them,
and discipline ali convicted idolaters. Because the judge
inspectors could not travel to every parish in the archdiocese, they
named teams of extirpators to fan out across the region and assist
their efforts. The "ideal" teams typically consisted of a clergyman
(visitador), accompanied by an attorney (fiscal), a notary, a scribe,
and two or three Jesuit priests. Over time, the numbers involved
in the visitations became less predictable, particularly as the
Jesuits began to lose enthusiasm for the campaigns by mid
century. Nevertheless, upon entering a doctrina, the visitor issued
REL!G!OUS CONVERS!ON ANO THE !MPOS!T!ON OF ORTHODOXY
an edict of grace, giving everyone in the community three days to

come forward with evidence about idolatry. Each day the visitor or
the parish priest celebrated mass in the vemacular, explaining the
sources of religious error and demeaning ali forms of idolatry.
Once they had acquired the names of likely idolaters and the
location of Andean shrines and religious icons, the visitor and his
team would begin interrogations, using torture whenever deemed
necessary. Ali accused parties could retain defense attorneys or
prepare their own cases. Visitations !asted from only a few days to
many months, depending on the problems encountered, but in ali
cases, the local community had to lodge, feed, and support the
needs of the visitors and their retinues. Punishments for those
found guilty depended on the severity of the crime and degree of
repentance displayed. For grave offenses, the visitors could
impose the death penalty, severe public lashings, or exile. After its
construction in 1617, judges sentenced the most grievous idol
aters to confinement in the Santa Cruz prison in Callao. Less
serious crimes could merit public humiliation, terms serving local
priests, or mandatory religious instruction. Ali forms of discipline
during the inspections were public. and usually accompanied the
destruction of any huacas, chancas, conopas. or mummies found
during the inquiry. Finally, the visitor and the Jesuits would preach
and provide other forms of religious instruction in Andean
tongues to members of the parish. Although the exact procedures
followed in each idolatry tria! varied, ali reflected this mixture of
detection, punishment, and religious education. 28
The extirpators sought a complete reform of indigenous
religious practices, which involved both enforcing the established
rules of Reman Catholicism and sponsoring religious education
in the parishes. The judges viewed the Andean communities as a
breeding ground for ali types of offenses. Too often the indige
nous converts to Catholicism lapsed into idolatry, worship of
"false gods," immorality, and failure to heed the Ten Command
ments and the doctrines of Reman Catholicism. At the same time,
the extirpators assumed that the Andeans had an inferior capacity
for understanding, which largely explained their religious
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CHAPTER SlX
shortcomings and their failure to respect the sacred. The extirpa

tors aimed to uncover ali cases of idolatry and to make examples
of egregious offenders befare the entire parish. The task of the
trials was to enforce Christian doctrine and ritual practices, moral
ity, and respect for the true faith. Moreover, the visitors expected
that proper religious instruction would elevate the capacity of the
Andeans to understand and to live a proper Catholic life. None
theless. the balance between the coercive and the educational
components of the trials varied with each different group of
inspectors. 29
Despite its passionate supporters and mounting evidence of
religious error in Andean communities, extirpation campaigns
remained unpopular with many in the viceroyalty. A chorus of com
plaints from indigenous communities decried the heavy financia!
costs and greed of the visitors and their retinues. They also
complained about injustices committed in the legal proceedings
and the overly severe punishments. Even within the clergy, many
opposed forceful extirpation on humanitarian and ideologtcal
grounds. Bishops in Arequipa, Huamanga, Cusca, and Trujillo
opposed extending the process to their dioceses, arguing that
idolatry did not exist. They contended that Andeans were guilty
only of religious error and superstition, which could be handled
effectively with education rather than forceful methods. The
provincial of the Augustinians. Francisco de la Serna, echoed these
sentiments, and so did the head of the Mercedarians. Given this
leve! of opposition. most of the idolatry campaigns between 1610
and 1627 were confined to the Lima Archdiocese. Even here.
however, clerical and lay opponents of extirpation bided their time
until 1621, when the departure of the hard-line viceroy, Francisco
de Borja y Aragn. the prince of Esquilache. and the death of
Archbishop Bartolom Lobo Guerrero. emboldened the cathedral
chapter of Lima to suspend ali idolatry investigations just one day
after the bishop's death. The investigations were not renewed in
any systematic way until 1625 under the sponsorship once again
of an enthusiastic advocate of extirpation, Archbishop Gonzalo de
Campo. Nevertheless. the campaigns ended just as abruptly with
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION ANO THE IMPOSITION O!' ORTHODOXY
his death (possibly by poisoning) in 1626. In short, extirpation only

flourished with the support of strong clerical and lay patrons, such
as Lobo Guerrero. Campo, the Marqus de Montesclaros. or the
prince of Esquilache. 30
The Villagmez Era and the Apogee of Extirpation,

1641-71
Campaigns to extirpate Andean idolatry began anew with the

appointment of Pedro de Villagmez as archbishop of Lima in
1641. Villagmez was born in 1589 in Castroverde de Campos in
northern Spain into a prominent family with a long history of
bureaucratic and clerical service. As a young man. Villagmez
preved himself both pious and scholarly, and after taking his vows
he went to Seville as a canon of the cathedral in 1612, receiving
his doctorate in law and canonical law from the local university in
1624. The rising young churchman went to the Viceroyalty of Peru
in 1632 to complete a royal inspection (visita general) of ali
government tribunals in Lima. Although Villagmez ran afoul of
most of the influential politicians in the capital during his investi
gations. he righteously portrayed himself as a humble servant of
his King and Pope, while depicting his enemies as corrupt and
self-serving. Villagmez became exposed to Andean religious
practices after the Crown named him bishop of Arequipa in 1635.
During a prolonged inspection of the diocese, the new bishop
found shocking evidence of "idolatrous superstitions" among the
indigenous communities. In 1638, Bishop Villagmez convened a
synod. and among his pressing concerns was devising more
systematic means of eliminating Andean religious practices. This
synod established the legal framework and procedures for his
later efforts to mount a full-scale campaign against Andean
religious practices in the Lima Archdiocese.
After promotion to the Lima metropolitan see in 1641.
Archbishop Villagmez began rallying support for a renewed
crusade to extirpate idolatry, which began in earnest with the
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CHAPTER SIX
publication of his pastoral letter of 1649. Borrowing heavily from

Arriaga's earlier manual of 1621. the archbishop's letter was a
passionate exhortation, which relied on carefully chosen biblical
references to justify a new idolatry campaign. He then named a
new crop of visitadores de idolatras, including severa! aged
veterans of earlier campaigns, such as Fernando de Avendao.
Alonso Osario, and Francisco Gamarra; Francisco de Avila had died
earlier in the year. Most were ambitious, experienced (and indeed,
quite aged). and well-educated creole clergymen, dedicated to
imposing Roman Catholic orthodoxy. Villagmez timed the
departure of his idolatry inspectors to coincide with the
installation of a holy relic, a piece of the true cross sent as a present
from Pope Urban VIII. Befare departing from Lima, the inspectors
marched in procession to the cathedral. where Villagmez blessed
their white ceremonial banners, which contained a green cross and
the motto written in red, "Behold the cross of the Lord uniting
adverse factions." 31
Once in the provinces idolatry inspectors uncovered incontro
vertible evidence that Andeans often practiced a curious and
unpredictable mixture of indigenous and Christian rites. When
inspector Bernardo de Novoa entered the village of San Pedro de
Acas (in Cajatambo) in 1657, far example, he faund that Andean
religious specialists, whom the inspectors termed dogmatizers.
exercised a strong hold over community affairs. According to local
Christian witnesses, the feast of St. Peter (the village patron)
coincided with the Andean agricultura! rite of Vecosina. In the
days preceding the Christian feast, the religious head of the
community, Hernando Hacas Poma, and his fellow dogmatizers
made offerings of guinea pigs, llama blood, chicha, and coca
leaves to the huacas and mallquis, asking their permission to take
part in the Christian festival. On the day of the feast of St. Peter.
these dogmatizers poured chicha on the ground and spread out
coca leaves to honor the indigenous deities befare commencing
traditional dances to celebrate Vecosina. In the evening,
indigenous ministers and selected villagers typically met at the
home of the bearer of St. Peter's image in the celebration, where
they celebrated by drinking and making offerings, apparently to

the saint and to their Andean huacas and mallquis. The ritual
probably represented an effort by the Andeans to incorporate
their Christian patron saint into their own traditional panoply of
religious symbols, but to Novoa and the inspectors. it repre
sented blatant idolatry. 32
Novoa and his assistants faund that confession was another
locus of religious confusion and conflict among the indigenous
citizens of San Pedro de Acas. Andeans in Cajatambo had prac
ticed purification rites befare holidays that resembled the sacra
ment of penance. The villagers confessed to Andean religious
specialists any wrongdoing such as adultery, failing to make
offerings to Andean deities and mummies, and neglecting to fast
or abstain from sexual activity during ritual periods. At the same
time, Catholic priests and friars fluent in Quechua had estab
lished the practice of annual confessions in the town to repent
Christian sins. Hernando Hacas Poma and his cohorts urged
people to make a distinction between Andean transgressions and
Catholic sins (pecados). Hacas Poma then instructed the parish
ioners to confess indigenous trespasses to Andean ministers and
pecados to the priest. In effect. Hacas Poma and the other dogma
tizers offered local Andeans a religious compromise, dividing
responsibility with the priests over rites of purification, depend
ing on the transgressions involved. Far Novoa and the idolatry
inspectors. however, Andean farms of penance merely repre
sented the Devil's work. which had to be punished and replaced
with orthodox Catholic rites. 33
Another source of tension within Andean communities
involved falk healers (curanderos), whom Spanish religious author
ities often viewed as servants of the Devil. The Andeans tradi
tionally relied on local healers to cure sickness. concoct lave
potions, ar cast spells on enemies. These healers claimed to draw
their powers from local Andean deities, which sorne idolatry
inspectors viewed as constituting a pact with Satan. Using threats
of punishment and torture, idolatry inspector Antonio de Cceres
extracted a confession from an Andean faith healer, Juana !cha,
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CHAPTER SIX
that she had engaged in a demonic pact involving sexual

intercourse with a mountain spirit or supay named Apu Parato.
According to Juana !cha, Apu Parato visited her in a series of
dreams. taking the form of her late husband and then of an
Andean in a black cape. Later. after sorne badgering by her inter
rogators, Juana !cha added that in exchange for granting her the
powers of a curandera, Apu Parato demanded food and then
sexual intercourse. "inserting his member inside her and
ejaculating a cold yellow liquid."34 For Andeans, the tale of Apu
Parato giving curative powers to Juana !cha in exchange for tradi
tional sacrificial foods. such as coca leaves and animal blood,
probably symbolized the establishment of a reciproca! relation
ship between deities and humans. Antonio de Cceres. however,
interpreted the story as clear evidence of witchcraft, involving an
explicit demonic pact.35
While the attitudes and biases of the inspectors could influ
ence the testimony of witnesses, so too could local political
imbroglios within indigenous communities. In the village of Santo
Domingo de Ocros, for example, the enemies of Francisco Vergara
denounced him for idolatry in 1665, apparently to unseat him as
kuraka. Vergara's chief rival for the post, Francisca Flores, and her
supporters entered into an alliance with the idolatry inspector.
Fernando de Arce, and the local priest, Gabriel Menndez de
Coca. to prove the kuraka guilty of idolatry. Flores claimed
hereditary rights to Vergara's post, while both Coca and Arce were
involved in court cases involving land disputes with the kuraka.
The idolatry tria! was simply one more act of litigation to depose
Vergara and ensnare him. In a similar manner, the investigations
of Bernardo de Novoa in Acas involved a power struggle among
dogmatizers. including Hernando Hacas Poma, the local priest,
and the priest's indigenous lay assistant. Francisco Poma y Altas
Caldeas. The priest's aide provided sorne of the most damning
evidence against the dogmatizers, claiming that the formidable
old Hacas Poma had cast a near-fatal spell on him after Poma
. forced him to attend mass. Local idolatry inspectors ali too
frequently became enmeshed in such triangular power struggles
involving Andean religious leaders. the priest. and kurakas over

political and religious control in indigenous communities. 36
The mixture of fear. political intrigue, and religious zeal
surrounding the idolatry trials, prompted many indigenous com
munities to resist the inspectors with every means at their
disposal. Local dogmatizers often hid huacas. chancas. conopas,
and mallquis from the idolatry inspectors until the proceedings
had ended. Even when Andean religious icons were destroyed,
indigenous ministers continued to worship the locations where
they had been, or they recreated representations of the shrines
and deities. Local community leaders also defended themselves
by utilizing Spanish courts to bring suit against inspectors,
alleging a wide array of abuses. The intrepid and zealous visitor
Bernardo de Novoa. for example, had four villages charge him
with extracting false evidence about idolatry by using threats and
torture. The parishioners of San Pedro de Acas even alleged that
Novoa's abuses had caused the death of elderly citizens. includ
ing Hernando Hacas Poma. Moreover. the litigants complained
that excessive financia! exactions by Novoa during the two-year
idolatry proceedings had bankrupted the parish. Although the
courts cleared Novoa of any wrongdoing in his investigation,
similar legal cases throughout the Lima Archdiocese cast doubts
on the wisdom of idolatry trials and did much to weaken the
movement, particularly after the death of the zealous and
powerful Archbishop Pedro de Villagmez in 1671.37
Powerful civil and ecclesiastical authorities continued raising
concerns about the vigorous, centralized campaigns of extirpation
waged by Villagmez. The archbishop remained unpopular with
most politicians. especially within the Audiencia of Lima. and a
criminal court judge (alcalde del crimen). Juan de Padilla, wrote a
series of condemnations to the King between 1654 and 1657.
Padilla blamed the persistence of Andean religious practices on
the incompetence and idleness of the clergy, arguing that idolatry
trials failed to strike at the root cause of the problem. Influential
clerics. such as the bishop of Quito. Alonso de la Pea
Montenegro (1653-87). also undermined the trials by classifying
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CHAPTER SIX
most forrns of indigenous religious practices as merely super

stition. not formal idolatry. These lesser offenses required better
religious instruction. not severe punishment. Even the Jesuits.
who had proven such staunch supporters of the early idolatry
campaigns. also began to waver in their backing by the 1650s,
refusing to dispatch members of the order to accompany the
expeditions and to provide religious instruction following trials.
Although sorne Jesuits still teamed up with the investigators with
out official sanction, the society's official withdrawal undermined
the prestige of the campaigns and highlighted the coercive over
the educational components of the proceedings. In the end,
although idolatry trials continued, without the support of their
powerful patron. Pedro de Villagmez. the proceedings became
more sporadic and were closely supervised by authorities in Lima.
The Final Stages of Extirpation, 1671-1 750

After the heyday of extirpation during the tenure of Pedro de
Villagmez. clerical efforts to eradicate Andean religious practices
slowly shifted in emphasis. Apart from a brief flurry of activity
between 1690 and 1701 whe.n eighteen trials took place. efforts to
prosecute idolatry became less frequent. None of the archbishops
of Lima succeeding Villagmez shared his intense passion for
extirpation. These more intermittent idolatry inspections contin
ued to uncover and punish Andean religious practices much as in
earlier campaigns. Nevertheless, the inspectors lacked the
sweeping authority granted by Lobo Guerrero and Villagmez.
until Archbishop Diego Morcillo Rubio de Aun appointed
Pedro de Celfs as inspector-general of extirpation in 1725. Even
the broad powers granted to Celfs. however. were more circum
scribed than in earlier investigations. By the late seventeenth
century, clerical authorities began shifting idolatry cases to the
central ecclesiastical court in Lima, where they could be most
easily monitored. This was probably a response to complaints by
Andeans and the political and clerical opponents of these earlier
campaigns. Moreover. indigenous defendants relied more heavily

on experienced Spanish tria! lawyers in Lima, who proved quite
adept at securing acquittals or minimizing punishments. Finally,
the inspections of Pedro de Cels remained confined to the
province of Cajatambo, and with the death of his patron.
Archbishop Morcillo, in 1730, even this wave of extirpation ended
abruptly. Very sporadic. local idolatry trials continued thereafter.
but by 1750 the main campaigns had ended. 38
The subtle changes in these later extirpation investigations are
most visible in the detailed legal case presented in 1723. against
two Andean religious specialists from Santiago de Carampoma.
Huarochir-Juan de Rojas and Francisco Libiac Condor.
According to testimony in the case. Juan de Rojas kept a chapel in
his house. There. he held public rituals to a venerable village
chanca. which began by sounding a seashell trumpet. Likewise.
Francisco Libiac Condor had inherited the right to keep important
village chancas and conopas. and he led local people in prayers.
orations. and ritual sacrifices. Indeed, Libiac Condor was widely
revered in the region for his skills as a religious specialist. Despite
being uncovered as Andean religious leaders, both men received
the services of judge advocate in Lima, Melchor de Carvajal. who
mounted a skillful defense. He argued that both men were victims
of ignorance. Moreover. both had repented and cooperated fully
with the idolatry inquiry. According to Carvajal. Rojas and Libiac
Condor were also relatively new converts to Christlanity, entitled
to merey and further instruction in the faith. In the end. these
arguments managed to lessen. the punishment. Francisco Libiac
Condor. the more notorious dogmatizer of the two, received only
a public flogging and a fine of twenty-five pesos. Although the
issues involved in these later extirpation trials were similar to
earlier cases, the proceedings in Lima were conducted with
greater care, and judges showed more willingness to accept reli
gious error as a legitimate defense. Apparently, by the eighteenth
century clergymen had begun to reach a compromise about how
to deal with persistent Andean religious practices; they would
continue to root out idolatry, but the guilty were seldom viewed
l 83
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CHAPTER SIX
as apostates, and thus did not merit the most severe forms of
discipline.
These later extirpation cases also revea! much about the
resiliency of Andean religion after nearly two hundred years of
Catholic evangelization. Despite their outward displays of
Christian devotion, many Andeans in Carampoma and elsewhere
still publicly attended traditional religious rites. In fact, seven
years befare extirpators prosecuted Juan de Rojas and Francisco
Libiac Candor, an extirpator visiting the parish had arrested and
Iater convicted another dogmatizer, Francisco de la Cruz. 39 Even
repeated visits by extirpators apparently could not eliminate the
community's ongoing need for traditional relgious specialists.
shamans, and healers.
Late Colonial Popular Religion, 1750-1825

Although enthusiasm for the extirpation of idolatry had waned by
the l 750s, Christlanity continued making slow and steady inroads
within Andean communities during the second half of the century.
Andeans continued flocking to local relgious festivals. which
became larger and more ostentatious ceremonial occasions. The
familiar festivals, saints' holidays, and devotional objects associ
ated with Catholic worship gave indigenous communities the
opportunity to celebrate, to evoke the divine, and to share a sense
of common purpose and mutual oblgation. In addition. as church
leaders moved away from forcible extirpation. they began empha
sizing Christian concepts of !ove and charity, which along with
popular rituals appealed to Andeans. Occasional extirpation
trials persisted, but over time priests and the church hierarchy
generally ignored or downplayed evidence of recurring indige
nous religious practices or subterranean ties between traditional
Andean rituals and Christian festivals and icons. The miracles
associated with popular religious icons. such as the Virgin of
Copacabana, for example, certainly had links to pre-Columbian
deities in the Lake Titicaca region. By the eighteenth century,
however. most churchmen exploited these connections to

increase popular expressions of faith, instead of viewing them
with intense suspicion. Indeed, the popularity of devotions to the
Virgin of Copacabana or the Virgin of Chiquinquir in the North
Andes actually reached new heights during the century. By the
time he wrote his memorial to the Crown. Fray Calixto de San Jos
Tupak Inca confidently justified his complaints about Spanish
abuses against his people by arguing that Andeans were by then
ali "good Christians." Popular piety in its many different forms
served to lure Andeans to the churches, despite their tendency to
continue mixing Catholicism with enduring traditional religious
beliefs.40
During the poltica! and economic tumult of the second half of
the eighteenth century, the spiritual and ritual life of Roman
Catholicism also provided unity and security for many Andean
communities. In the seventeenth century, widespread indigenous
migration and the rise of the forastero population led to a refor
mulation of community social. cultural. and religious practices.
This process of ethnogenesis broke down traditional ethnic
boundaries and the Andean religious practices associated with
them. In addition. competition among indigenous groups and
Spaniards for lmited landholdings intensified in many regions,
producing conflict and hardship. The dramatic increase in tax and
labor oblgations arising from the Bourbon Reforms also put
additional pressure on Andeans during the century. Such
economic burdens only worsened in 175 I when the Crown legal
ized the forced distribution of goods (repartimiento de comercio
or mercancas) by local corregidores. In short, during the changing
colonial world of the late eighteenth century, the Roman Catholc
Church provided at Ieast sorne sense of security and cohesion in
the daily lives of the Andean peoples.
Relations between priests and their indigenous parishioners
were complex and most often depended on local conditions and
the personalities involved. Sorne clergymen were popular and
caring community leaders, but widespread complaints about the
moral laxity, ineptitude, and dishonesty of other priests and friars
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CHAPTER SIX
persisted. In his famous memorial. the Andean kuraka, Vicente

Morachimo, provided a stunning catalog of abuses by clergymen
and colonial bureaucrats alike. Morachimo claimed that both
regular and secular clergymen forced Andeans to work for meager
wages repairing churches. tending the Iand of priests and reli
gious sodalities (cofradas). and carrying their produce to distant
markets. The kuraka even told the case of the Dominican Fray
Flix de Moneada, who allegedly forced his indigenous parish
ioners in Santa Marfa Magdalena de Cao (outside of Trujillo) to
work on his sugar plantation without pay. The friar also redirected
water from irrigation canals to his own fields and grazed his goats
on community pasture lands. 41 The Spanish naval officers, Jorge
Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, echoed these reports of pervasive
clerical corruption. Juan and Ulloa related the particularly
salacious example of a friar in Cuenca (in the southern part of the
Audiencia of Quito) who tried unsuccessfully to seduce the
daughter of a prominent local kuraka, even asking for her hand in
marriage. When the kuraka complained that priests could not
marry, the wily friar forged a patent ostensibly giving his provin
cial's permission to marry the girl. and that evening a sham
wedding took place. 42 Reports of poorly trained or lazy parish
priests and friars also abounded. In I 766, for example. a clerical
inspector in Chucuito reported that five of eighteen priests in the
region knew only the rudiments of Aymara, making religious
instruction and hearing confessions in the parishes nearly impos
sible. As late as I 793 a church investigation found that only 5 to
10 percent of the Andeans in sorne portions of the Lupaka
parishes of Chucuito met their annual Easter obligation to
confess and receive communion.43 Under these circumstances,
the persistence of Andean religious practices was inevitable. Over
time, however, most parish priests, regardless of their honesty
and effectiveness, carne to understand or ignore evidence of
idolatry, particularly when parishioners paid their salaries and
carne to mass periodically.
During the reign of King Charles III ( I 759-88), political and
religious reformers began attacking clerical abuses and also
expressions of popular religious piety, which they regarded as

little more than superstition bordering on idolatry. These
reformers, called Jansenists, often favored expanding royal
control within Spain and the empire at the expense of papal juris
diction and the powers wielded by local parish priests and the
religious orders. particularly the influential Society of Jesus.
Jansenists and their political allies in Spain finally gained enough
power in 1767 to have the order expelled from the empire. Given
the popularity and leverage exerted by the Jesuits within many
indigenous communities, the expulsion order removed a major
force for evangelization. particularly in frontier zones where the
order operated large missionary operations. Efforts by Jansenists
to attack popular piety and local religious devotions in the Andes,
however, met with more limited success. The Church normally
made only halfhearted efforts to reform what Jansenists called the
"excesses" and "superstitions" embedded in local religious
practices. Any effort to curb Andean expressions of popular piety
and channel them into more sedate churches and cloisters was
doomed to fail by the late eighteenth century. 44
lnstead, reformers in the Viceroyalty of Peru generally concen
trated on limiting the political and economic power of the Church
on the local leve!. which often provoked suspicions, dissension,
and even confrontations between clerical and lay authorities.
Many influential politicians believed the Church had gained too
much power early in the century. when the Crown had appointed
archbishops of Lima to serve as interim viceroys during the years
1710-16 and 1720-24. Royal authorities avoided this practice later
in the century and began curtai!ing the power of the viceregal
church, even at the leve! of indigenous doctrinas. Local priests
traditionally had served as power brokers between viceregal
authorities and indigenous communities, providing information to
the state, interpreting laws to their parishioners, and even
assisting in compiling population counts needed for tribute
collection. Reformers imposed a number of changes in these
power-broker relationships to curtail the strong local influence of
clergymen in the doctrinas. Viceregal officials sponsored new
187
[ 88
CHAPTER SIX
censuses to catch tribute frauds. increased tax rates, and in the

l 750s enforced the repartimiento de comercio. Ali of these policies
dramatically extended the power of local magistrates at the
expense of clergymen. They also provoked competition between
corregidores and parish clergy for economic and poltica! control
over Andean communities. By giving priority to collecting state
levies and meeting repartimiento quotas. the viceregal govern
ment effectively limited the resources available to pay clerical
salaries. fees. and taxes. In short. the process of poltica! central
ization and imposing heavier fiscal exactions on the Andean com
munities undercut the role of clergymen as political and economic
forces at the local level.
The growing tensions among churchmen. colonial officials. and
Andean communities were vividly apparent in a series of disputes
over tribute payments and surreptitious ancestor veneration in
Andagua (near Arequipa) between 1748 and 1754. One of the
principal innovations of the Bourbon Reforms was to increase
tribute revenues, but the indigenous peoples of Andagua stub
bornly resisted paying the higher taxes. The leader of the anti-tax
faction was Gregario Taco. a petty merchant in the local wool trade.
whom Spanish residents of Andagua also accused of practicing
witchcraft and idolatry. Apparently. Gregario Taco was a respected
local religious specialist. who argued that making sacrifices to
local mallquis, conopas. and chancas protected the town and its
prosperous regional commerce with Arequipa and highland min
ing towns. Despite his reputation as a dogmatizer. Taco enoyed
the support and friendship of the local parish priest, Joseph
Delgado, who preved tolerant of local religious customs. Despite
their resistance to increased tribute payments, Taco and the other
citizens of the parish faithfully paid the salary and fees owed to
Delgado, whom they considered a legitimate local leader. Alter
severa! failed attempts to capture Taco, in 1751 the region's
corregidor, Joseph de Arana. sent a force of 150 men to arrest him,
to collect ali tax arrears, and to destroy any idols found in the area.
The force drew the ire of Reverend Delgado. who denied the
presence of idolatry and even r a ened the Spanish expedition's
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leader with excommunication. Nevertheless, the Spanish force

rounded up Taco and his cohorts. exacted confessions (sometimes
using torture). and destroyed a host of local mummies. chancas.
and conopas.
At this point. the entire affair became mired in a series of petty
jurisdictional conflicts. The Church hierarchy in Arequipa heard
about the arrests, protested that ldolatry fell under its purview. and
sent its own idolatry inspectors to Andagua. When Arana refused
to remand the prisoners to clerical authority, the bishop threat
ened him with excommunication. The imbroglio then carne to the
attention of judges in the Audiencia of Lima, who claimed
jurisdiction over the affair in Andagua. Amidst these internecine
disputes. Gregario Taco and most of his allies secured their release
from jail and even lodged formal complaints against excessive
tribute rates and the destruction of local religious objects. Such
divisions also allowed local Andean dogmatizers. such as Taco. to
practice their own mix of Christianity and local indigenous rites
with impunity and to defy local authorities over their right to tax
the indigenous peoples. 45
The Church-state conflicts occasioned by the Bourbon Reforms
further weakened royal authority in the years from 1780 to 1825.
The rebellions of Tupac Amaru in the Cusca region and Toms
Katari and Tupac Katari in Upper Peru shook the foundations of
royal authority in the Andes. Alter their suppression by viceregal
authorities, hostility to the colonial regime continued in many
Andean communities. Even the imposition of the intendancy
system in the l 780s throughout much of the Andes could not
revitalize state control over regional indigenous populations.
During Spain's political crisis following the French invasion of the
lberian peninsula in 1808. even the symbolic unity provided by the
monarchy had crumbled. By this time Andean peoples had
witnessed the slow decline in the power and prestige of the twin
pillars of colonial rule--the Church and the monarchy. By attempt
ing to clear away the customs. traditions. and popular rituals that
preved such an important bond between the indigenous peoples
and Roman Catholicism, the Crown ultimately managed to
189
J 90
CHAPTER SIX
undermine its own power and legitimacy in the Andes. After ali. the
monarchy and the Church were intimately bound together in the
indigenous popular imagination, and as the colonial state began
its slow-motion collapse between 1808 and 1825, the loyalty of
Andeans to the Crown continued to weaken. After the long process
of evangelization begun in 1532, the indigenous peoples now faced
an increasingly secularized creole leadrship in most of the newly
independent nations carved out of the former Tawantinsuyu.
Despite the ongoing influence of Roman Catholicism, a weaker
church structure allowed the convergence of Andean and Christian
religious practices to continue throughout the eighteenth century,
persisting even to the present day.
Conclusions
Although the spiritual conquest of the Andean world remained
incomplete, the effects of three hundred years of evangelization
and over a century of campaigns to extirpate idolatry produced
immense cultural and religious changes. The state religious cults
of the Inca fell to the official rituals and dogma of Roman
Catholicism. Andeans quickly embraced the ritual festivals. cere
monies, music, dances, prayers. and devotional objects of
Christianity. On the other hand. they stubbornly clung to tradi
tional rites associated with their huacas. chancas, mallquis. and
conopas, a problem that bedeviled generations of churchmen in
the Viceroyalty of Peru. Supporters of forcible conversion, such as
Archbishop Pedro de Villagmez, utilized systematic legal
campaigns to extirpate idolatry, while many other clerics favored
a more moderate stance, viewing continued Andean religious
practices as signs of religious error that could be combated by
education. The problem of convincing Andeans to renounce their
own beliefs in favor of Christianity proved more complex than
either the extirpators or their critics envisaged. Traditional
Andean religious beliefs united the spiritual and materials worlds;
turning away from these traditions involved rejecting their
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION ANO THE IMPOSITION OF ORTHOOOXY
identities and their past. lnstead, most indigenous peoples

incorporated Roman Catholic ritual and doctrine into their own
religious framework, producing a complex, evolving mixture that
differed over time in each regan of the Andean world. This .ever
changing set of spiritual compromises or maay began slowly
incorporating more Christian precepts by the eighteenth century,
but complaints about clerical corruption, and the divisiveness
and tumult produced by the Bourbon Reforms weakened the
church and the spread of Catholic orthodox beliefs during the
waning years of the colonial arder. As a result. traditional indige
nous religious practices continue to have meaning today, as
Andeans still revere their conopas and mix Christian and tradi
tional religious beliefs into their own brand of Catholicism.
The history of religious conversion and the imposition of
Catholic orthodoxy often involved a tragic mixture of idealism,
intolerance, persecution, misunderstanding, and even brutality.
What extirpators viewed as apostasy, Andeans often percelved as
preserving their own cultural and spiritual identity. Throughout
the colonial era. the universalizing dogma of Christianity carne
into conflict with Andean notions of maay. The tale of Cristbal
Choque Casa in the Huarochir Manuscript indicates the profound
dilemma faced even by stalwart Andean converts to Christianity.
Sometime after his conversion, Cristbal Choque Casa related
that in a dream, he had engaged a powerful local huaca in mortal
combat vanquishing him. Despite this apparent victory, however,
different huacas returned to Choque Casa's dreams for combat
each night, repeating an endless cycle of nightmarish struggles
against his old faith. Apparently, even those who rejected past
beliefs during their waking hours could attain no peace in sleep.
The persistence of Andean religious practices indicates that most
indigenous converts were unwilling to face the nightmares of
Cristbal Choque Casa. 46 Instead, they attempted a spiritual
accommodation between the old and the new. Christianity and
the old deities. The spiritual conquest of the Andes ended _not in
complete victory, but in a compromise between Christianity and
native Andean beliefs-a constantly evolving maay.
19 J

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Dr.

Marco Curatola Petrocchi

BY HIS OWN ACCOUNT. in the year 1615 an aged Andean named

the status of an indigenous prince. having descended on his

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Fig. 4. Tfte autftor, Felipe Guarnan Poma de Ayala, on tfte

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

with Spanish rnodes

Literacy and Numeracy in the Andean World

nd understood by ali. According to this viewpoint, alphabetic

Renaissance to codify Castilian grammar, voc abulary, and

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

into doing so, and thus, in matters of importance, the

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

The Indians of Peru. before the Spaniards carne. had no

Fig. 5. A quipucarnayoc. (Guarnan

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Despite their importance early in the colonial period, Spanish

Language, Writing, and the New Colonial Order

These sentiments were echoed in the royal instructions given

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

royal mandate by ordering the foundation of schools to instruct

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

but since it would be more common and practica! to

by providing sorne rudimentary instruction in local parishes.

Quechua-Castilian dictionary. This was followed in 1612 by a

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

indigenous officials during the colonial period, as happened in

An Andean Literary Awakening

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Andeans. El Inca Garcilaso attempted to use his history to

conquerors. For Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui, writing was a way

primer nueva cor6nica, represented an accurate. objective history of

the Andes, Guarnan Poma used a number of discursive strategies

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

The final two-thirds of the opus. Buen gobierno, purported to be

licentiousness among Spanish men and women. With one hand,

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOC!ETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Fig. 6. A dinner involving a priest, mestizo, mulatto, and

Fig. 7. A corregidor and liis lieutenant uncovering a naked. sleeping

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Fig 8. Lust and licentiousness among Spanisli men and

The memorial of Fray Calixto even harkened back to earlier writings

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

learned to value written documents as legal texts and ceremonial

Artistic Expression in the Colonial Andean World

patterns of tuca pu, which formed an ordered iconographic system

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Fig. 9. Inca key checkerboard tunic. (No. 91.147.

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Fig. 10. Poli uncu. (Poli Collection, Lima, Peru)

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

ANDEAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

983. ( Guaman Poma,

the mulatto and the mestizo (identified by the words on their

ANDEAN CULTURE ANO SOCIETY UNDER COLONIAL RULE

Fig. 14. A corregidor exclianging drinking vessels witli an

Spanish clerical and secular authorities made more systematic