Los Jesuitas e Incas

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The Cuzco region was the principal theatre of protest, rebellion and sundry subversive activities in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the last half-century of colonial rule (c.1770-1824). 1 Between 1780 and 1815 the region was the scene of two abortive revolutions against Spanish overlordship, as well as of three failed conspiracies and desultory murmurings that shared the same separatist goal. The common denominator of this welter of uprisings and conspiracies was the search for an Inca as leader of a movement that could provide a political alternative to continued Spanish domination, a search favoured as much by Creole groups as by indigenes. Now, the attractiveness of this concept of a new Incario for the surviving Incan and other indigenous nobility will be obvious, but its enchantment for the Creole elites of the region requires a more detailed explanation. Historians have traditionally ascribed the Creole acceptance of this concept either to romantic nostalgia for a supposed ‘Golden Age’ or to cynical opportunism, but our understanding of the concept has always been impeded by the lack of any clear formulation of its content in the eighteenth century itself. This search for an Inca to lead a rebellion and/or to serve as titular head of a restored Incario was an idea that ran like a red thread through the separatist politics of the era. It was an idea that was obviously imbued with some messianic or millenarian content. In the wake of the 1780 rebellion, the Bishop of Cuzco criticised the availability of a popular and prophetic literature that foretold the restoration of Tahuantinsuyu. For example, a 1723 edition of the Comentarios Reales de los Incas by Garcilaso de la Vega included a prologue by Gabriel de Cárdenas which recorded a prophecy of just such a restoration of the Incario (in this case with the protection of England). 2 The great Túpac Amaru rebellion of 1780 focused the minds of Crown authorities wonderfully, led as it was by an indigenous noble who claimed to be the rightful successor to the last Inca and as such entitled not only to the advocacy of indigenous welfare and associated reform, but also—as became clear during the course of the rebellion—to sovereign rule, to a restoration of a modernized version of Tahuantinsuyu. In the official Sponsoring Popular Culture: the Jesuits, the Incas and the Making of the Pax Colonial David Cahill University of New South Wales

description

Este es un estudio del historiador australiano David Cahill, sobre la sociedad cusqueña y la relación entre los jesuitas, los incas y la construcción de la denominada Paz Colonial.

Transcript of Los Jesuitas e Incas

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The Cuzco region was the principal theatre of protest, rebellion and sundrysubversive activities in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the last half-centuryof colonial rule (c.1770�1824).1 Between 1780 and 1815 the region was thescene of two abortive revolutions against Spanish overlordship, as well as ofthree failed conspiracies and desultory murmurings that shared the sameseparatist goal. The common denominator of this welter of uprisings andconspiracies was the search for an Inca as leader of a movement that couldprovide a political alternative to continued Spanish domination, a searchfavoured as much by Creole groups as by indigenes. Now, the attractivenessof this concept of a new Incario for the surviving Incan and otherindigenous nobility will be obvious, but its enchantment for the Creole elitesof the region requires a more detailed explanation. Historians havetraditionally ascribed the Creole acceptance of this concept either toromantic nostalgia for a supposed �Golden Age� or to cynical opportunism,but our understanding of the concept has always been impeded by the lackof any clear formulation of its content in the eighteenth century itself. Thissearch for an Inca to lead a rebellion and/or to serve as titular head of arestored Incario was an idea that ran like a red thread through theseparatist politics of the era. It was an idea that was obviously imbued withsome messianic or millenarian content. In the wake of the 1780 rebellion,the Bishop of Cuzco criticised the availability of a popular and propheticliterature that foretold the restoration of Tahuantinsuyu. For example, a1723 edition of the Comentarios Reales de los Incas by Garcilaso de la Vegaincluded a prologue by Gabriel de CÆrdenas which recorded a prophecy ofjust such a restoration of the Incario (in this case with the protection ofEngland).2

The great Tœpac Amaru rebellion of 1780 focused the minds of Crownauthorities wonderfully, led as it was by an indigenous noble who claimedto be the rightful successor to the last Inca and as such entitled not only tothe advocacy of indigenous welfare and associated reform, but also�asbecame clear during the course of the rebellion�to sovereign rule, to arestoration of a modernized version of Tahuantinsuyu. In the official

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David CahillUniversity of New South Wales

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recriminations that followed the suppression of the insurgency, the questionof how to obliterate the nostalgic yearning for a return to a supposed IncanGolden Age remained high on the agenda of royalist reprisals and counter-insurrectionary strategy. Addressing this problem, the Visitor-General,Josef Antonio de Areche, charged with the suppression of the rebellion andrestoration of order, called for the iconoclastic suppression of all artistic,folkloric and cultural vestiges�including noble privileges and ceremonialpractices�that evoked the memory of the erstwhile Inca emperors andthereby, ran the argument, inculcated a veneration for the long-gone Incasrightfully due the Most Catholic Monarch by his subjects.

While Areche�s report has often been cited by historians, it has less oftenbeen recognized that his proposals were but a pale epitome of the swingeingcritique of the late colonial Incan elite and of indigenous society generallymade by the Bishop of Cuzco, Juan Manuel Moscoso y Peralta.3 Moscosohad dictated his report in response to an instruction from Areche orderingthe removal of all portraits and likenesses of former Inca rulers fromecclesiastical institutions. The Bishop singled out in particular the Colegiode Indios Nobles de San Francisco de Borja (also called the Colegio del Sol)which had since 1621 provided the scions of the indigenous nobility andleading caciques (kurakas) with an education commensurate with theirfuture administrative and political responsibilities�should they eventuallysucceed to hereditary cacicazgos�and which harked back to an analogousIncaic institution (Yachay Huasi).4 Moscoso had removed such portraitsfrom San Francisco de Borja and from the church of Curahuasi (partido ofAbancay), even presenting Areche with a portrait of Felipe Tœpac Amaru.This Inca had led a war of resistance against the Spanish until his capturein 1572 by Martín García de Loyola, nephew of the founder of the Jesuitorder, and whose lineal descendant JosØ Gabriel Tœpac Amaru had led theuprising of 1780�81. The portrait of Felipe Tœpac Amaru had hung in therefectory of San Francisco de Borja, there presumably to inspire generationsof young nobles with his deeds, an extraordinary oversight on the part ofcollege authorities. For Moscoso and Areche, at any rate, the portrait waspregnant with political connotations. Of perhaps wider import, the Bishopalso ordered the removal of likenesses �engraved in the wall of the lowerangle� of the college. San Francisco de Borja was centrally located, on a risejust above the main plaza of the city, and Moscoso�s description suggeststhat such likenesses may have been on the exterior of the building. If so,they might have served as inspiration not only to the College�s alumni, butto the entire indigenous sector, city residents as well as the numeroustransients. In Moscoso�s judgement, Native Andeans were �a species ofrational beings� on whom what they saw made more impression than whatthey heard. This was the dialectical keystone upon which he built hisanalysis of the diffusion of colonial Inca culture and his disquisition on thepolitical ramifications of such perceived atavism.

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The Bishop grounded his critique of the ubiquity of Incaic culture, with itsconcomitant veneration of the Incaic past, in a wide-ranging purview of therealms of indigenous material culture, dress, music, literature, andreligious and ceremonial life. He averred that the Incan nobility andcaciques of the southern sierra had no other images in their houses butthose of former Inca emperors or their own ancestors dressed in Incanregalia. As George Kubler and John Rowe pointed out long ago,5 thereligious art of the Cuzqueæo School of the seventeenth century gave way inthe eighteenth to a marked concentration on Incaic representations of theindigenous nobility. There are, however, no grounds for supposing, paceRowe, that this demonstrates a reversion to Incaic dress by nobles followingtheir widespread adoption of European dress in the aftermath of theconquest; rather, Incaic dress had always been de rigueur on ceremonialoccasions. What was new in the eighteenth century was that the nobilitychose to have themselves portrayed in such regalia by a traditional school ofpainting that had always been dominated by indigenous and mestizoartists. The works of this school provided, in fact, an additional exportindustry for the region, enabling indigenous artists to diffuse their thematicpreoccupations throughout the Andes. Where once thematic content hadbeen restricted to the religious sphere, it now took on a more secular toneand ominous political message. Other-worldly preoccupations gave way to aconcern with the past and the present.

A further target of the Bishop�s criticism was the Incaic heraldry boasted bythe indigenous nobility. These coats of arms�still to be observed in theescutcheons of the houses of the town of Maras�appear to have been thoseawarded many noble families by successive Spanish monarchs (especiallythe emperor Charles V). These did indeed incorporate predominantly Incaninsignias and motifs; pre-conquest Incas had had, though, their owndivisas, so that the coats of arms awarded noble families in the sixteenthcentury may partly have been based on pre-Columbian models. His attackon Inca culture encompassed also the crucial issue of the participation ofthe Incan nobility in the liturgical and ceremonial life of the region. It wasthrough the religious pomp of the conquerors that the indigenous nobilitywas able to reaffirm and renew, at various junctures in the liturgical year,its own identity and its collective descent from the twelve Incaic �houses� orpanacas, and thereby perhaps to command the fealty and respect of NativeAndeans. �In public festivities, soirees, processions, and other activities�,Moscoso wrote, �we observe that the Indians use no other adornment, thanthose that were esteemed in their Gentility�. At hand to illustrate his thesiswas the principal religious festivity of the region: the feast of Corpus Christiand, in particular, the �day and eve of Santiago�. Corpus in Cuzco was, as weknow from contemporary canvasses, a splendid occasion; it featuredprocessions�one principal, preceded by several smaller santomarches�which celebrated indigenous religious devotions, and on the day

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of Santiago pride of place was given over to the surviving Incan nobility,decked out in Incan regalia and insignias, and led by the alfØrez real de losingas nobles chosen by the electors representing the twelve �houses� of thenobility). The Incan alfØrez was richly arrayed in Incan costume Theundoubted centrepiece of the richly arrayed alfØrez�s ensemble was themascapaicha, the decorative headband equivalent to a royal crown. Thiswas embellished with plumes and precious stones and from it hung thesymbol par excellence of the Inca, the famous borla colorada or tuft ofcoloured wool, the use of which was fiercely guarded and jealouslycircumscribed by the colonial Inca nobility.6

An equally powerful reverberation of Tahuantinsuyu was the champi thatwas borne by the Incaic alfØrez real much as if he were a prelate wielding acrook, or, best to say, a monarch with sceptre.7 Now, the champi isdescribed by the chronicler Cobo as a halberd (alabarda), and representedby Guaman Poma as such, and appears to have evolved from a war-mace.Its colonial version may have metamorphosed into more of a broad staff orvara, to judge both from the variations mentioned by Cobo and the Bishop�saccount.8 These champis, averred Moscoso, were embellished with either�the image of the Inca� or that of the Sun, the principal deity of the quondamInca �emperors���their adored deity�. This elaborate raiment was furtheradorned with decorations of gold and silver figurines (mascarones) at theextremities of the shoulders, on the knees and on the back of the legs; thefineness of these figurines was said to be an indicator of the respective�qualities� of the wearers.9 Quite what these symbolsrepresented�erstwhile Inca rulers, Christian saints or autochthonousidols�is not made clear, but the general thrust of the nobility�s imagery atCorpus was towards a commemoration and perhaps even veneration of pre-conquest divinities, an impression underlined by the hand-held disc of theSun borne by the alfØrez real in addition to�as we know from contemporarypaintings�the disc of the Sun worn on the alfØrez�s chest.

The Bishop emphasized that the use of such insignia characterised all of thecivil as well as ecclesiastical festivities of the city. Moreover, it is evidentfrom discrete documentation that the Incaic content of the day of Santiagoextended to the rural towns of the southern sierra.10 While Moscoso did notsingle out the day of Santiago itself as being particularly reprehensible,there is little doubt that it was the surpassing feast of the colonial Incanobility. The �Twenty-four Electors of the AlfØrez Real� eagerly soughtelection for the honour of bearing the standard of Santiago in the Corpusprocession, an honour that carried with it tacit recognition as primus interpares of the colonial indigenous nobility. Why Santiago should have been sovenerated within indigenous society is not made explicit in thedocumentation, and full clarification of the point would spring the bounds ofthis article.11 However, it has to do generally with the syncretic acceptanceof the warrior-saint by Native Andeans. The Santiago matamoros and

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matajudios of the peninsular reconquista and the Spanish conquest of theAmericas became, during the latter event, Santiago mataindios, and thereis evidence from several regions of colonial Peru that Santiago was equatedwith one or more pre-Columbian deities, above all with Illapa, the god ofthunder. A Christian saint, then, became incorporated as a deity in theAndean pantheon, and Moscoso, observing that the Inca nobility carriedtheir own banners �with the sculpted images of their Gentile kings� on theday of Santiago,12 recommended that in future only the royal standard (ofthe Spanish monarch) be permitted on such occasions.

Drawing on the experience of his visitation of the sprawling Cuzco diocesethe previous year, the prelate also underscored the rôle of the ruralchurches in perpetuating a vivid memory of the Incas. There, indigenouscongregations dressed statues of the infant Jesus in the uncu, mascaipachaand other such �insignias�, a usage paralleled in paintings hung in thechurches. Alleging, with good reason, that indigenes regarded the formerInca �emperors� as gods, the Bishop argued that this local cult was nosuperficial syncretism or banal folklore. He was on this point almostcertainly correct, for traditional animistic beliefs had imbued religious artwith real powers. The general point may be served by a single example:during the uprising of 1780�83, indigenous rebels systematically tied thehands of images of Santiago in rural churches so as to forestall the martialintervention of this fearsome warrior-saint on behalf of royalist forces.13

This disquisition of Bishop Moscoso y Peralta is seminal because it providesa contemporary confirmation of the hypotheses and concepts of severalhistorians that there existed an underlying �Inca Nationalism� or �AndeanUtopia� or �colonial Andean Messianism� in colonial and even contemporaryPeruvian society and politics, for all that many of the coordinates ofMoscoso�s own thesis were themselves hypothetical. Political movementsand conspiracies were thus impregnated with Incaic concepts andsymbolism in late colonial Peru. These were thoroughly grounded incolonial culture and religion, nowhere more so than in the religiousextravaganzas and major processions that were such a familiar part ofcolonial culture. It is to an analysis of the Incaic symbolism of such festivephenomena that we now turn.

There was ample evidence to buttress Moscoso�s critique of Incaicsymbolism in religious fiestas, though his assertion that Incaic dress was derigueur for the indigenous nobility on �all� civic and ecclesiastical occasionsremains problematic. Certainly, there is little support for this incontemporary descriptions of civic ceremonies; it might be supposed thatsuch splendour on mundane occasions would have elicited some commenton the part of the authorities. In 1787 the cuzqueæo savant, Ignacio deCastro, in his ponderous yet erudite encomium to the King on the occasionof the ceremonies marking the foundation of the Real Audiencia in Cuzco,

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recorded (somewhat patronisingly) the appearance of the indigenous elitesin procession thus:

Los caciques y los Indios nobles de la Ciudad, de las Parroquias y de loscontornos, eran los que aparecían al principio, vestidos no ya de susantiguos trajes, sino del uniforme Espaæol en caballos bellamenteenjaezados que saben ya montar, manejar y adestrar.14

There is, of course, a strong presumption that this circumstance was thedirect result of the strictures of Moscoso and Areche on the deleteriouseffects of Incaic symbolism, and Castro certainly seems to imply that Incaiccostume had been the norm but had recently been abandoned. However, itis more likely to have been more the result of a related 1785 representationto the Viceroy by the Intendant Mata Linares, in which he called urgentlyfor the extirpation of Incaic costume on festive occasions, and with itabolition of the office of the indigenous alfØrez real and the bearing of dualstandards or banners on such occasions.15 This latter, he duly noted, was acustom singular in the entire Hispanic world, and the Viceroy, Teodoro deCroix, had agreed to suspend such usages pending further advice.Neverthless, it is abundantly clear that Incaic raiment had been worn onmajor ecclesiastical occasions. For all that, descriptions of only six of thesehave come down to us, each an eloquent testimony to the Andean �capacityfor mimicry� and �capacity for reinterpreting theatrical forms introduced byearly evangelization�:16 ArzÆns y Vela�s account of the 1555 celebrations inPotosí, in acclamation of the patron saints of the city and of their success indelivering the viceroyalty from the revolt of Francisco HernÆndez Girón;Garcilaso de la Vega�s record of the 1555 inaugural Corpus Christifestivities in Cuzco, which also in part celebrated the crushing of thatrevolt; the detailed account of the 1610 cuzqueæo festivities after the arrivalof the news of the beatification of Ignacio de Loyola; an unpublished 1692record of an Incaic procession connected with the Jesuit chapel of Loreto inCuzco; and representations of the Incas in 1659 and 1725 festivities inLima. For reasons of space, but also because the surviving colonial Incanobles themselves held centre-stage and because the festivities themselvesappear to have shared a certain verisimilitude with pre-Columbianfestivities (rather than just being �invented tradition�), the remainder of thisessay concentrates on the cuzqueæo ceremonies of 1610: the beatification ofthe founder of the Jesuit order, Ignacio de Loyola.

The Jesuits and the Incas

The closeness of the relationship between the Jesuit order and the colonialInca nobility emerges with startling clarity from two paintings on display inthe Jesuit church of La Compaæía in the city of Cuzco. One (lateseventeenth century) canvas represents two marriages: first, that of Beatriz

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Ñusta, great-granddaughter of Huayna Capac, with Martín García deLoyola, nephew of San Ignacio de Loyola; Martín was the son of the brotherof San Ignacio, and thus �the most possible direct descendant of the founderof the Jesuit order�.17 To the left of this pair stands their daughter, DoæaAna María Lorenza García Sayri Tœpac de Loyola Ñusta, who became thefirst Marquesa de Oropesa, and her husband Juan Enríquez de Borja,MarquØs de Alcaæices. Juan Borja was no less than grandson of the Jesuitmartyr, San Francisco de Borja (who had been the fourth Duque de Gandía)The second painting, to all appearances less exotic, portrays another twomarriages: those of BeltrÆn García y Loyola with Doæa Teresa IdiÆquez,and Juan IdiÆquez with Doæa Magdalena de Loyola. The IdiÆquez were theimmediate family of another Jesuit saint, San Francisco Xavier. Thus theupper tiers of the colonial Inca nobility were linked by ties of marriage tothe three greatest Jesuit saints, directly in the cases of San Ignacio, founderof the order, and San Francisco de Borja, and indirectly in the case of SanFrancisco Xavier, whose family was directly linked with those two saintsthrough marriage. The college established for the education of the sons ofInca nobles and sons of caciques in colonial Cuzco was the Colegio SanFrancisco de Borja, opened in 1621 though the history of its foundationdates as far back as 1535.18 The College was established in 1621 during theshort tenure of the Viceroy the Príncipe de Esquilache, by a happycoincidence himself a grandson of San Francisco de Borja. The relationshipbetween the Jesuit order and the Incas was, then, fundamental, sealed byimpeccable bloodlines, on all sides of noble �stirp�.

Against this backcloth, the Jesuit sponsorship of Inca nobles and Incaculture in the public religious and civic festivities of colonial Cuzco becomescomprehensible. Yet even these astonishing kinship links between thedescendants of quondom Inca �emperors� and the three most importantJesuit saints, taken together with the Jesuit foundation and administrationof the Colegio de San Francisco de Borja for the scions of the Inca nobilityand the sons of caciques, comprise no more than the infrastructure of theirrelationship. The Jesuits, in 1568 the last of the great orders to arrive inPeru, were from the very first engagØ as regards the rights and privilegesboth of the Inca nobility and the wider indigenous society. This went beyondmere advocacy. Contested space was the very nature and juridical processof the conquest. Most controversially, in the hands of BartolomØ de LasCasas and Jesuits such as Blas Valera PØrez, this contested space came toencompass also the legal right of the Spanish monarch to sovereignty overthe Indies. The argument turned on the historical interpretation of theSpanish conquest and settlement�it is here that Peruvianhistoriographical debate commences, in the late sixteenth century�yet theimport of this debate was fundamentally moral. The central figure in thisargument was the Jesuit missionary and chronicler Blas Valera PØrez,something of an apostle for the seminal and polemical ideas of the great

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Dominican Bishop BartolomØ de Las Casas, whose spectre hovered over theentire debate.19

Valera was mestizo, and his mother is thought to have been of the Incanobility at the court of Atahuallpa, as, indeed, was the wife of the chroniclerJuan de Betanzos, a circumstance which affected their respective versionsof Incan history.20 Garcilaso de la Vega, also a mestizo whose noble motherwas of Huascar�s court, in like manner depended upon the anti-Atahuallpaaccount of Incan history; Garcilaso also drew much from Valera, hisprincipal written source, as did other chroniclers such as FernandoMontesinos and Juan (Giovanni) Anello Oliva. It has recently andcontroversially been claimed that Valera was the true author of GuamÆnPoma de Ayala�s Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, perhaps the key text forour knowledge of early Andean societies. This claim derives from thediscovery of the �Naples manuscript�21�the authenticity of which remainsto be demonstrated�which states that Valera�s death was faked by theJesuits so that he could return to Peru to write the chronicle, whoseostensible author was GuamÆn Poma, a minor provincial noble and kuraka.This followed Valera�s alleged imprisonment and punishment (for sexualtransgressions) by the Inquisition, and the �perpetual silence� imposed onhim by his order. However, recent research casts serious doubt upon, firstly,the claim that he was tried for sexual misdemeanours, and secondly,whether indeed he was ever called before the tribunal.22 There are strongcircumstantial grounds to believe that he was tried, incarcerated (beginningwith four years in an underground cell) and his works entirely censored byhis own Jesuit order; more specifically, by Spanish Jesuits, for there seemsto have been considerable friction between Spanish and Creole Jesuits, withtheir Italian brethren sympathetic to the latter party.

This whole story of the vicissitudes of Valera is so fantastic that it mighthave been penned by Umberto Eco. Claims that Valera�s death was fakedand that he enjoyed a kind of literary afterlife in southern Peru, and that hewas the real (�ghost�?) author of the Nueva Corónica are difficult to sustain,and will be the stuff of (already) heated debate for years to come. Yet thereseems little doubt about the broader issues which underlay censorship,incarceration and the imposition of perpetual silence on Valera. Thesepertained to his advocacy of Las Casas� critique of colonial society; of thedubiousness of the juridical and theological validity of the conquest itself; ofthe rapacious encomendero class and the avarice and violence generally ofthe Spaniards of the Indies�above all, advocacy of justice for nativeAmericans in opposition to conquerers and colonisers. These ideas andprinciples were highly combustible in the context of the fledgling Jesuitorder�s continued existence within Spanish imperial domains. The orderwas regarded with suspicion by Crown and Church alike, and there hadbeen periodic attempts, notably by the Inquisition, to expel or suppress theorder entirely; several Jesuits had fallen into the maws of the Inquisition.

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These circumstances imposed considerable restraint on the order, such thatnot only Valera but others�notably Oliva and the chronicler JosØ deAcosta, Valera�s provisor in Lima�had their works heavily censored, withlarge swathes blocked out and, at least in Oliva�s case, imprimitur and thuspublication denied.23 Oliva is also one of the supposed authors of thecontested Naples manuscript, in which he accuses his order in Peru ofhaving destroyed manuscripts it judged as falling short of its increasinglystrict, normative canons. This whole episode, as one recent commentatornotes, �reveals a great deal concerning the production of knowledge aboutthe Incas in this period, especially about the constraints placed on Jesuitchroniclers like Acosta, Arriaga, Cobo, and Oliva�.24 Beyond censorship layself-censorship, every bit as destructive.

Valera�s real transgressions were probably threefold: his radical anti-colonial critique appeared to call into question the right of the Monarch topossession of the Indies; he claimed that Viracocha was, in point of fact,Jesus Christ and had appeared to the Incas; that he campaigned for an endto the perpetuity of the encomienda system, an overture to the eventualdemise of the powerful and influential encomendero class. Yet it was almostcertainly his championing of Inca religion that made Valera and hiswritings so dangerous in the context of the then fraught existence of theJesuit order as it struggled to win acceptance from the Crown and fromother, established Church institutions.25 He commenced by placingQuechua and Latin on one level, with the implication that the �lenguageneral� of the Incas had the equivalent attributes for explicating Christiantheological concepts; in adopting this lingua franca, the Incas were obeyingthe mind of Divine Providence in preparing the ground for eventualChristian evangelization. Yet other commentators had ascribed knowledgeof the true God to the Incas, and could even argue, like Garcilaso, thatPachacamac was the one true God worshipped under another name. Insuggesting that Christ, in the guise of Viracocha, had appeared to the youngPachacutec prior to his epic victory over the Chancas�which marked thebeginning of Incan imperial expansion�Valera was in effect rendering notonly spiritually unnecessary but juridically untenable the Spanish conquestand colonization of Tahuantinsuyu. Where Christ had already been, therewas no need for Spanish monarchs to go; in this interpretation, the MostCatholic King was merely second-guessing Christ the Saviour. Theologicallyspeaking, the conquest of the Incas by the Spanish king was invalid, theimport of this being restitution to its original owners. In the context ofInquisition attempts to suppress La Compaæía, Valera�s ideas werepolitically explosive; more so, indeed, than the radical ideas, advocacy andactivities of Las Casas had been.

Valera obtained his information and ideas about Incas first hand. Already afluent Quechua speaker, he joined the Jesuits in 1568, the year of theorder�s arrival in Peru. In Cuzco between 1571 and 1576, he twice-weekly

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convened and instructed a cofradía including several prominent Incanobles, one of whom (Luis Inca) was the author of two treatises on Incanreligion, both now lost.26 He thus had the opportunity to exchange ideasand information with Inca nobles, yet another of whom had been a personalattendant to Huayna Capac. When the order transferred Valera to Juli enroute to Potosí, there took place a large public demonstration lasting a dayand a night against his impending transfer, led apparently by theconfraternity members accompanied by an �infinity� of indigenes�shouting,wailing and weeping�even going so far as to co-opt the corregidor of thecity, an extraordinary appropriation of the royal jurisdiction. This was,manifestly, something more than a compliment. While on one level itstemmed from respect and veneration for Valera, because of whom they�knew God and were Christians�, on the other it would appear to testify tohis deep affinity and empathy with Incaic culture, learning and religion.This affinity must have been exceptional to occasion such a tumult, onewhich under a less cool-headed corregidor might well have ended inbloodshed, coming as it did not only a mere four decades after the siege ofCuzco but also a decade after the suppression of the chiliastic, revitalist andanti-colonial Taqui Onqoy movement.

Yet it also seems fair to suggest that the intimacy of the links betweenValera, the Inca nobles and other indigenous elites was also in certainmeasure a reflection of the wider relationship between the Jesuit order andindigenous society at that juncture, certainly compared with other religiousorders; even Las Casas� Dominican brethren could not match it, and theypossessed the erstwhile Temple of the Sun, Coricancha. Nevertheless, suchaffinities should not be exaggerated. It seems premature, for example, toaccept that the Jesuit-Inca link amounted to a �neo-Inca Christianmovement�, a kind of underground forerunner to John Rowe�s stillsuggestive if hoary thesis of a �national Inca movement� in the eighteenthcentury. Be that as it may, there can be no question that Valera, followed byGarcilaso and Oliva, and to a degree Acosta and Cobo, undertook ahistoriographical and theological reivindicación of the integrity andcontinuing validity of Incan religion and culture. The broad respect andempathy for all things Incan demonstrated by one Creole group within theJesuit Colleges in Lima and Cuzco came at a cost. An identifiable Creolegroup spearheaded by Valera�who was, and was to be, unrivalled in histheological, and by implication political, radicialism�was threatened fromwithout by the Inquisition and from within their own order by theirpeninsular counterparts in both Spain and Peru. This battle of ideas andprinciples, taken together with the direct kinship ties between the Incasand the three major Jesuit saints, provides the explanatory context for theextraordinary efforts made by the colonial Inca nobles to celebrate thebeatification of Ignacio de Loyola in 1610. The Inca nobility�s pivotal rôle inthe beatification celebrations represented a reciprocal gesture to the Creole

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Jesuits� championing of the integrity of their culture and group identity. Inearly colonial Cuzco, Jesuits and Incas mutually supported and sponsoredeach other�s culture, world-view and habitus. In 1610, it was the Incas�turn.

Celebrating the Beatification

The most complete record detailing participation of the colonial Incanobility and the presence of colonial Incaic symbolism and raiment onfestive occasions is an excerpt from a (now apparently lost) Jesuit account,the Relación de las Fiestas.27 It records indigenous ceremonies in the city ofCuzco in 1610 in honour of the announcement of the beatification of Ignaciode Loyola, and follows close upon, and to a degree emulates, kindredcelebrations of the espaæol groups of the city of Cuzco. The indigenousfestivities�consisting of three successive fiestas�ran from 2 May to26 May inclusive, that is, 25 days of non-stop festivities. This feature ofcolonial festive or ceremonial life is not as singular as it may at first appear.Cuzco�s Corpus Christi celebrations even today run for ten weeks, althoughwork ceases for only a few days during that cycle. The 1555 celebrations inPotosí appear to have lasted for about a month; in late colonial Cuzco, thefiesta of San Roque was even extended from nine to fifteen days.28 All ofthese occasions involved drinking, dancing and associated revelry. In 1819,Martín de Mugica, a peninsular bureaucrat stationed in Cuzco on the eve ofindependence, calculated that such festivities in Cuzco totalled sevenmonths of the year, i.e., more days of fiesta than days of work.29 In all ofthis�even if we allow for considerable exaggeration in Mugica�sarithmetic�colonial society appears to have been more generous toindigenes in apportioning leisure time than had been the Incas. Yet for allthat, the 1610 celebrations appear to have been exceptional. In part, thisstemmed from the special relationship that the colonial Inca nobility hadwith the Jesuit order that stemmed initially from the late sixteenth-centurymarriage of Martín de Loyola to Beatriz Ñusta; oddly enough, Martín deLoyola had been responsible for the capture of the �last� of the Inca rulers,Tœpac Amaru I, who was beheaded soon after in the Plaza de Armas ofCuzco. Yet Loyola�s marriage to a princess (sometimes referred to as Coya,queen), thereby uniting the Inca nobility with the house of Loyola, evidentlyentailed absolution for Don Martín�s complicity in regicide.30 This wasperhaps especially so when a daughter of the union was born, Ana MaríaLorenza, uniting Jesuit order and Incas in parentesco de sangre. Thus wasborn the special relationship.

The first of the three fiestas consisted of daily (excepting Thursday)processions by the eight parishes of the city and cercado, apparentlyterminating at the door of the Jesuit church of La Compaæía. The parish of

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BelØn led off, �all the Incas . . . grandsons and descendientes of the[H]Atuncuzcos� of the parish at the head of the procession. The descriptionof the costumes and symbols in the procession is enormously detailed, andto do it justice would spring the boundaries of this article, so that whatfollows is to some extent a distillation of its principal and most signalfeatures. The first feature that strikes one�s attention is the parish ofSantiago �receiving� the cofradía of Jesus, housed in La Compaæía, �takingout its child Jesus in Incan habit�. This identification of the childJesus�probably to be equated with the �Little King� familiar from universalCatholic iconography�is intriguing, because of its suggestion of anembryonic Incan messiah. It will be recalled that Moscoso alleged thatstatues of the child Jesus throughout his extensive diocese werecustomarily draped with Incaic costume. Certainly, this remarkable featureof South Andean Catholicism recurs in the last two centuries of colonialCuzco. In the 1687�89 visita of the diocese of Cuzco by Bishop Manuel deMollinedo y Angulo, statues of the infant Jesus located in the churches ofSan GØronimo, Andahuaylillas and Caycay were identified as bearing themascapaicha.31 In 1774 the cura of Paucartambo (diocese of Cuzco) reportedthat �El dia de S[a]ntiago colocaron en el Altar mayor y llevaron enprocesion a la imagen del Salvador del Mundo vestido de Inga con todas lasinsignias de la Gentilidad . . .�.32 In 1781, the cura of the cuzqueæo doctrinaof Pampamarca (province of Canas y Canchis/ Tinta) interred the deadinfant of rebel leader Diego Tœpac Amaru, the child clothed both in thevestments of a Bishop and the mascapaycha.33 There may be present, too,some echo or evocation of Garcilaso�s assertion that the heir to the Incanthrone �wore a yellow [mascapaycha] smaller than that of his father�,suggestive of the possibility that colonial indigenes may have drawn aconnexion between the young heir with his yellow mascapaycha and theChrist child, who was always depicted with a golden halo.34 Clearly, therewas a strong identification of the Inca (past, present, future?) with theChrist child, though the identification is wider, more complex. For example,the Paucartambo document suggests an identification with the �adult�Christ the Saviour, while the conflation of Incan and episcopal dress in thecase of Diego�s infant is obviously a related phenomenon, if somewhat of apuzzle�a benediction or imprimatur of the idea of a redeeming Inca?

Yet the ritual nexus between Christ child and a putative Incan messiah issusceptible to explanation in terms of Incan ritual iconology in the pre-1532imperial capital. Here, in dealing with the imperial religious framework �wefind ourselves on what can be the most treacherous ground of all�.35 Thefluidity of cults and deities confounded the early chroniclers, who struggledto impose an order on the �overlapping and interlocking ideas� thatcharacterized Incan religion. Researchers have focused their attention onthree principal deities and their cults: Viracocha, the solar cult of Inti, andIllapa, the god of thunder and lightning, all of which had several

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manifestations and gradations; to these should be added Huanacari ofparticular importance to the Sapay Inca himself. In their original Incaicformulation, these divinities �were far less sharply differentiated than theyeventually came to be�.36 For all that, the chroniclers recorded sufficientevidence for a divine child in the imperial cult(s) for us to suspect thatcolonial�both rural and urban�representations of the Christ child as Incawere echoes or remembrances, explicit or implicit, of Incaic cultic praxisconnected above all with memories of Inti.

The earliest mention of a child as divinity comes in the 1551 chronicle ofBetanzos.37 In his renovation of the imperial cult, Pachacuti TupaYupanqui, following a dream and a vision in which first a shining child andthen an unidentified shining figure appeared to him, ordered that an �idol�be cast in gold; this was the Punchao Inca, henceforth to be seated inCoricanchi.38 This representation was the height and size of a child of oneyear of age, naked, which was then richly dressed; this was set off by thellauta (�atadura�) and mascapaycha (�borla�). There is a further Incaicdimension to this statue. Betanzos tells us that it was at once solidly castand apparently �hollow� (�vaciadizo�). It is Cobo (1653) who clarifies for usthe meaning of this hollowness: he informs us that the statue was of goldexcept for the stomach, �which was full of a paste made of milled gold mixedwith the ashes or dust of the hearts of the Inca kings�.39 Betanzos also notesthat Pachacuti ordered the idol to be carried in procession in the city on alitter or sedan chair or float (anda), borne by the three most importantprincipales of the city (�his three friends�) and the mayordomo of the cult.The similarity of this to the Corpus Christi procession and especially that of1610 will be obvious. Cristóbal de Molina �El Cuzqueæo� (c.1573) records apre-Columbian May ceremony in which the priests of Coricancha pray tothe Viracocha, Inti and Illapa that they remain eternally young, never togrow old.40 Youth is here explicitly associated with strength and vigour.When, in 1572, Martín de Loyola captured Tupac Amaru I, he was broughtto Cuzco with his two idols of Huanacari and Punchao. This Sun God childis portrayed by GuamÆn Poma already in the hands of a Spanish captor,symbolic of ultimate conquest.41

One of the remarkable features of this first fiesta is the space alloted in thefestivities to the Incas� underlings: the yanaconas and the ethnic groups ofthe Caæaris and Canas. The yanaconas had been the retainer and (to someextent) administrative class of the Incario,42 while both the Caæaris fromthe Quito region and the Canas of the altiplano south of Cuzco had beenconquered by the Inca, thence to become allies. The Caæaris had played acentral rôle in the Inca war of succession, and then moved seamlessly tobecome allies of the Spanish conquistadores; for their service they wereawarded privileges in the colonial period, free from tribute, labour serviceand (with the Chachapoyas) the monopoly of the postillion or courierpositions (chasquis) within the postal service. Relations between the

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colonial Inca nobles and the somewhat parvenu Caæaris were poisonous inthe seventeenth century, and appear to have remained so throughout thecolonial era. The yanaconas, generally regarded as having disintegrated asa distinct social group or retainer �class� soon after the conquest,43 arenevertheless here in full strength:

un lœcido alarde de los oficiales indios que llaman yanaconas, en nœmerode mÆs de mil bien aderezados y vestidos, en hileras de quatro en quatrocon su capitÆn alfØrez y sargento, y con muchas cadenas de oro, perlas,bordados y pedreria, con diversos gØneros de armas . . . dieron vuelta a laplaza . . .44

There is some evidence that there was stratification within this groupduring the Incario, and this passage provides further corroboration. Ofmore interest, though, is that they bore arms, a notable feature of majorfiestas that in the eighteenth century would be a source of real worry to theCrown. Even more extraordinary is the following description of two groups(of 400 and 200 respectively) of Caæaris, the second accompanied by a groupof Canas:

salieron . . . quatrocientos indios Caæares . . . muy bien aderezados enforma de esquadrón con sus capitanes, muy vizarros, con turbantes,chipanas, ajorcas de plata, canipos tambiØn de plata, que son a figura deluna con las armas que ellos vsauan, y las que nosotros vsamos, espadas,picas, arcabuzes, &, hizieron su entrada con gran aparato de guerra . . .entraron tras ellos otros dozientos indios tambiØn Caæares, y los Canasde Acocana . . . turbantes adornados con hilos de plata, y canipos,resplandores o rayos de oro, llamados purapura, que es encomienda odiuisa de nobleza que solía dar el Inga por servicios de la guerra.45

The obvious suspicion that these impressive armaments wereersatz�theatrical props, as it were�is indicated, first, by the prevailinglaw that only hidalgos might bear arms, and second, by the fact that thesecond group of Caæaris and Canas then proceeded to engage in a ritualbattle to commemorate events of the Incario. Quite simply, royal officialswould never have permitted a ritual battle with real arms to take place in asquare filled with ten thousand spectators, half of them espaæoles, andwould never have allowed rearmament of the indigenous population on sucha scale at any time, much less so soon after the conquest.

Once these and other processions and displays were over, there followed afurther fiesta in which the eleven Inca emperors (up to and includingHuayna Capac), all of them represented by �the nearest of theirdescendants� were carried in litters borne on the shoulders of �indios�, muchas present-day Corpus saints are carried, or the pasos of Semana Santa inSevilla are carried by cofrades. The chronicler of these events noted that afull account of this fiesta would be excessively long if it were to detail themany and various �insignias and emblems (divisas) according to the

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conquests and deeds of each King�.46 It is worth recalling in passingGuamÆn Poma�s representation of the respective details of each Inca�sindividualized dress and heraldry. The chronicler of 1610, however, gavethe general thrust of the Incas� livery:

venían vestidos al trage inca de cumbis, ricos, que es su brocado dellos,con cetros reales en las manos, y vn principal al lado con un quitasol,lleuaua cada uno sus insignias reales gente de guarda lucida, y vestida asu trage, y Østos eran los descendientes de aquel Rey.47

This procession of representations of former Inca emperors was headed bythe �Captain of all� Don Alonso Topatauchi, the uncle of Melchor Inca who atthe time lived in a kind of velvet captivity at the Spanish court (then inValladolid).48 The Topa Atauchi family was among the most prestigious ofthe colonial Inca nobility, its immediate descent stemming from the TopaAtauchi who had deputized for Huayna Capac when he departed Cuzco toconquer the Quito region; Huayna Capac stayed years in Quito, duringwhich time Topa Atauchi was one of the diarchy which ruled Cuzco in theSapay Inca�s absence. He also became the segunda persona of HuaynaCapac�s successor Huascar. Don Alonso Topa Atuachi was the illegitimateson of Paullu Inca, himself the son of Huayna Capac and puppet ruler afterthe conquest. For all that the 1610 festivities were in certain measuretheatrical events�colonial constructions�they lacked neitherverisimilitude with pre-Columbian traditions, rituals and iconography, northe requisite social cachet, afforded in this case by the turnout of thedescendants of the Inca emperors: the �first families� of colonial indigenoussociety.

The third of these fiestas was celebrated entirely by San Jerónimo, acercado town some two leagues from the city. This was, on the face of it,somewhat odd. San Jerónimo and San SebastiÆn (a half league from thecity) were the two main post-conquest locations of the colonial Inca nobles,following Toledo�s resettlement of most of the surviving nobility attendantupon the reorganization of the city from twelve (Incaic) barrios into (6�8)parishes.49 In the late eighteenth century, at any rate, the two townstogether housed 169 male nobles out of a total of 212 in Cuzco, that is,about 80 per cent. However, of these, precisely 146 were located in SanSebastiÆn (86 per cent), and only 23 (14 per cent) in San Jerónimo.50 Itmight be thought that the former would have been a more appropriatecelebrant. Either the chronicler is in error or, more likely, the nobles of SanSebastiÆn had borne the brunt of the first two fiestas of this �Jesuit� cycle.One further possibility is that these also represented the upper moiety,Hatun Cuzco, while those of the previous two days were of Hurin Cuzco, itscounterpart. Reference is made to �la Magestad que se dixo de los dearriba�,51 with particular allusion to figures representing two �Inca Kings�from whom the others had descended. At any rate, with some 20,000 people

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packing the main plaza�twice that of the first fiesta�400 �indios� of thetown were led in squadrons, with the cacique principal of San Jerónimo astheir �captain�. At the head of the procession, even before the �captain�,another principal announced grandly that the �Lords Incas� were coming �todisplay their greatness�. Another �soldier� carried a war helmet52 of �the IncaKing� that had been inherited by his descendants.

At the close of festivities, the last Inca declaimed (�with great effect�) thatthey were greatly in the debt of the Blessed Ignacio and the Jesuit fathers.This was no mere rhetorical flourish: the links between Inca nobles andJesuits were abiding, as demonstrated by continued Jesuit operation of theColegio San Francisco de Borja, against considerable financial obstacles andthe long-term, open hostility of Creole encomenderos and other elites. Thisabiding Jesuit committment not only to the education of Incan nobles andother indigenous elites but also to the integrity of continuing Incan culturewas, in 1610, splendidly reciprocated by the Inca nobility. In sponsoring anenormous and expensive ritual cargo for the celebration of the beatification,they were reproducing grosso modo conventional cofradía celebrations to apatron saint. The meticulousness of these Incaic celebrations, and thefinanical burden thereby undertaken, was adequate testimony to theimportance that the Inca nobles attached to their Jesuit connexions. It wasAndean reciprocity writ large. In such manner, the Jesuit-Inca specialrelationship defined, and was defined by, a spectacular expression ofpopular culture. In colonial Cuzco, �popular� and �elite� converged and fusedwhen Incas and their symbols entered the public arena. In festive culture,as in late colonial rebellions, the very notions of �Inca� and Inca culturecame, sooner or later, to be appropriated by all. What was appropriated wasthe particular version of �Incan� on display in public festive culture, thecommon culture of all cuzqueæos which momentarily transcended andameliorated the societal divisions innate to the colonial condition.

Notes1 There is now an enormous bibliography on colonial Andean rebellion, for an

evaluation of which, see Steve J. Stern, �The Age of Andean Insurrection,1742�1782: A Reappraisal�, in Stern (ed.), Resistance, Rebellion, andConsciousness in the Andean Peasant World: 18th to 20th Centuries, Madison,The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. The two principal works on the�conjuncture� of rebellion are: Boleslao Lewin, La rebelión de Tœpac Amaru ylos orígines de la independencia de HispanoamØrica, (2nd edn.), Buenos Aires,Librería Hachette, 1957; Scarlett O�Phelan Godoy, Rebellions and Revolts inEighteenth-Century Peru and Upper Peru, Köln and Wien, Böhlau Verlag,1984. Several recent works are valuable: Luis Miguel Glave, Vida, símbolos ybatallas: creación y recreación de la comunidad indígena. Cusco, siglosXVI�XX, Lima, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992; Scarlett O�Phelan Godoy,La gran rebelión en los Andes: De Tœpac Amaru a Tœpac Catari, Cusco,

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Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos BartolomØ de las Casas, 1995; NuriaSala i Vila, Y se armó el tole tole: Tributo indígena y movimientos sociales en elvirreinato del Perœ. 1784�1814, Ayacucho, Instituto de Estudios RegionalesJosØ María Arguedas, 1996. See also the contributions in Charles Walker(ed.), Entre la retórica y la insurgencia. Las ideas y los movimientos socialesen los Andes, siglo XVIII, Cusco, Centro de Estudios Regionales AndinosBartolomØ de las Casas, 1996. For overviews (apart from the titles by Glaveand Sala i Vila cited above) of the period following the suppression of thelevantamiento general, see especially John R. Fisher, �Royalism, Regionalism,and Rebellion in Colonial Peru, 1808�1815�, Hispanic American HistoricalReview, 59:2, 1979, pp. 232�57; Scarlett O�Phelan Godoy, �El mito de la�independencia concedida�: los programas políticos del siglo XVIII y deltemprano XIX en el Perœ y Alto Perœ (1730�1814)�, in Inge Buisson et al.,Problemas de la formación del estado y de la nación en HispanoamØrica, Kölnand Wien, Böhlau Verlag, 1984, pp. 55�92; Luis Durand Flórez, Criollos enconflicto: Cuzco despuØs de Tœpac Amaru, Lima, Universidad de Lima, 1985.

2 The views of the Bishop, Juan Manuel Moscoso y Peralta, on these�fantÆsticos vaticinios� (singling out CÆrdenas) are to be found at the ArchivoGeneral de Indias, Audiencia del Cuzco, Leg. 29, Moscoso to Josef Antonio deAreche, 13 April 1781. The importance of the CÆrdenas edition of theComentarios Reales as a factor in the separatist sentiments of the era isunderscored in Lewin, La rebelión de Tœpac Amaru, pp. 282�85, 381�84; JohnHowland Rowe, �El movimiento nacional inca del siglo XVIII�, RevistaUniversitaria (Cuzco), no. 107, 1954, pp. 17�47, follows Lewin on this point.For details of this edition, see Phillip Ainsworth Means, Biblioteca Andina,Blain Ethridge, 1973 reprint of 1928 Yale U.P. edn., p. 380.

3 See note 10.

4 Concepción Bravo, El tiempo de los incas, Madrid, Alhambra, 1986, pp. 96�97;George Kubler, �The Quechua in the Colonial World�, Handbook of SouthAmerican Indians, vol. 2, New York, Cooper Square, repr. of 1944Smithsonian Institution publication, pp. 408�09. On the Colegio de SanFrancisco de Borja generally, see Monique Alaperrine Bouyer, �Esbozo de unahistoria del Colegio San Francisco de Borja de Cuzco�, in John R. Fisher (ed.),Actas del XI Congreso Internacional de AHILA, vol. IV (17�22 September1996), Liverpool, University of Liverpool, 1998, pp. 44�53.

5 Kubler, �The Quechua�, p. 350; Rowe, �El movimiento nacional inca�, p. 22�23;Rowe, �Colonial Portraits of Inca Nobles�, in Sol Tax (ed.), The Civilizations ofAncient America: Selected Papers of the XXIXth International Congress ofAmericanists, New York, 1967 reprint of 1951 edn., pp. 258�68; Thomas B.F.Cummins, �We are the Other: Peruvian Portraits of Colonial Kurakakuna�, inKenneth J. Andrien and Rolena Adorno (eds), Transatlantic Encounters:Europeans and Andeans in the Sixteenth Century, Berkeley and Oxford,University of California Press, 1991, pp. 203�31.

6 The �royal crown� of the Inca was composed of three parts: �El llautu, que esuna parte de las tres que componían su real corona, ciæendo la cabeza a modode guirnalda o laurel, iba toda tejida de gruesos hilos de perlas, sembradasgrandes esmeraldas en Øl; el mascapaycha, que es una lÆmina o plumaje que se

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levanta del llautu encima de la frente, y es la segunda parte de la corona, erade finísimo oro con unos ramillos de esmeraldas; la unancha, que es la borlaque cuelga del pie de la lÆmina o plumaje sobre la frente, y es la tercera parteque compone aquella corona . . .�, as described by BartolomØ ArzÆns de Orsœay Vela, Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí, (edited by Lewis Hanke andGunnar Mendoza), tomo 1, Providence, Brown University Press, 1965, p. 99.This account is a record of a 1555 procession in Potosí which featuredrepresentations of the Incas, and is subject to all the usual doubts concerningthe verisimilitude of European perceptions of the ritual and material cultureof the �vanquished�. For some perceptive comments regarding ArzÆns� accountof the Potosí procession, see Manuel Burga, Nacimiento de una utopía, muertey resurrección de los incas, Lima, Instituto de Apoyo Agraria, 1988, p. 378�82.In spite of the above detail, the �royal crown� of the Inca was conventionallydescribed in colonial documents as the �mascapaicha� and/or �borla colorada�.Bravo, El tiempo, p. 85, notes that the appearance of the mascapaichaapproximated to �a bloody martial and ceremonial axe�. For one of manyexamples of the fierceness with which �kosher� colonial Inca nobles protectedthe right to wear the mascapaicha, see the documental appendix to J. UrielGarcía, �El alferazgo real de indios en la Øpoca colonial�, Revista Universitaria(Cuzco), vol. XXVI, 1937, pp. 189�208, esp. pp. 194�208.

7 The champi is also present in the Loreto procession of 1692 (see anon), inwhich a ceremonial banner featured a painting of an Inca in traditionalcostume �con su mascaipacha de la borla colorada y su champi, y valcanca enla mano ysquierda� (the valcanca being the Incaic shield or buckler featuredin seventeenth-century pictorial representations of the Incas in the CorpusChristi procession and in the chronicle of Guaman Poma de Ayala), for whichsee, Archivo Departamental del Cuzco: Real Hacienda, Leg. 171, �Instanciaque han hecho Don Buenaventura Sicos: sus hijos y otros descienden [sic] deeste Linage . . .�, 26 January 1786, for a traslado of 22 August 1692.

8 P. BernabØ Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo (ed. Francisco Mateos), Madrid,1964 [1653], vol. II, libro XIV, ch. IX: �Tenían unas mazas de madera pesada yredondas, y otras, que eran propia arma de los Incas, con el remate de cobre,llamadas champi, y es [sic] una asta como de alabarda, puesto en el cabo unhierro de cobre de hechura de estrella con sus puntas o rayos alrededor muypuntiagudos. Destos champis unos eran cortos como bastones y otros tan largoscomo lanzas, y los mÆs de mediano tamaæo�. For woodcuts of the dress andinsignias of successive Inca rulers, see Felipe GuamÆn Poma de Ayala, Elprimer corónica y buen gobierno (ed. John V. Murra, Rolena Adorno and JorgeL. Urioste), Lima, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980, vol. I, 85 [85] to 117[117], pp. 66�95.

9 These mascarones are distinct from the canipos identified in the 1610festivities held to celebrate the beatification of Ignacio de Loyola (discussedanon): �canipos . . . de plata, que son a figura de luna . . .�, for which see CarlosA. Romero, �Festividades del tiempo heroico del Cuzco�, Inca, 1:2, 1923,pp. 447�54, esp. p. 450. Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, vol. II, libro 14,ch. 2, says of these, �usaban traer al pecho y en la cabeza unas patenas de oro oplata, llamadas canipos, del tamaæo y hechura de nuestros platos.�; Cristóbalde Molina (�El Cuzqueæo�), �Relación de los fÆbulas y ritos de los incas�, in

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Henrique Urbano and Pierre Duviols (eds), FÆbulas y mitos de los incas,Madrid, Historia 16, 1989, p. 67, simply defines it as a �medalla de oro�.

10 It is, though, unclear how widespread the discrete celebration of the feast ofSantiago was in rural districts. Participation as alfØrez real was an importantindicator of status and even nobility in a town. Evidence for rural celebrationsis to be found in the applications for scholarships by sons of nobles, caciquesand other principales for attendance at the Colegio de San Francisco de Borja.See Archivo Departamental del Cuzco: Colegio de Ciencias, �Memoria yCalificación de los Indios Nobles, aæos 1763�1766� (Leg 1). This indicates thatthe office of the indigenous alferazgo real was also available in each parish,complementary to that of the major Incan office for the day and eve ofSantiago. The same documentation also makes clear that in the Marquesadode Oropesa, comprising the doctrinas of San Francisco de Maras, SanBernardo de Urubamba, San Benito de AlcÆntara (Huallabamba) andSantiago de Oropesa (Yucay)�all located in the Vilcanota Valley�a separatebody of five Electors chose a noble alfØrez real for annual Santiagocelebrations in Yucay; at least one of these Electors was also among theTwenty-four Electors for the main city festivities. The five appear to compriseone for each doctrina, plus one for Ollantaytambo in the Valley, which in thelate eighteenth century formed part, with those four, of first the corregimientoand then (from 1784) the subdelegación of Urubamba. In the Yucay feast, thealfØrez real wore, like his counterpart in the city of Cuzco, the mascapaicha.There is also mention of a cognate alferazgo real for Santiago in the doctrinaof Guarocondo, on the edge of the Valley of Jaquijahuana in the province ofAbancay.

11 A good account of the protean character of Santiago is Emilio Choy, �DeSantiago Matamoros a Santiago Mata-Indios�, in his Antropología e Historia,vol. 1, Lima, 1979, pp. 333�437. See also Irene Silverblatt, �Political Memoriesand Colonizing Symbols: Santiago and the Mountain Gods of Colonial Peru�,in Jonathon D. Hill (ed.), Rethinking History and Myth: Indigenous SouthernAmerican Perspectives on the Past, Urbana and Chicago, University of IllinoisPress, 1988, pp. 174�329.

12 For a detailed description of just such a banner, see the account of the Loretoprocession of 1692 (anon).

13 See Archivo General de Indias, Audiencia del Cuzco, Leg. 15, �ConsejoExpediente sobre la erección en la Ciudad del Cuzco de una Cofradia deS[a]ntiago que se intenta establecer en una Parroquia de aquella Ciudad, yaprovación de sus Constituciones�, petition of JosØ Agustín Chacón y Bezerra,1 August 1786, fol. 3r. During the Tœpac Amaru rebellion, rebel troopsclaimed that they had seen Santiago among the royalist forces sent tosuppress the rebellion: �A cuya cauza en las Yglesias, y Capillas dondeencontraron los simulacros de este nuestro portentoso Mesenas, llegaron alsacrílego arrojo de amarrarle las manos, y tenerlas como en prizión por que suignorancia ô idolatría les preocupaba la razón para creer que assí nofavorezería a los fieles, y leales vazallos de un Monarca justo, y venigno cuyosDominios Reales defendían�.

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14 Ignacio de Castro, Relación del Cuzco, (ed. Carlos Daniel ValcÆrcel Aranibar),Lima, University of San Marcos, 1978 repr. of 1795 Madrid edn., p. 81.

15 Archivo General de Indias, Audiencia del Cuzco, Leg. 35, Mata Linares toGÆlvez (No. 11), 6 August 1785; Mata Linares to GÆlvez (No. 28), 19 March1786.

16 Luis Millones, �The Inka�s Mask: Dramatisation of the Past in IndigenousColonial Processions�, in Penny Dransart (ed.), Andean Art: Visual Expressionand its Relation to Andean Beliefs and Values, Aldershot and Brookfield USA,Avebury, 1995, pp. 11�32. For ArzÆns y Vela�s account, see n. 26; Garcilaso dela Vega, Historia general del Perœ (�segunda parte de los comentarios reales�),Book 8, ch. 1, Madrid, 1960 (originally published 1617), pp. 84�88, 278�99,records the Corpus Christi of 1555; for the 1610 festivities, see n. 28; see n. 27for the 1692 procession; the 1659 and 1725 fiestas are related in Josephe andFrancisco de Muguburu, Diario de Lima (1640�1694), (ed. Horacio Urteagaand Carlos A. Romero), Lima, 1917. For these Lima festivities, see Burga,Nacimiento, pp. 378�89.

17 Teresa Gisbert, Iconografía y mitos indígenas en el arte, La Paz, 1980, p. 155,who also provides photographic reproductions of both paintings andcontemporary copies and sketches thereof.

18 On the College, see especially, Monique Alaperrine Bouyer, �Esbozo de unahistoria del Colegio San Francisco de Borja del Cuzco�, in John Fisher (ed.),Actas del XI Congreso Internacional de AHILA, (Liverpool, 1996), vol. IV,Liverpool, 1998, pp. 44�53.

19 For a detailed analysis of the influence of Las Casas on Valera and hissympathizers within the Jesuit order, see the prologue by Carlos GÆlvez Peæato the new edition of, Giovanni Anello Oliva, S.J., Historia del reino yprovincias del Perœ y vidas de los varones insignes de la Compaæía de Jesœs,Lima, 1998, pp. ix�lix.

20 Ibid., for Valera�s background, for which see also, Sabine Hyland, �TheImprisonment of Blas Valera: Heresy and Inca History in Colonial Peru�,Colonial Latin American Historical Review, 7:1, 1998, pp. 43�58.

21 Hyland, �Imprisonment�, pp. 56�57, summarizes neatly the debatesurrounding this manuscript, which �has raised a firestorm of controversy formaking the following claims: that Blas Valera was secretly imprisoned by theJesuits for idolatry; that the Incas possessed a secret syllabic writing systemtaught by Valera (an example of this writing accompanies the originalmanuscript); and that the Jesuits faked Valera�s death in 1597 so that thelatter could return secretly to Peru and write the Nueva corónica [sic] y buengobierno attributed to Felipe GuamÆn Poma de Ayala�. The MS is held in theMiccinelli-Cera archive in Naples: Historia et rudimenta linguae piruanorumIHS, with the second part, Exsul immeritus populo suo, together with asixteenth-century letter, Francisco ChÆves al Rey. The MS was written incode, a decipherment of which has been published in two parts: CarlosAnimato, Paolo Rossi, and Clara Miccinelli, Quipu: Il nodo parlante deimisteriosi Incas, Geneva, 1989; Laura Laurencich Minelli, Clara Miccinelli

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and Carlo Animato, �Il documento seicentesco �Historia et rudimenta linguaepiruanorum��, Studi e materiale, storia delle religioni, vol. 61, Rome, 1995.The MS is being meticulously tested on forensic as well as historical andlinguistic content by Laura Laurencich Minelli, whose publications in thisregard are listed in idem, �Historia et rudimenta linguae piruanorum: undocumento que suscita problemas�, Tawantinsuyu: Una Revista Internacionalde Estudios Inkas/An International Journal of Inka Studies, vol. 4, 1999,forthcoming.

22 Hyland, �Imprisonment�, pp. 51�57.

23 See note 19.

24 Hyland, �Imprisonment�, p. 57.

25 Ibid., passim.

26 Ibid., pp. 45�47.

27 Carlos A. Romero, �Festividades�, pp. 447�50. This is apparently the onlyfragment remaining from the larger work.

28 Pablo JosØ Oricaín, �Compendio breve de discursos varios . . . aæo 1790�, inJuicio de límites entre el Perœ y Bolivia: Prueba presentada al Gobierno de laRepœblica Argentina por Víctor M. Muartua, Barcelona, 1906, p. 338. Formore discussion of the excessive duration of fiestas, David Cahill, �PopularReligion and Appropriation: The Example of Corpus Christi in Eighteenth-Century Cuzco�, Latin American Research Review, 31:2, 1996, pp. 67�110.

29 Archivo Arzobispal del Cuzco, Correspondencia xliii.3.53, Martín Joseph deMugica to Juan Munive y Mozo, Provisor and (at this time) �gobernador yvicario capitular (sede vacante)�, 5 August 1819; Mugica�s report on popularreligion in late colonial Cuzco is further discussed in Cahill, �Popular Religionand Appropriation�, pp. 94�96.

30 The genealogy is discussed in considerable detail in Guillermo LohmannVillena, �El Seæorío de los Marqueses de Santiago de Oropesa en el Perœ�,Anuario de Historia del Derecho Espaæol, tomo XIX, pp. 347�458.

31 Archivo General de Indias, Audiencia de Lima, Leg. 306, �Resumen de laVisita Eclesiastica que se hizo de los beneficios curados que ay en lasprovincias de Quispicancha [sic] Paucartambo, Calca y Lares Marquesado deOropesa y las de la de Abancay = Pertenecientes al Obispado del Cuzco Aæo de1687�. The Bishop ordered that in the doctrina of Andahuaylillas(Quispicanchis), �al Niæo Jhs. que esta en un altar de la yglesia se le quite lamascapaycha, y se le pongan ô rayos ô corona imperial�; in the doctrina ofCaycay (Paucartambo), he similarly ordered, �Que se quite la mascapaycha alNiæo Jhs, que estÆ en la yglesia, y se le pongan ô rayos ô corona imperial�. Inthe doctrina of San Jerónimo, one of the two principal foci of the colonial Incanobility, the Bishop ordered, �Que se quite al niæo Jhs que estÆ en un Altar delcuerpo de la yglesia la masacapaycha y el sol, que tiene en el pecho, y se ledexen los rayos solamente que estÆn en la cabeça�, indicating an existingrelationship between Inca and Sun, while the �rayos� can represent Santiago/Illapa and/or Incan solar worship.

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32 Archivo Arzobispal del Cuzco, Pleitos xiv.5.87, �Querella criminal seguidop[o]r Juan GonzÆles, cura Paucartambo, contra el corregidor Tiburcio deLanda, sus criados y comensales, p[o]r injurias graves levantadas�, 1774.

33 See note 33.

34 Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios reales, book I, ch. XXIII.

35 Geoffrey W. Conrad and Arthur A. Demarest, Religion and Empire: TheDynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism, Cambridge and New York,Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 100.

36 Ibid., pp. 100�01.

37 Juan de Betanzos, Suma y narración de los incas (ed. María del CarmenMartín Rubio), Madrid, 1987 [1551], ch. 11.

38 The connexion between the colonial representation of the Christchild adornedwith the mascapaycha and the Punchao was suggested to me by LilianYackeline CÆceres Gómez, an archaeology student of the Universidad de SanAntonio Abad, Cuzco.

39 Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, vol. II, libro XII, ch. V.

40 Molina, �Relación�, pp. 49�134.

41 GuamÆn Poma, El primer corónica y buen gobierno, tomo II, 449�50 [451�52],pp. 416�17.

42 On the pre-conquest yanaconas, see especially Sócrates Villar Córdova, Lainstitución del yanacona en el incanato, Lima, University of San Marcos,1966. Also David Cahill, �Inca Retainer Groups and Destructuration: Theyanaconas of Cuzco�s Cathedral Quarter under Colonial Rule�, Tawantinsuyu:Una Revista Internacional de Estudios Inkas/An International Journal ofInca Studies, vol.1, 1995, pp. 97�103. For both yanaconas and Caæaris, KenHeffernan, �Paullo, Tocto Usica and Chilche in the royal lands of Limatamboand Quispiguanca�, Tawantinsuyu: Una Revista Internacional de EstudiosInkaicos/An International Journal of Inka Studies, 1:1, 1995, pp. 66�85. Aneighteenth-century account of the post-conquest rôle of the Caæaris in relationto the postal service is by the �Administrador sub-principal de la Real Rentade Correos� of the city of Cuzco, in Archivo Departamental del Cuzco,Intendencia: Real Hacienda, �2no. Q” sobre provisión de Caæaris pa. laAdminon. y Rta. de Correos�, 1801; See also, Udo Oberem, �Los caæaris y laconquista espaæola de la sierra ecuatoriana. Otro capítulo de las relacionesinterØtnicas en el siglo XVI�, Cultura, III:7, Quito, 1980, pp. 137�51; Oberemand Roswith Hartmann, �Indios Caæaris de la sierra sur del Ecuador en elCuzco del siglo XVI�, Revista de Antropología, vol. 7, Cuenca, 1981,pp. 114�36. The classic account of a journey connected with a review (visita)of the postal service is Concolorcorvo, El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes desdeBuenos Aires hasta Lima con sus Itinerarios (eds. JosØ J. Real Díaz and JuanPØrez de Tudela), vol. 122, Madrid, Biblioteca de Autores Espaæoles, 1956[1773]. �Concolorcorvo� was the pseudonym of the peninsular Alonso Carrió dela Vandera, Visitador of the postal service and something of an arbitrista: seehis Reforma del Perœ (ed. Pablo Macera), Lima, Univ. of San Marcos, 1966.

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43 The widespread use of the term �yanacona�, in the colonial period and beyond,to describe hacienda peons is a corruption of the original context, whichreferred to a retainer cum administrative class. However, some of theseoriginal yanaconas appear to have lasted beyond the colonial period as adistinct category: see David Cahill, �Inca Retainer Groups andDestructuration: The yanaconas of Cuzco�s Cathedral Quarter under ColonialRule�, Tawantinsuyu: An International Journal of Inka Studies, vol. 1, 1995,pp. 97�103.

44 Romero, �Festividades�.

45 Ibid.

46 These emblems etc. appear to be similar to those in the 1692 banner of the�descendientes del Gran Tocay Capac Inga� (see anon.) and with those �withthe sculpted images of their Gentile kings� to which Bishop Moscosoreferred�see note 31. The chipanas, according to Cobo, vol. II, Libro 14, ch. 2,were the bracelets: �Adornaban los brazos y muæecas con manillas y aljorcasde oro, que llamaban chipana�. Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios reales, tomo11, libro VI, ch. XXII, noted the ritual importance of one version of thechipana, in recording the sacrifice to the Sun at Inti Rayme: �El fuego paraaquel sacrificio había de ser nuevo, dado de mano del Sol, como ellos decían.Para el cual tamaban un brazelete grande, que llaman chipana (a semejanzade otros que comœnmente traían los Incas en la muæeca izquierda), el cualtenía el Sumo Sacerdote; era grande, mÆs que los comunes . . .�.

47 Romero, �Festividades�.

48 There is an important body of work on the early colonial descent of the houseof Huayna Capac. On Tito Atauchi, see Rostworowski, Estructuras,pp. 167�69; and Ella Dunbar Temple, �Un linaje incaico durante ladominación espaæola: Los Sahuaraura�, Revista Histórica, XVIII:1, 1949,pp. 45�77. On Melchor Inca, see Temple, �Azarosa existencia de un mestizo desangre imperial incaica�, Documenta, 1:1, 1948, pp. 112�56. Closely relatedworks are: Temple, �La descendencia de Huayna Capac�, Revista Histórica,XI:1�2, 1937, pp. 93�165; �La descendencia de Huayna Capac: Paullu Inca�,Revista Histórica, XI:3, pp. 284�333; vol. XII, 1939, pp. 204�45; vol. XIII,1940, pp. 31�77; �Don Carlos Inca�, Revista Histórica, vol. XVII, 1948,pp. 135�79. See also, Lohmann, �El Seæorío�.

49 On the Toledan reorganisation of the parishes, Antonio VÆsquez de Espinosa,Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales, vol. 231, Madrid,Biblioteca de Autores Espaæoles, 1969 [1637], Chs. LXXXIV, CVIII,pp. 369�71, 395�96. The city and cercado of Cuzco comprised the parishes ofSan Cristóbal, San Blas, Hospital de Naturales (aka San Pedro), Santiago,Santa Ana, and BelØn, and the two towns of San Jerónimo and San SebastiÆn.However, this conventional definition excludes the Cathedral parish with itstwo curatos de espaæoles and one curato de piezas or �Indian� parish, each ofwhich was often referred to as a �parish� in colonial usage.

50 Archivo Departamental del Cuzco, Intendencia: Real Audiencia, Leg. 175,�Expediente relativo a los tributos del Cuzco, matrícula hecha en el aæo de1786 . . .�. Note, though, the comments and caveats at note 7.

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51 Romero, �Festividades�. On the moieties Hanan/Hurin, see especially,Zuidema, The Ceque System, passim; Zuidema, �The Moieties of Cuzco�, inDavid Maybury-Lewis and Uri Almagor (eds), The Attraction of Opposites:Thought and Society in the Dualistic Mode, Ann Arbor, University ofMichigan Press, 1989, pp. 255�75; Rostworowski, Estructuras, passim, butespecially pp. 107�79.

52 This was probably the uma chuco or �casco� in the representations of the Incasin GuamÆn Poma de Ayala, 98 [98] to 115 [115], pp. 79�94.

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