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Jaryn Phillips
WLIT 1113-023
Clark
5/2/16
Worlds Colliding: How Colonialism Affected Our Records of Indigenous Culture

Winston Churchills famous words History is written by the victors are no better
exemplified than in our records of pre-European societies in the Americas; or in many cases, the
lack of records. After violent campaigns that sought to assimilate or destroy indigenous peoples,
the records that survive the era of Spanish colonialism are questionable at best. The Huarochir
Manuscript, from cultures native to the Andes mountain rage in South America, has stood the test
of time and survives to us today. However, is this a true representation of an indigenous voice
under colonial rule? In this paper I will attempt to establish how colonialism has corrupted its
message, and what, if any, applications it may have; both then and now.
The Huarochir Manuscript was written around 1600 CE in modern day Peru (Paulson
51). Who the true author may be is unknown, however it is know that the Spanish priest
Francisco de Avila was directly involved in the creation of the HM [Huarochir Manuscript]
from the beginning, and even that it was written at his request and under his supervision
(Durston 228). From here on, as Durston does, the physical author will be referred to as The
Scribe to differentiate them from Avila. Little is known for sure about The Scribe. We can with
confidence assume that it was written by a singular individual. The handwriting has variations,
but not of the nature that would suggest multiple people contributed to its creation (Durston 230).
The Scribe frequently augmented, corrected and made annotations as they went along,

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suggesting a major role in its creation. Avila definitely had a hand in selecting the topics and
overall design of the work. However his notes, which often simply requested clarification or
elaboration, suggest he was more of an editor to the work (Durston 231).
Aliva and The Scribe were also likely close. As said before, The Scribe is never
identified; however close reading of the Huarochir Manuscript can reveal details about them, a
kind of portrait of the author. The Scribe has intimate knowledge of the ethnic groups of the
region, while appearing to be a fervent Christian. They are committed to the evangelization
movement, however clearly has strong emotional links to the past. He seems to know Avila well
and praises him, calling him a good priest (Durston 232). It is possible that The Scribe was one
of Avilas converts, and sought to help Avila spread Christianity further. Eight years after the
work was finished, Avila launched a full on campaign against the indigenous religions. Key
practitioners were punished, and destroyed any huacas they found. This campaign culminated in
a massive auto de fe, a public religion trial (and often execution) of heretics in Lima a year later.
The translation given by The Scribe and Avila is not the true message of the indigenous
population multitude of reasons. The first is that at its basic level the Spanish language and
alphabet are ill-equipped to represent al of the distinctive features of Quechua phonology
(Urioste 102). Letters from the Spanish alphabet were used interchangeably to represent the same
phonological unit from Quechua. In the same vein, single letters of the Spanish alphabet are used
to represent more than one sound from Quechua; these two issues make translation from oral
Quechua to written Spanish messy at best.
The violent colonialism affected the narrative told by the Huarochir Manuscript on a
rhetorical level. From the first line of the work, it is apparent that the Manuscript has internalized
biases, If the ancestors of the people called Indians (Huarochir Manuscript 536). The term

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used to describe the people addressed is an interesting choice. Indians, which is translated from
the original Spanish indio (Huarochir Manuscript 536), is often deemed a racist slur in our time.
At the time of the authorship of the manuscript, at minimum it is used with derogatory
connotations. The term also groups all indigenous groups together under one label, whitewashing
their culture. The choice is even stranger when you consider that the author themselves is one of
the Indians, seeming to look down on their own past and their own people. Just a few lines
later, the author writes What faith they held, faith being translated from the Spanish fe
(Huarochir Manuscript 536). Fe in Spanish means non-Christian religion, often with cult
connotations. This would therefore paint the indigenous religions in opposition to Christianity,
bringing about stronger punishment against those who practice it by the regional colonial
authorities.
The exact translation from Quechua cannot be trusted truly for a multitude of other
reasons. Colonialism forced the Spanish way of being onto the Quechua culture, meaning that
the indigenous peoples of America had to learn new words and concepts that were not present in
the ingenious culture before. Concepts of government were alien to the indigenous peoples; there
is no Quechua word for mayor, street, or province. On a more basic level, the Quechua had never
encountered horses before, so why would they have word for them? The Spanish word cauallo is
implanted instead. Interestingly enough the Quechua also did not have a word for the color blue
(Urioste 106).
There are words that were appropriated and applied to concepts that are almost, but not
quiet, the equivalent between Spanish and Quechua. For example the Spanish rico, meaning
wealthy, was translated into the Quechua qhapaq, meaning resourceful; the Quechua term does
not carry the same implication of wealth that its Spanish counterpart does however (Urioste

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106). There is a similar issue with the verb casarse, to marry in Spanish. It is used to
simultaneously represent the Quechua words warmiyakuy and qhariyakuy, to take a wife and to
take a husband. While the two concepts are distinct in Quechua, the Spanish manuscript blends
them together (Urioste 107).
The other biggest misrepresentation of Quechua in the Spanish translation comes from
repressive attitudes about sexuality that most of Europe adhered to at the time, much of it
stemming from Catholicism. Parts of the original text where a mans penis is mentioned are
crossed out and replaced with the word pincayinchicta, literally our shameful parts; where a
the author mentions a womans vagina and her breasts it is crossed out and replaced with
pincaynintapas oontapas, her shameful parts and breasts (Urioste 107). Any instance of
sexual intercourse is referred to as hochallicoy to put on guilt. All of these rhetorical choices
represent Avilas, and colonial Spains, view of sex. It also may lead one to believe that the
Scribe was also taught church Latin, as it translates sexual intercourse literally as to sin
(Urioste 107). This outlook on sexuality and sexual intercourse would likely not have been
present in the indigenous society, and shows another way that colonialism has tainted one of our
few representations of their society.
The Huarochir Manuscript is no true representation of ingenuous culture. The multitude
of ways that the narrative has changed as it is transcribed from oral Quechua to written Spanish
corrupted the original story, so much that Susan Paulson says once they had conquered
European terms of expression, these authors were no longer fully native voices (52). Through
all of this however, is there still use to be found from this document, both to the native
populations of the past and to academia today?

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The Spanish made every attempt to control how the indigenous thought and what they
remembered of the past. These epistemological megalomaniacs ensured that all knowledge had
to be based on the Spanish enlightened word. One god, one language, and one reality, all based
off Spanish ideals and Eurocentric epistemology. They even held ceremonies in which they
[read] to each native community a Spanish document that explained why those who failed to
convert immediately must be conquered (Paulson 53).
Luckily, the indigenous did not give up on their traditions and faith; at least on face. They
adapted to using an ambiguous dialogue, which allows for the expression and reproduction of
native perspectives along side their dominant Spanish counterparts (Paulson 53). Susan Paulson
argues that the text is written with in a double talk format. The relationship between the
speaker and the people they interviewed is indirect. The narrator can quote people praising local
shrines and practicing rituals without implicating himself. Their own opinions are encoded in the
rhetoric, but the speaker avoids self-incrimination overall in this method (56).
For instance, in chapter 28 of the work, stories about how people mourned the dead precontact with the Spanish are told. The work shifts tense several times, while the ceremony
happens in an abandoned village and is described with elusive language in which the corpse and
the mummification are mentioned metaphorically, suggesting that this is a post-contact activity
(Paulson 58). This shifting tense may be a conscious act by the narrator to project these activities
into the past so that they can be discussed and remembered without bringing about the wrath of
the Spanish. While the public celebration of these rites was repressed, the double talk of the
narrative is ingenious, and likely helped the indigenous tradition survive much longer than it
would have under colonial rule.

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Overall, was the Huarochir manuscript successful? The answer to this question may not
be able to be fully answered from our perspective. Colonial efforts to assimilate and convert the
indigenous people were widely successful, which is what Avila would have used the document
for. However, the double talk in the narrative is the reason that we still have any record of their
tradition and religion at all. The text is definitely not a true representation of the native voice,
however I, along with the works used, would argue that the subversive nature of the text has
allowed for the continuation of traditions. The double talk used allowed for traditions and rituals
to be discussed and coexist with the Spanish and Catholicism without bringing punishment to
the people that talked about them. Further more, the fact that we have a semi-reliable source
about the indigenous traditions 400 years later should make the Huarochir Manuscript a success
by most measures. It succeeded in carrying the message of its people through Spanish rule; a feat
that should not be ignored and should set the Huarochir Manuscript apart as one of the most
important records of people lost to colonialism.

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Works Cited
Durston,Alan."NotesontheAuthorshipoftheHuarochirManuscript."ColonialLatinAmericanReview16.2
(2007):22741.Web.
Paulson,Susan."DoubleTalkintheAndes:AmbiguousDiscourseasMeansofSurvivingContact."Journalof
FolkloreResearch27.1/2(1990):5165.Jstor.Web.1May2016.
"TheHuarochirManuscript."TheNortonAnthologyofWorldLiterature.Ed.MartinPuchner.Ced.Vol.3.New
York:W.W.Norton,2012.53641.Print.
Urioste,GeorgeL."EditingofOralTraditionintheHuarochirManuscript."FromOraltoWrittenExpression4
(1982):10108.Web.1May2016.