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By Rolena Adorno
During the European colonization of made about the conceptualization of self Apart from the depictions of build-
the New World, the depiction of and Other across cultural boundaries in ings and building construction, repeated
self and Other (European and Amerin- the early Spanish colonial period. some twenty-five times throughout Cie-
dian, or Amerindian and European) Cieza's work is appropriate for this za's work to highlight the recurring
implied complex processes of observa- excursion because, along with the Suma theme of Native American and colonial
tion, mediation, and projection. Often y narracion de los Incas of Juan de Spanish foundations, there is another
the image created and communicated by Betanzos (1551), it presents the earliest image of interest to us here: a woodcut
the observer had little or nothing to do European interpretationsof the Andean of a group of Indians conversingwith the
with what had been seen. To consider world and its past.2 The first edition of devil, repeated a total of eight times (fig.
the depiction, therefore, is to reflect on Cieza's Chrbnica del Peru is richly 1). On this illustration'sfirst appearance
the observing subject. Whether the illustrated, and, at least some of the (chap. 15), the accompanying prose text
observing subject was the colonizer or woodcuts were executed according to tells of current practices of divination
the colonized, the relationship between the author's own directions.3Two subse- and sorcery that "the devil commands
them suggests that the best way to study quent editions, appearing in Antwerp in those who are in communication with
either is to take into account both 1554, copy these illustrations and repeat him to undertake."5 Another image,
simultaneously. A case in point involves their exact location throughout.4 appearing but once, depicts a scene of
the earliest European images of the human sacrifice (chap. 19); here Cieza
Incas of Andean South America, and, in made a correction, in his fe de erratas,
turn, Andean images of indigenous indicating that the Indian should be
culture and the foreign, Spanish invader. portrayed naked instead of clothed.6
For the purpose of this discussion, I Again we see the devil in attendance; the
shall take as exemplary of the stated themes of affiliation with the devil and
principles two textual cases: one, the human sacrifice are combined in the
1553 publication of the Parte primera pictorial text as they are in the prose
de la chronica del Peru (First part of the text.7 As Cieza described the devouring
chronicle of Peru) by Pedro de Cieza de of the sacrificial victims, cannibalism
Leon, represents one of the earliest was added to his picture of the Amerin-
series of European images of Andean dian natives.
South Americans disseminated after the The depictions of the natives in
invasion of Peru by Francisco Pizarro conversationwith the devil are related to
and his company; the other, the 1615 two others that complete the series:
Nueva corbnica y buen gobierno (New natives worshiping an emerald globe at
chronicle and good government) of Manta (chap. 50) and the heavenly
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, is an punishment of ancient giants engaged in
Andean response to eighty or ninety sodomy (chap. 52). Thus, apart from
I Pedro de Cieza de Le6n, Pagan
years of Europeanwriting on the Andes.' Fig. two elegant representations of the
The mediations that come into play Amerindian priests speak with the princely Inca (chaps. 38 and 92), every
devil, woodcut, from Parte primera de other pictorial image shows individuals
require more ample explanation than M. de
can be provided here. Thus, although I la chronica del Peru (Seville: of the identified as Andeans as communicating
direct my attention to two concrete Montesdoca, 1553). Courtesy directly with Satan, engaging in acts of
John Carter Brown Library, Brown human sacrifice, sodomy, or pagan
examples, the discussion as a whole
synthesizes several arguments I have University. worship.
Fig. 3 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Self-Portrait, Fig. 4 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Adam and Eve,
pen-and-inkdrawing, from Nueva coronica y buen pen-and-ink drawing, from Nueva corbnica y buen
gobierno (1615; Madrid: Historia-16, 1987), 368. gobierno (1615; Madrid: Historia-16, 1987), 22.
do, I would argue, with stances previ- comparative models and frames of refer- Chivalric discourse, in its secular
ously taken regarding other subordi- ence by which they attempted to recog- and religious manifestations, was
nated or subjugated groups than with nize, comprehend, and then classify the pervasive in the sixteenth century in
factors pertaining to the conquest and newfound humanity. Europe. In literature, it had two princi-
colonial experience. What is involved In explaining the foregoing European pal manifestations: the epic poems of
here is not the direct and immediate visions of otherness, we need to abstract heroic conquest and the novels of chiv-
observationof reality but rather observa- the composite profile of the observing alry. The first implies the relationship of
tions and judgments that originate in, subject who looked at certain social the Amerindian to other discourses on
and are mediated by, experience with types as different from himself but infidelity; the second, the relationship to
other discourses. I am thinking espe- similar to each other.'8 This subject is discourse on women and the requisites of
cially of those whose referents would be male and Christian, and his values are moral instruction for weaker beings.19
contemplated as a version of alterity, as those of masculine, chivalric, Christian The epic celebrated the triumph of
outsiders removed from an individual's culture; his category of alterity would Christian militancy, and its source was
own personal experience by gender, include moriscos, Jews, Indians, peas- the medieval conception of an aggres-
cultural difference, or social class. ants, and women. From the perspective sion that opposed the enemies of Christi-
The theory of the descent of the of such an individual, discourses on anity, particularly the Muslims and
Amerindian peoples from one of the ten otherness would be those that deal with Turks. From about 1555 on, epic poetry
lost tribes of Israel, for example, illus- infidelity (the writings on Muslims, no longer celebrated only ancient deeds
trates the point. Such notions came not moriscos, Jews, and conversos) and but contemporary ones, too. The mili-
from armchair speculators but from Christianity imperfectly achieved (the tary feats of Charles V and his captains,
missionaries such as the Franciscan writings of Christian moral instruction those of the Spanish conquests in the
friar Toribio de Benavente Motolinia for women). Comparable elements are Indies, and the victory over Islam in the
and the Dominican friar Diego Duran, found in the depictions of Amerindians, Mediterranean and in southern Spain
who spent their lives among the new and our approach to them will parallel now became the topics of heroic poetry.
brethren.17Consciouslyor unconsciously, the most common pattern followed by How did this type of discourse portray
the chroniclers, missionary writers, and the above-mentioned observer: the dis- the Amerindian? Its major themes were
theological-juridical experts put forth course of chivalry. the conquest of the infidel barbarian,the
112Art Journal
Summer 1990113
114Art Journal
Summer 1990115
seam that connects the spaces of natural backgroundis the characteristic interior plary comportmentof a Christian friar.55
virtue and innocence and the structured wall and window of the European At the same time, the mountainous
social order (fig. 7).52 culture space (see fig. 6). At the same landscape that formed part of the
The curious feature of the setting is time, the Andean mandoncillo stands Golden Age of the ancient Andeans
the tiled floor (representingindoorspace) before an Inca stone house as seen from becomes the universal emblem of An-
on which the Holy Family is located. the outside.54Like its prototype in the dean experience,right throughthe depic-
Although there are surely European nativity scene, this depiction is an tions of colonial times. Overall, Guaman
artistic precedents for this depiction, instance of the mediation of the two Poma's iconographic text conveys a
Guaman Poma's use of it is meaningful cultural spheres through the agency of message about the integration of social
in the context of an iconographic system Christianity: the Andean figure holds a organization, moral conduct, and reli-
that assigns distinct values to the con- rosary as his key to negotiating across gious piety in Andean experience, in
trast between indoor and outdoor set- the boundary that separates Andean contrast to the absence of such integra-
tings. In relation to his drawings of the and Europeancultures. tion in the Europeanculture space.
ages of Adam and David, the integration Articulated by the background set-
of outdoor and quasi-indoor pictorial
space here suggests that the theology
tings that identify the European almost
exclusively with the indoors, we see two
N ow we come to the use Guaman
Poma made of the Christian icono-
and ideology of Christian salvation is to theses elaborated about the foreign graphic code. The introduction of reli-
become the mediator between European culture. First, it is the site of the creation gious symbolism raises questions about
(depicted as indoors) and Andean (out- of a hierarchical colonial administra- the relationshipof the models of Andean
doors) spheres. tion, civil and ecclesiastic; and, second, and European culture, which I have
This notion is borne out in another it is the locus of moral depravity and the interpreted as being separate and dis-
significant and curious drawing in which criminal exploitation of the Andean tinct. Symbolic icons like the devil and
a colonial Andean functionary is posed people. The space of virtue in the the dove are metalinguistic signs insofar
in an indoor/outdoor setting and holds a European orb is so limited that it as they stand alongside icons in the
Christian rosaryas well as the character- requires the imposition of a linguis- naturalistic register of representation
istic Andean coca pouch (fig. 8).53 The tic marker-the word "obedience," for and effectively comment upon them.
figure is placed indoors insofar as the example-to indicate the exem- The icon of the dove representing the
116Art Journal
Notes
1 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer llamada la Nueva Castilla, in Rafil Porras 11 See Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for
nueva corbnica y buen gobierno (1615), ed. Barrenechea, Las relaciones primitivas de la Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadel-
John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, Quechua conquista del Peru (Lima: Universidad Nacio- phia: American Historical Association, 1949);
translations by Jorge Urioste (Madrid: Histo- nal Mayor de San Marcos, 1967), 45-66, and idem, Aristotle and the American Indians
ria-16, 1987). This edition is cited throughout; 79-101; and Francisco de Xerez, Verdadera (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1971).
its pagination corrects Guaman Poma's origi- relacibn de la conquista del Periu, in Crbnicas 12 See Lino G6mez Canedo, "^Hombres o bes-
nal numbering. de la conquista del Periu,ed. Julio Le Riverend tias? (Nuevo examen critico de un viejo
2 Franklin Pease G. Y., "Introducci6n,"in Pedro (Mexico City: Editorial Nueva de Espafia, t6pico)," Estudios de Historia Novohispana 1
de Cieza de Le6n, Crbnica del Peru: Primera n.d.), 29-124. (1966): 29-51; and Rolena Adorno, "La
parte (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cat6olica 5 Pedro de Cieza de Leon, La crbnica del Pertu, discusi6n sobre la naturaleza del indio," Histo-
del Per6 y Academia Nacional de la Historia, ed. Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois (Madrid: ria de la Literatura Latinoamericana, ed. Ana
1984), xi. Historia-16, 1984), 113. Pizarro (Paris: UNESCO and Association
3 Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, "Los manu- 6 Saenz de Santa Maria (cited in n. 3 above), Internacionalede Litt6rature Compar6e, forth-
scritos de Pedro Cieza de Le6n," Revista de 184. coming).
Indias (Madrid), nos. 145-46 (1976), 188. 7 Cieza de Le6n (cited in n. 5 above), 124. 13 See Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural
4 Pedro de Cieza de Le6n, Parte primera de la 8 Cited in n. 4 above. Man: The American Indian and the Origins of
chrbnica del Peru (Seville: M. de Montesdoca, 9 Politically, Cieza was indigenist in his outlook. Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: Cam-
1553); idem, Parte primera de la chrbnica del He hoped to leave his papers to Fray Bartolom6 bridge University, 1982), 42-44.
Peru (Antwerp: Juan Bellero, 1554); and idem, de Las Casas, the principal Spanish defender of 14 Ibid., 106.
La chrbnica del Peru, nuevamente escrita the Indians, and he shared Las Casas's convic- 15 Ibid., 106, 222.
(Antwerp: Martin Nucio, 1554). The only tions about the cruelty of the conquests and the 16 Alonso de Ovalle, Histbrica relacibn del reino
earlier Andean image in a European imprint dignity and worth of Amerindian peoples. One de Chile (Rome: Francesco Cavalli, 1646),
was the frontispiece (a woodcut) to Crist6bal of the Andeanist scholars consulted both by 393; see also pp. 91, 93, 104.
de Mena's account of the conquest of Peru, him and by Las Casas was the great Quechua 17 Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, Historia de
published anonymously in Seville in 1534; it grammarian Domingo de Santo Tomas, who los Indios de la Nueva Espaha, ed. Claudio
was used again during the same year in was also a Dominican friar and bishop of Esteva (Madrid: Historia-16, 1985); Diego
Francisco de Xerez's Historia del descu- Charcas. See Pease in Cieza de Le6n (cited in Duran, Historia de las Indias de Nueva
brimiento del Peru, also published in Seville. n. 2 above), xiii, xix. Espaha y Islas de Tierra Firme, ed. Jos6 F.
See Crist6bal de Mena, La conquista del Periu, 10 Cieza de Le6n (cited in n. 5 above), 389-90. Ramirez (Mexico City: Editora Nacional,