New Chronicle and Good Government, Of the idols and wak’as of the Qullasuyas

1612-1615

Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe (1535-1613)

Copenhagen, DNK, Koneglige Bibliothek (current location)

This scene, from a manuscript created in Peru, depicts a scene familiar in pre-Hispanic antiquity: how priests of the region southeast of Cuzco worshiped wak’as—sacred objects and places. In this picture, two priests are about to sacrifice a black llama to a wak’a, who appears high up in a cave in a mountain.

This manuscript is one of the most valuable sources about ritual in the Andes known today. The title of this page is “Of the idols and wak’as of the Qullasuyas.” Qullasuya was the name the Inka gave to of the region southeast of Cuzco. In the Andes, wak’as were any entity possessing a supernatural force, and could be animate or inanimate. In this image, the wak’a is represented as the mummy bundle of an ancestor, set into a mountain cave, the niche at upper left. In the foreground, Guaman Poma, portrays the priests of the Qullasuyus, showing their distinctive crescent headdress ornaments. The mummy bundle in the cave wears them as well. The priest at right holds a bundle and it could contain either feathers or coca leaves, both objects burnt in offering.

The Andean author of this work, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, was a Christian convert in Peru, who offers one of the few indigenous accounts of pre-Hispanic religious practice. Guaman Poma was from an elite Andean family: his father was a member of the indigenous (but non-Inka) Yaravilca dynasty of Huanuco, a city in the Andes, and his mother was Inka. Friars educated him. His masterwork, the New Chronicle, which was intended for the King of Spain, was a plea for enlightened self-rule in the Andes.

This is one of the more-than 400 pen-and-ink drawings that Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala made to illustrate his manuscript, entitled The New Chronicle and Good Government (in Spanish, Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno). Made of standard-size European paper folded in four, each page is about 8 by 5 ½ inches (20.5 by 14.5 cm.). Guaman Poma’s work emulates the prints included in books of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There are clues in the manuscript, such as the page numbers he penned in the upper right corner, that suggest Guaman Poma may have eventually desired his work to be published. It was, over 300 years after his death.

Guaman Poma’s narrative is invaluable because it is one of the only colonial histories of the Andes written by a native Andean, not a Spaniard or Creole. It has been in Denmark since 1785. This book-length New Chronicle and Good Government (Nueva corónica i buen gobierno) explores an impressive range of practices and events, including Adam and Eve in the Andes, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, Inka ancestor veneration, pre-Hispanic festivals, and the Holy Inquisition.

In his book, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala recounted the ways that, in ancient times, native Andeans approached and engaged the otherworld of deities and ancestors. Writing 80 years after the first Spanish invasion of the Andes, Guaman Poma articulates how vital these forces once were. His work also shows how vividly pre-Hispanic rituals were remembered in the 17th century—even by indigenous Christians like Guaman Poma himself. His imagery also had a contemporary, 17th-century resonance. While worship like this, including llama sacrifice, was banned, friars and other colonial authorities nevertheless continued to harbor anxieties about idolatry because indigenous people still honored wak’as throughout the Andes.

Reproduced courtesy of the Koneglige Bibliothek, Copenhagen

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

El sitio de Guaman Poma/The Guaman Poma Website.

Adorno, Rolena. 2000. Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press/ Institute of Latin American Studies.

Guaman Poma de Ayala: The Colonial Art of an Andean Author. 1992. New York: Americas Society.

López Baralt, Mercedes. 1989. Icono y conquista: la crónica de Indias ilustrada como texto cultural. Madrid: Hiperión.

Salomon, Frank. 1982. “Chronicles of the Impossible: Notes on Three Peruvian Indigenous Historians. In From Oral to Written Expression.” R. Adorno, ed. Foreign and Comparative Studies, Latin American Series 4: 9-40 (Syracuse).

El sitio de Guaman Poma/The Guaman Poma Website. Royal Library of Denmark.