New Chronicle and Good Government, The Author Inquires

1612-1615

Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe (1535-1613)

Copenhagen, DNK, Koneglige Bibliothek (current location)

In this self-portrait, Guaman Poma occupies center stage, interviewing his fellow Andeans. His right hand is raised in a pose known from European art, used to indicate a person is speaking. The information he gathers will be set down in the Nueva corónica i buen gobierno (New Chronicle and Good Government), his letter to King Felipe III. Because there was no pre-Hispanic tradition of painting representational images in ink on paper in the Andes, Guaman Poma's self-portrait owes many of its visual features to European conventions. Among them are the overlapping crowd of men, the black frame line defining the image, and the use of alphabetic text combined with pictorial imagery.

The Spanish caption here and at the bottom of the page, says, Pregunta el autor (“The Author Inquires”). Dominating the center of the image is Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, author of the New Chronicle and Good Government. In this self-portrait, he wears both Europeanized and Inka-style clothing. His hat, cloak and breeches, and shoes are of European design. Yet his tunic has its roots in Andean tradition. The crowd gathered around him includes Inka men of very high status, dressed in tunics and cloaks. Those that are not barefoot wear pre-Hispanic-style sandals. The man to the left of Guaman Poma represents the Inka ruler, with tocapu (square geometric and symbolic patterns) on his tunic and the mascapaycha, the fringed headdress of royalty, set onto his forehead. This gesture, with a raised finger, indicates that Guaman Poma is speaking—perhaps asking the indigenous men around him questions. While native Andean men still wore certain kinds of pre-Hispanic-style clothing in the 17th century (as they do here), this image is anachronistic—showing the Sapa Inka alongside Christian Andean men.

Guaman Poma is of mixed Andean heritage—his father was a member of the non-Inka Yaravilca dynasty of Huanuco and his mother was Inka. Most scholars currently believe that Guaman Poma, an Andean man of indigenous ancestry, created the New Chronicle and Good Government. While the paper and ink he used would have been relatively expensive, it seems that he undertook this project of his own volition, to inform the king and, perhaps, instigate for colonial reform.

The drawing, which measures 14.5 x 20.5 cm (ca. 5 x 8 inches), has been executed on European paper with dark ink—as were all of Guaman Poma’s images in the New Chronicle. Among his primary models were prints and books with black-and-white engravings or woodcuts. The manuscript was probably finished between 1612 and 1615. Guaman Poma worked on this project for years, making many revisions before sending the final version to King Felipe III.

The New Chronicle and Good Government, which contains this painting, was created as a letter to the king of Spain, Felipe III, as a report on the condition of life in the Andes. It is unknown whether the manuscript ever reached the king’s eyes, and today the manuscript is housed in Denmark, where it has been since 1785.

This page speaks to modes of colonial transformation, in both conceptual terms and graphic representation. For instance, the visual imagery combines pre-Columbian and early modern European elements. Also, the use of alphabetic language–for Spanish and Quechua—was introduced to Peru by Spainards, yet Guaman Poma used writing to challenge Spanish rule. In the 20th century, works like Guaman Poma’s were dubbed "Chronicles of the Impossible," because they took up an ambitious, and perhaps contradictory, project: the use of new visual strategies to preserve the past.

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.