Language, authority, and indigenous history in the Comentarios reales de los Incas 9780521350877, 9780511873928, 9780521019644

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CAMBRIDGE IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES GENERAL EDITOR

P. E, RUSSELL F.B.A. Emeritus Professor of Spanish Studtes University of Oxford ASSOCIATE EDITORS

E. PUPO-WALKER Director, Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies Vanderbilt University

A. R. D. PAGDEN Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge

Language, Authority, and Indigenous History in the Comentarios reales de los incas

: The Comentarios reales de los incas, a classic of Spanish Renaissance prose narrative, was written by Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, the son

of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador. It is full of ideological tensions and apparent contradictions as Garcilaso attempts to reconcile a pagan new-world culture with the fervent Christian evangelism of the period of the discovery and conquest of America. This study of the Comentarios is original both in adopting the perspective of discourse analysis and in its interdisciplinary approach. Margarita Zamora examines the rhetorical complexities

of the Comentarios, and shows how, in order to present Inca civilization to Europeans, Garcilaso turned to disciplines other than traditional historiography, and in particular to the linguistic strategies of humanist philology and hermeneutics. Professor Zamora reveals how Garcilaso’s views of the Incas were shaped by the dual nature of his background, by his commitment to humanism and Christianity, by the expectations he had of his readers, and by the discursive practices of his time.

CAMBRIDGE IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES HISTORY AND SOCIAL THEORY ROBERT I. BURNS: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of Valencta: Societies in symbiosis

MICHAEL P. COSTELOE: Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American revolutions, 1810-1840 HEATH DILLARD: Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian town soctety, I 100-1 300 JOHN EDWARDS: Christian Cérdoba: The city and its region in the late Middle Ages LEONARD FOLGARAIT: So Far from Heaven: David Alfaro Siquetros’ ‘The March of Humanity’ and Mexican revolutionary politics DAVID THATCHER GIES: Theatre and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Spain: Juan de Grimaldi as impresario and government agent JUAN LOPEZ-MORILLAS: The Krausist Movement and Ideological Change in Spain,

1854-1874 MARVIN LUNENFELD: Keepers of the City: The corregidores of Isabella I of Castile

(1474-1504) LINDA MARTZ: Poverty and Welfare in Habsburg Spain: The example of Toledo ANTHONY PAGDEN: The Fall of Natural Man: the American Indian and the origins of comparative ethnology

EVELYN S. PROCTER: Curia and Cortes in Leén and Castile, 1072-1295 A.C. DE C. M. SAUNDERS: A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, F441-1555 DAVID E. VASSBERG: Land and Society in Golden Age Castile

KENNETH B. WOLF: Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain

LITERATURE AND LITERARY THEORY STEVEN BOLDY: The Novels of Julio Cortdzar ANTHONY J. CASCARDI: The Limits of Illusion: A critical study of Calderén MAURICE HEMINGWAY: Emilia Pardo Bazén: The making of a novelist B. W. IFE: Reading and Fiction in Golden Age Spain: A Platonist critique and some picaresque replies JOHN KING: Sur: A study of the Argentine literary journal and its role in the development of a

culture, 1931-1970 JOHN LYON: The Theatre of Valle-Inclan BERNARD MCGUIRK & RICHARD CARDWELL (eds.): Gabriel Garcia Mérquez: New readings JULIAN OLIVARES: The Love Poetry of Francisco de Quevedo: An aesthetic and existential study

FRANCISCO RICO: The Spanish Picaresque Novel and the Point of View HENRY W. SULLIVAN: Calderén in the German Lands and the Low Countries: His reception and influence, 1654-1 980 DIANE F. UREY: Galdés and the Irony of Language MARGARITA ZAMORA: Language, Authority, and Indigenous History in the Comentarios reales de los incas

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Language, authority, and indigenous history in the Comentarios reales de los incas

MARGARITA ZAMORA Assistant Professor of Spanish and Ibero-American Studies University of Wisconsin, Madison

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NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE MELBOURNE SYDNEY

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 32 East 57th Street, New York, ny 10022, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1988 First published 1988 British Library cataloguing in publication data

Zamora, Margarita Language, authority and indigenous history in the Comentarios reales de los incas. — (Cambridge Iberian and Latin American studies). 1. Comentarios reales de los incas 1. Title

985.00498 F3429 Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Zamora, Margarita. Language, authority, and indigenous history in the Comentarios reales de los incas. (Cambridge Iberian and Latin American studies) Bibliography. Includes index. 1. Vega, Garcilaso de la, 1539-1616. Comentarios reales de los incas. 2. Incas. 3. Peru — History — To 1548. 4. Peru — History — 1548-1820. 5. Peru — History —

To 1548 — Historiography. 1. Title. 1. Series.

F3429.V3873Z36 1988 985'.02 87-25581 ISBN 0 521 35087 5

Transferred to digital printing 2004

SE

To

Salvador M. Cruxent and

Margarita Bachs de Cruxent

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Contents

Preface page 1x 1 Introduction I 2 Language and history: Renaissance humanism

and the philologic tradition 12

3 Language and history in the Comentarios reales 39

Comentarios reales 62

4 Philology, translation, and hermeneutics in the

reales 85

5, Contexts and intertexts: the discourse on the nature of the American indian and the Comentarios 6 ‘Nowhere’ is somewhere: the Comentarios reales

and the Utopian model 129

7 Epilogue 166

Notes 169 Bibliography 189 Index 201 Vil

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Preface

This book originated during my years of graduate study at Yale University. It is a product of the stimulus provided by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria and a dedicated group of graduate students toward the reevaluation of the works of the Spanish American colonial period. For their inspiration and camaraderie I will always be grateful. I also owe thanks to Francisco Fernandez Turienzo whose

knowledge of Renaissance thought helped guide my studies of humanism. Both Professors Fernandez Turienzo and Gonzalez Echevarria generously allowed me access to their unpublished manu-

scripts, as did Diana Gibson, who shared work in progress and valuable bibliographical information. My work also benefitted from the criticism generously given by Margaret Ferguson, whose insights on humanist irony helped shape my arguments on the role of irony in the Comentarios reales, and from conversations with Sarah Lawall, Rolena Adorno, and Irlemar Chiampi, all of whom have left their mark on my work in often unforeseen ways. My colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Steve Stern, and Thomas Skidmore, have been a source of personal encouragement. I must also thank Frank Salomon for his insights on the Quechua language and Andean religious thought. To David Henige, who read through early drafts of this book and whose acute criticisms and bibliographical suggestions helped sharpen the articulation of my arguments, I owe a special debt of gratitude. I would also like to thank Laura Chesak for her help in compiling the English translations, David Dean for providing me with access to both his staff and computer equipment, and Judith Green without whose help and encouragement this book might never have been completed. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the material support provided by the National Defense Education Act Title vi Fellowships, Yale

University, the Cyril W. Nave Bequest, and the University of Wisconsin Foundation. 1X

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I

Introduction

Garcilaso Inca de la Vega was born Gomez Suarez de Figueroa in Peru 1n 1539, Just seven years after the first official encounter between

Incas and Spaniards took place at Cajamarca.!' His father, Sebastian Garcilaso de la Vega, was a Spanish officer while his mother, Chimpu Ocllo, was an Inca palla, or princess of the royal family. Although they never married, the captain and the palla had at least two children and

lived together for some ten years, until he took a Spanish bride. Garcilaso remained in his father’s household until the latter’s death in 1559, although he apparently also kept in close and frequent contact

with his mother and her family. As a mestizo, offspring of the union between an Amerindian and a

Spaniard, both of whom were prominent residents of Cuzco, Garcilaso grew up in the privileged position of being able to learn the

ways of two vastly different cultures and to witness the process of conquest from the perspectives of both the conquerors and the conquered. His earliest education seems to have been in Quechua, the language he considered his native tongue. Through his mother and the elders of her family, Garcilaso was introduced to the history and customs of the Incas. From comments he interspersed throughout his works we know that gatherings of the Incan side of the family were frequent and usually had a didactic effect on the young Garcilaso, who loved to hear stories of the empire’s former grandeur and to satiate his curlosity with probing questions on life in Tahuantinsuyu, as the Inca empire was called in Quechua, before the arrival of the Europeans. Very little is known of his formal education. He alludes to it apologet-

ically in his works, in a style that is reminiscent of the rhetorical formula of false modesty, but a similar reference in a personal letter suggests that his modesty reflected his formal instruction accurately. Writing to the antiquarian Fernandez Franco, Garcilaso speaks of a limited and sporadic exposure to the fundamentals of Latin as a child I

2 INTRODUCTION in Cuzco, which came to an abrupt conclusion when Garcilaso was approximately fourteen years old. He relates that he and his classmates turned to the “‘exercise of horses and arms” when the last of a series of seven tutors departed during the increasingly turbulent times of the Peruvian civil wars.? Garcilaso received a small inheritance upon his father’s death so that he could travel to Spain to complete his education and in 1560, at the age of twenty-one, he left Peru never to return again. There is no indication that he ever pursued formal studies in Europe. His own explanation of how he acquired the skills necessary for his literary __ achievements 1s not without irony. He joined the army, Garcilaso explains, but the lack of royal recognition for his military efforts in the

Alpujarras wars, in which he served as captain in the King’s forces

(1570-1), coupled with too much leisure time upon his return to civilian life, turned him from soldier into student. All indications suggest that Garcilaso was essentially an autodidact. The inventory of his library, together with the evidence provided by

his works, testify to his command of the knowledge and skills of a highly educated humanist. The contents of the library reveal that his intellectual interests ranged from European and New World history to the history of classical and Christian antiquity. Although it 1s sometimes difficult to determine from the hastily written inventory which books were in the original languages and which in Spanish translations, it is clear that Garcilaso knew Latin. The presence of a Greek grammar in the collection suggests at least a working knowledge of the second great classical language to which the humanists were so devoted. The inventory also indicates a predilection for

writers of the Italian Renaissance and an interest in rhetoric, as evidenced by the presence in the collection of works by Cicero, the Rhetoric of Aristotle, as well as the Arte rhetorica of Francisco de Castro,

who dedicated the work to Garcilaso. Typically for an educated Christian of the period, the inventory indicates that he also owned a considerable number of devotional works.’

Garcilaso settled in Montilla, a small town in southern Spain where his father’s brother, Alonso de Vargas, had his estate. ‘There he wrote his first three works, La traduccién del indio de los tres didlogos de

amor de Leén Hebreo (1590), a translation from Italian of Leon Hebreo’s (Judah Abarbanel) Neoplatonic dialogues;* the Relacién de la descendencia de Garct Pérez de Vargas (1596), a genealogy of the Vargas branch of the family; and La Florida del Inca (1605), an account of the

INTRODUCTION 3 exploration and conquest of Florida. In 1591, after his uncle’s death, Garcilaso moved to Cérdoba where he completed his masterpiece, the Comentarios reales de los incas (1609), an interpretation of the history and

culture of the Incas, and its sequel the Historia general del Peru (published posthumously in 1617), devoted to the history of the conquest

and colonization of Peru by the Spaniards. Garcilaso enjoys a privileged position in the history of Spanish American writing. He was the first New World native and the first

person of Amerindian descent to be published and read widely throughout Europe.* In the Comentarios reales he became the first writer

to attempt to incorporate indigenous elements into a Western dis-_ course, in effect transforming the way a European audience conceived

of Inca history and culture. This study explores the rhetorical and conceptual models which enabled him to achieve that goal.® It also attempts to explain the originality of Garcilaso’s literary achievement and the goals and intentions of his undertaking. By considering both the formal and conceptual aspects of the text as narrative strategies with specific objectives and results, I hope to show that for Garcilaso

the conquest and colonization of the New World was not only a military struggle but, perhaps more significantly, a discursive one. Garcilaso’s task in the Comentarios reales was to reconcile the Inca experience of the past with the European world view, in an attempt to

restore and ultimately to vindicate the indigenous tradition. But perhaps the most transcendental aspect of the work is that in opening

up Western discourse to accommodate Amerindian elements, the Comentarios reales in effect inverted the process of conquest in its discursive dimension. European writing on the New World typically excluded, condemned or, at the very least, marginalized indigenous culture. Garcilaso, however, sought to reconcile the oppositions and contradictions that he perceived in those discourses 1n order to achieve the Renaissance ideal of concordia, or the conciliation of opposites. In

the final analysis, his interpretation of Inca civilization strives to demonstrate the fundamental complementarity of New World and Christian histories.

In this study I focus on the role that language plays in the Comentarios reales — first, as part of a rhetorical strategy for the revision of what Garcilaso considers the false versions of Inca history written by

Spaniards, and then, as an essential component in the process of integration and synthesis of two widely divergent worlds — the Incan

and the European. I argue that the intellectual world that Garcilaso

4 INTRODUCTION entered upon his arrival in Spain was steeped in humanist linguistic thought and practice; just as the one he had left behind in Peru had

been preoccupied with the relation of language to the politics of conquest and religious indoctrination.’ Thus, it was language that provided him with the contours of his argument. The narration of the Amerindian past is conceived in the Comentarios reales as an act of translation, in the broadest and most ambitious sense of the term. But it is Renaissance linguistic theory and practice that informs, in very

concrete and specific ways, the formal strategies of the text. Garcilaso’s personal associations with a circle of Andalusian philolo-

gists and biblical exegetes left an indelible mark on his intellectual formation and gave a unique shape to the narration of the past in the Comentarios reales.

Hayden White reminds us that all historical writing is ideologically

marked, and insofar as historical texts present a certain view of the

historical record they employ a series of narrative tactics of emplotment and argumentation in order to render that record intelligible to the intended audience.® In this way, unprocessed historical material is transformed to mirror the ideology of both the historian and the audience. The Comentarios reales is an interesting case, however, because while Garcilaso addressed a Christian European readership working within a familiar ideological framework, the rhetorical strategies in the text point to a double intention. They are directed at integrating indigenous elements which had previously been incomprehensible, and therefore unacceptable, to that audience while at the same time subverting the unflattering and unsympathetic versions of Inca history and culture sanctioned by the Spanish Crown. Implicit in Garcilaso’s interpretation of Incan Peru, for example, is the idea that the pagan Incas played a privileged role in Christian history. This claim not only undermines the ideological premises which had been invoked to justify the conquest, but more importantly, it is nothing short of a devastating indictment of the Spanish destruction of Inca civilization. It is a tribute to Garcilaso’s remarkable rhetorical abilities that the Comentarios reales received the official approval of the Inquisition and the Crown and was published, uncensored, in 1609. Throughout the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries, when the Comentarios reales was regarded as the final word on the history and culture of the Incas, Garcilaso’s authority and prestige as

historian of pre-Hispanic Peru was unrivaled. Consequently, the

Comentarios reales has usually been studied in relation to

INTRODUCTION 5 historiographical criteria. Even when scholars have arrived at the conclusion that it is not a history, in the usual sense, historiographical considerations have provided the basis of comparison and evaluation. With the rise of rationalist and positivist historiography, study of the work was focused for many years in the history versus fiction debate. In 1905, Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo affirmed that the Comentarios reales was not a history at all but a utopian novel, in the tradition of

More, Campanella, and Harrington.’ But well before Menéndez y Pelayo’s literary evaluation of the fictionality of the work, several historians had questioned Garcilaso’s reliability and integrity as a narrator of history. Robertson initiated the unfavorable re-evaluation by questioning his frequent use of secondary sources as well as his apparent inability to discriminate between the factual and the fabu-

lous.'° Prescott echoed Robertson’s misgivings about Garcilaso’s credulity, suggesting that he was a gossip and an egomaniac."' In Peru, a heated polemic arose over Garcilaso’s use of sources. Gonzalez de la Rosa charged that he was a plagiarizer who had lifted the better part of his history of the Incas from secondary sources, especially the

Valera manuscript Garcilaso frequently cites. Riva Agtero defended Garcilaso’s integrity and objectivity.’? Since then, Sanchez, Porras Barrenechea, Miro Quesada, and Durand have all argued in support

of Garcilaso’s accuracy and integrity as a historian, if not of his impartiality.'? His defenders notwithstanding, Garcilaso’s feeling for the Incas together with his Renaissance penchant for literary creativity have

served to all but exclude him from the current historiographical canon. It is important to note, however, that his contemporaries did not consider the Comentarios reales to be fictional; nor were public attempts made to discredit the work or its author. It was approved, published, and read as a presumably truthful and accurate account of

Inca civilization. While we might be tempted to attribute this to naiveté on the part of an audience composed primarily of the learned and influential, or to an unlikely liberalism in the heart of Counter-

Reformation Spain, we must once again credit Garcilaso’s acute command of the rhetorical and conceptual models available to him. For later readers the codes employed by Garcilaso were no longer familiar, often resulting in confusion and misunderstanding. The impassioned and protracted polemic over Garcilaso’s integrity and authority served to underline the crucial role that the Comentarios

| reales has played in the emerging Peruvian national culture, first in

6 INTRODUCTION forging the most influential image of Peru’s pre-Hispanic past, and later as the literary symbol of Peru’s indo-hispanic nationalist cultural identity.'* The transition from studying the work as historical document to interpreting 1t as symbolic representation constitutes a significant cultural reclassification, marking its passage from the discipline

of history to that of literature. But its cultural importance has only intensified as a result. Literary studies have tended to emphasize the fictional or creative aspects of the work at the expense of other characteristics, particularly its documentary value. In the works of Durand, Mir6é Quesada, and Pupo-Walker the argument has taken a more sensitive and sophisticated form, however, for instead of viewing its fictional or historical

qualities as irreconcilable value judgments, these critics emphasize their harmonious coexistence in the text. Durand and, especially, Pupo-Walker have studied this aspect from the perspective of the personal dimension of Garcilaso’s account, which has enabled them to

reconcile its subjectivity and imaginative characteristics within a historical framework.!> Paradoxically, however, to recognize the historical nature of the text while emphasizing its creative or inventive aspects does not effectively clarify the fundamental generic questions

that have been raised. In the sixteenth century the lines between history and fiction were not clearly drawn. Historical texts availed themselves of fictional or

imaginative devices to enhance their narrative, and fiction masqueraded as history in an attempt to bolster its own questionable authority. Cervantes parodied this ambivalence in his “‘history” of Don Quijote de la Mancha."® Aristotle had clearly separated the two in the Poetics when he affirmed that actual deeds were the province of

history while the probable or possible were that of poetry.'’’ But Aristotle’s definition spoke only of the appropriate content of poetical and historical works, not of their formal characteristics. Indeed, his brief statement on the question of form leads one to believe that he felt the issue to be irrelevant: whether in verse or in prose Herodotus’ work would always be a history, he affirmed. Cicero, the other major source

for humanist historiography had, however, made important statements about the writing of history in De oratore. Consequently, the

humanists came to regard history as a branch of rhetoric, as an instrument of persuasion which would move the reader to virtuous action imitative of the heroes whose deeds were represented in histor-

ies. The ultimate purpose of history was to teach by example. As

INTRODUCTION 7 Gilbert puts it, ““Not factual completeness and accuracy, but moral guidance was expected from the true historian, and he was therefore permitted to select and stylize events from the past.”!® Thus, the subject matter of history must be based on actual events in order to be didactically useful, as Aristotle required, but the form of the expression had to comply with rhetorical and literary criteria of elegant and persuasive prose. Stylistically, the representation of the historical material had as its primary purpose not the communication of strictly factual information, but the shaping of the past into an aesthetically effective and rhetorically convincing form. Studies like Durand’s and Pupo-Walker’s are essential to understanding Garcilaso’s work, for in recognizing the fundamental duality of his narrative they have allowed us to leave behind once and for all the critical absolutism of earlier approaches, revealing a more complex vision of the work. However, the “creative history” approach still limits us to a twodimensional reading. Moreover, it leaves us with a nagging question: Is the Comentarios reales simply a typical Renaissance history? The history/fiction idiom 1s a restricted model from which to read the Comentarios reales because it limits the discursive possibilities of the

text to two clearly delineated types. It starts from the premise that every utterance can be classified either as historical, that is strictly referential, or as creative, where the narration of the past is embellished through fictional resources or transformed through the interjection of the personal feelings and circumstances of the author, or simply invented. In the case of the Comentarios reales the imaginative dimen-

sion of the discourse is manifested primarily through the intense subjectivity that Garcilaso’s personal memories introduce into the narration of the historical material. But, if one were to follow this argument to its logical conclusion, it must also include all of the dialogues represented in the text, all but the most literal of Garciiaso’s interpretations, the narration of tales and anecdotes, the representa-

tion of characters, the symbolic or metaphorical nature of many passages, and the like. Such an approach lacks specificity for it obliges us to lump together a wide variety of discursive forms, obscuring much of the richness and originality of Garcilaso’s rhetorical achievement. In fact, the rhetorical models he employs in the Comentarios reales are many and varied.

They are by no means limited to Renaissance historical discourse or the just-emerging fictional genres which in the fifteenth century took the form of the “novels” of chivalry, and in the sixteenth that of the

8 INTRODUCTION picaresque narratives.'? Garcilaso borrows from the Hebraeo-Christian tradition of biblical hermeneutics, forensics, utopian discourse, philology, theology, and from the chronicles and missionary narratives describing the newly discovered peoples, as well as from a variety

of fictional models, to mention only the most obvious examples, in order to persuade his readers to reject the negative image of the Incas found in the Spanish histories in favor of a new interpretation in which

, the Amerindian element is shown to be an indispensable component of Christian world history. One final issue should be addressed before concluding this orientation — the matter of the supposed lack of authenticity of Garcilaso’s representation of Inca history and culture. ‘This objection has been voiced particularly by anthropologists. In comparative studies of the Comentarios reales and indigenous narratives of the same period, such as

Wachtel’s article on Garcilaso and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Garcilaso’s European acculturation is often contrasted to the more typically Andean vision of other native narrators.?° But when one

| speaks oflack ofauthenticity in the Comentarios reales one cannot afford to overlook the fact that Garcilaso addresses precisely that same issue

throughout his work. He phrases it, however, in sixteenth-century terms. The nature of those terms will be examined in the second and third chapters of this study. For now it is important to remember that the modern concept of authenticity has been shaped by nineteenth-

century positivism. We understand an “authentic”’ experience to mean one that is empirical and verifiable. Viewed from this perspective, a faithful and authentic representation is one which attempts to represent that experience realistically by literally creating the illustion of objectivity and immediacy. But during the Renaissance, knowledge was considered the product of interpretation; as Foucault puts it — ‘The function proper to knowledge is not seeing or demonstrating, it is interpreting.’’?' In the sixteenth century the transmission of truth was conceived of as an act of mediation. Accordingly, Garcilaso defines his narrative task in the prologue to the Comentarios reales precisely as an interpretation of Inca civilization. And when he claims that his story is a true one, he is defining truth in a hermeneutical sense, as an act of mediation which is faithful to the essence or “idea”’ of the original, in the Platonic sense. Garcilaso sought to render Inca civilization truthfully and faithfully, as those terms were understood in his day, but most importantly, to doso in a manner that would be intelligible and persuasive to his audience. The Comentarios reales could be described

INTRODUCTION 9 then as an essentially rhetorical work, whose purpose it is to convince at least as much as to inform. That is, in fact, what Garcilaso suggests

in his proem where he tells the reader that his purpose is not to contradict the historical record but to explain it by serving as a commentator and interpreter. The rhetorical character of the work underscores Garcilaso’s commitment to the Amerindian cause. It also reveals, however, the extreme complexity of the terms of that commit-

ment, as will be seen in the pages that follow. If we were to subject the Comentarios reales to a modern anthropologi-

cal critique we might be tempted to criticize Garcilaso for what seem to us to be distortions of Andean reality. But in doing so we would be obliged to recognize that we were imposing our own discursive prejudices on a Renaissance work. If, on the other hand, our intention is to understand how a Peruvian mestizo of the sixteenth century sees the

historical relationship between Inca civilization and the Spanish conquest, and how he translates that perception into an effective rhetorical strategy to vindicate the conquered in the aggressor’s own terms — then we must read the Comentarios reales utilizing the same

rhetorical and conceptual models available to Garcilaso and his readers 1n the sixteenth century. Although it would be naive to believe

that one can completely overcome the limitations imposed by one’s historical perspective, and presumptuous to claim absolute accuracy of interpretation, the responsible reader must strive to approach the textin a manner consistent with the discursive possibilities available to Garcilaso and his intended audience. The question of Garcilaso’s intended audience is particularly important because it makes the rhetorical choices of the author intelligible and helps avoid anachronistic interpretations and inappropriate comparisons. ‘The Comentarios reales is addressed to an educated and influential minority of Christian European readers. Clearly, it was not

intended for the vast majority of illiterate Europeans, nor for the Indians and mestizos of Peru, most of whom could not read Spanish

and who, moreover, would not have needed Garcilaso to interpret indigenous history for them. Thus, the text employs indigenous materials in a manner which strives to be faithful to the native tradition by representing it in ways that are rigorously consistent with sixteenthcentury norms for the representation of truth and, at the same time, to render that material intelligible and acceptable to its intended audience. This becomes clearer if one understands Garcilaso’s fidelity as having a double purpose. The Comentarios reales attempts to be simul-

IO INTRODUCTION taneously faithful to its referent, Inca history and culture, and to its rhetorical goals of transforming European discourse on the Amerindian. Against a discourse of irreconcilable oppositions he proposes a rewriting of New World history which would be consistent with the Renaissance ideal of concordia, where cultures once seen as antipodal

can finally coexist in harmony. There can be little doubt that the Comentarios reales de los incas is a committed work, and itis to Garcilaso’s

credit that he never loses sight of the essentially persuasive nature of his enterprise. The methodology I employ in this study emphasizes literary dis-

course analysis, since it is both the field in which I have formally trained and the one which has generated the greatest interest in the Comentarios reales in recent years, but it 1s also interdisciplinary, in accordance with the hybrid nature of Garcilaso’s own work. There are three aspects of the approach that deserve special mention. First, this study strives to be consistent with the historical and cultural contexts from which the Comentarios reales arose, attempting to interpret the text in light of the conceptual and rhetorical models available to Garcilaso

in the sixteenth century. Secondly, I consider the meaning of the text as a product of the interaction between the content and the manner in which that content 1s articulated. The basic assumption is that the meaning of an utterance 1s ultimately as much the result of how it 1s said as of what 1s said.

And, finally, a clarification about the selection of the object of the study. The Comentarios reales and the Historia general del Perti were conceived by Garcilaso as two parts of a whole which would present the pre-Hispanic and Hispanic stages of Peruvian history as a coherent unit. However, they have traditionally been published and studied as autonomous, though related, works. ‘The most obvious difference that separates the two texts is their subject matter; the Comentarios reales focuses almost exclusively on Inca civilization while the Historia

general deals with the Spanish conquest and colonization. Although

Garcilaso places all of Peruvian history on the same historical continuum, the Amerindian culture all but fades out of the picture when Garcilaso begins the narration of postconquest history. At the formal level as well, the differences between the Historia general and the

Comentarios reales are more significant than their similarities. The conceptual and rhetorical exigencies of narrating the Amerindian past, so foreign to his intended audience, forced Garcilaso to stretch _ the resources of sixteenth-century historiography well beyond its

INTRODUCTION iI limits, as the pages that follow will show. His narration of Spanish colonial history, on the other hand, fit comfortably within the bounds of Renaissance historical discursive norms. It isa much more typical and consequently more accessible example of its genre. This 1s the first book-length study devoted exclusively to the Comentarios reales and, as such, it continues the tradition of seeing the two volumes of Garcilaso’s history of Peru as separate and autonomous in very significant ways. My purpose in focusing on the Comentarios reales was not to deny the validity or fruitfulness of studying both works as parts of a whole, but

to underscore the unique characteristics of this classic and much debated text in greater depth and detail than would be possible in a more general study of Garcilaso’s oeuvre. A few words about the chapters which follow may help to guide the reader. Chapter 2 is devoted to Renaissance philosophy of language and humanist philology as a strategy of religious reform. It provides indispensable background information for situating Garcilaso’s dis-

cursive strategies in their historico-conceptual context. ‘The third chapter explores the relations between humanist linguistic thought, Garcilaso’s concept of historical truth, and the forging of his authorial persona. It opens with a discussion of the particular demands placed

on historiographical notions of truth and narrative authority by the discovery of the New World. The chapter culminates with an analysis of the development of Garcilaso’s narrative authority and his zdeartum on language. Chapter 4 examines how humanist philologic strategies

shape the narration of Inca history and culture. The fifth chapter relates Garcilaso’s discursive strategies to his intentions and purposes by exploring the intertextual relations between the Comentarios reales

and the texts that constitute the sixteenth-century debate on the nature of the Amerindians. Finally, chapter 6 explores the function of the utopian model in the Comentarios reales as the essential model for a

complex strategy of cultural translation, which mediates the conciliation of oppositions and contradictions that dominated European discourse on the history and culture of the indigenous peoples of America.

2

Language and history: Renaissance humanism and the philologic tradition

If one central concern can be singled out in that eclectic period which comprises the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it is language. Humanism was not so much interested in linguistics in an abstract sense but with the power of the word in action. Nancy Struever has shown that humanist linguistic thought is greatly indebted to the sophist rhetorical tradition as interpreted in Latin by the great Roman rhetoricians Cicero and Quintillian. ““Renaissance language theorists,” and here she cites Petrarch and the nominalist, William of Occam, especially,

“repeat some of the basic moments of sophistic thought in their attempt to reassess the relation of language to being, their emphasis on

the mediating power of language, and their sense of role as derived from language skill.” Humanism conceived of discourse as leading to decision, of language as a motivator of human choice and action. The attack mounted by Renaissance humanism against scholasticism was founded not so much on a rejection of the basic tenets of

medieval speculative philosophy as on a total repudiation of the purely formal character of terministic logic and its ossified discourse. The scholastic dialectician’s insistence on the priority of thought over speech and the subsequent subordination of the sciences of discourse to dialectics was countered by the humanists with a declaration of the

primacy of linguistic eloquence in all intellectual activity.? As Trapezuntius put it, “For indeed, reason itself lies hidden in the obscure processes of the intellect before it has been drawn forth by speech; it has just so much light or brilliance as the fire hidden in the flint, before one strikes it: indeed, while it is hidden no one would think to call it fire.’’? Elocuentia, the art of verbal persuasion, was seen as an essential element of humanistic learning; or as Lorenzo Valla called it,

“rerum regina ... et perfecta sapientia.”’ The emphasis the humanists placed on linguistic eloquence was based on the belief that the function of knowledge was not merely to 12

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 13 uncover truths; it should also impel one toward its acceptance and application. Although the Middle Ages did not ignore the study of rhetoric it subordinated the philosophy of language characteristic of classical rhetorical theory and its creative application to a pragmatism based on imitation and exercise. Medieval treatises on the subject were predominantly “‘how to” manuals which offered advice and concrete examples tosolve specific rhetorical problems. The artes dictamints,

devoted to the composition of official documents and letters, typically

set forth the general rules for the drafting of all types of letters or merely offered a series of models to be imitated by notaries. The artes

poetriae formed part of the discipline of grammar and as such were intended for pedagogical use to teach verse composition. Even the artes

praedicandt, closest to classical rhetoric in spirit since they were the only one of the medieval arts to deal with the spoken word, were generally concerned with the exposition of elaborate techniques for composing thematic sermons.* Humanists, in contrast, insisted that the power of speech was mankind’s most distinguishing and noble characteristic, that the beauty and clarity of language were inseparable from correct thinking, and that knowledge was meaningless unless

it led to virtuous deeds. Erasmus, in his colloquy “‘Convivium religiosum,”’ has one of the characters express the humanist attitude: “T would rather let all of Scotus and others of this sort perish than the books of a single Cicero or Plutarch. Not that I condemn the former entirely, but I perceive I am helped by reading the others, whereas I rise from the reading of these somehow less enthusiastic about virtue, but more disputatious.’’® The humanist conception of language as the fundamental mediating element between perception and reality, human knowledge and

deed yields a concept of history as interpretation and action, not necessarily in the strict physical sense but above all as the movement of the human will to evaluation and choice. Struever has shown that the antilogies or debates in Leonardo Bruni’s History of Florence, like his use

of irony, make demands on the reader to compare, evaluate, and draw conclusions: “‘the [humanist] historian’s task is to place alternatives before the reader. ‘The function of the historian is not merely to

describe but to iztzate dialogue. Bruni uses his rhetorical discipline to

define and shape the political choices in history . . .’ It is in this context which conceives of history as an active discourse, which uses

language to move the will of the reader to evaluation and choice as well as to represent and preserve the past that one must situate the

14. LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY discussion of the role of language in the Comentarios reales. Garcilaso’s

conception of the role of discourse in historiography coincides perfectly with the humanist conception of history as magistra vitae, asa discourse which both represents the exemplary and impels the reader

to action imitating the example. Indeed, all of Garcilaso’s historical works deal explicitly or implicitly with the conquest of America as it was, but more importantly, as it should have been or should be. In La Florida del Inca his intentions are clearly defined in the prologue. In addition to recording the brave deeds of Spaniards and Indians “Our purpose in offering this description has been to encourage [my emphasis] Spain to make an effort to acquire and populate this kingdom (now

that its unsavory reputation for being sterile and swampy, as It 1s along the coast, has been erased).’’ The purpose of colonization in Garcilaso’s view 1s to augment the number of the faithful and to cultivate the land in order to make it more productive for Spaniard and Indian alike. In the Comentarios reales and its sequel, the Astoria

general del Pert, the narrative has as its objective the harmonious integration of indigenous and Christian history with the view of creating a truly mesiizo society in Peru. In the Comentarios reales, however, an essentially rhetorical conception of history is accompanied by very specific ideas on how language becomes a vehicle for gaining access to the past, for restoring it in authentic form, and for mediating the interpretation of the historical

| material. Garcilaso’s strategies for recovering and representing the Inca past are tied to the humanist traditions of text restoration, translation and exegesis, an exegesis most closely associated not with historiography (although writers like Lorenzo Valla and Jean Bodin availed themselves of the method for historiographical purposes) but with the disciplines of grammar and theology and, more specifically,

their point of intersection in the field of textual studies. The humanists’ return to the texts of both pagan and Christian antiquity was motivated in no small part by an interest in the theory and practice of language these represent. Although the process of restoring classical texts was begun soon after the disintegration of the Roman Empire and sustained throughout the Middle Ages, the purpose and the methods with which the humanists approached these sources demonstrate a significant change in attitude. The emphasis placed on language usage, on the form of the expression, fostered

a renewed commitment to the study of the written word in its precise function and meaning. The task of the humanist, therefore,

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 15 was to establish the text as an integral and concrete experience in the past. By means of grammatical and rhetorical erudition each word was examined and defined in its precise historical context in order to determine its original meaning and connotations accurately. During the Middle Ages, antiquity had been deformed to fit medieval cultural norms. Ovid was read, but it was an adulterated, highly moralized version of Ovid. The Vulgate translation of the Bible differed significantly from the Hebrew and Greek originals. ‘The Renaissance, however, acutely conscious of the historical autonomy of classical texts, initiated a return to a more authentic version of ancient texts. ‘The early humanists, and Petrarch 1s an excellent example, were collectors

of manuscripts and interested above all in a firsthand, historically precise study of the original language texts.’ Philology was not a Renaissance invention, however. In the third century BC, under the protection of the first Ptolemies, Alexandria was a center of philological research, with a library housing a manuscript collection of over 500,000 scrolls. ‘The early Church Fathers, especially St. Jerome, had also availed themselves of the philologic method of exegesis to interpret the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts for the correction of the Latin Bible. ‘They noted variant readings in both Latin and Greek texts and evaluated the Latin version in light of the original language. But from the eighth to the end of the fourteenth century the study of the first languages of the Bible all but disappeared among Christian scholars. Bentley has pointed out that only toward the end of the Middle Ages did a few Christians like Roger Bacon, Ramon Lull, and Pierre d’Ailly begin to advocate the revival of the study of the biblical languages, although their call went unheeded? Not until 1397, with the arrival of Manuel Chrysoloras in Florence, was the study of Greek revived in Europe; yet it did not become a part of university curricula until the mid-fifteenth century. Medieval textual exegesis is exemplified in the work of Nicholas of Lyra. In his commentaries Postilla litteralis (1322-31) and Postilla moralts (1339) Nicholas applied scholastic theology, Aristotelian philosophy and a knowledge of Hebrew (though not Greek) to an exegesis of the Bible which combined some correction of the Latin Vulgate text

of the Old Testament based on the Hebrew original, with literal, spiritual, and allegorical commentary. For Nicholas, notes Bentley, “the New Testament confirmed medieval doctrines and was in turn illuminated by medieval theology, philosophy and science... Lyra’s work throws more light on medieval thought and values than on those

16 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

of the early Christian world. The authors of the New Testament wrote their works unburdened by scholastic categories of grace and faith, medieval theology of the sacraments, or the fine points of Aristotle’s

teachings. To explain the New Testament with reference to these things is necessarily to distort the original meaning of the Christian scriptures.’ Clearly, it would be inaccurate to state that philology was born of humanism. Even so there is a fundamental difference between the traditional philologist’s approach to text restoration and exegesis and

what Struever has called the humanists’ “program,” their concern with why a particular text should be established and their rigorous adherence to the grammatico-historical determination of the original meaning. For the humanist exegetes philology constituted the only

valid access to the true meaning of the original text. They were

committed to reconstructing the cultures of antiquity in as undistorted a form. as possible. Philological concerns then were not accidental to the development of humanism; they were essential to it. The praise of classical eloquence was both a defense of the authentic language of the classical age against the ravages it had suffered in the Middle Ages and of the theory of discourse it represented. The goal was to revive antiquity through the extant texts in its pristine form. The discovery of documentary falsifications and false attributions, the need to uncover texts and revive them in authentic form by studying and collating codices, and correcting and restoring texts to their unadulterated form are all indications of humanism’s fundamental concern with establishing a

more faithful vantage point from which to view the past. Frank Kermode underscores the significance of philological developments to

the development of historical perspective in the Renaissance: “We sometimes think of the Renaissance as a sort of humanist philological

house-cleaning, as indeed it was; and we think of it as the moment when antiquity could first be seen in historical perspective, a culture remote in time but admired and imitated, separated from our own by a medium aevum.””'® Language, then, provided the humanist access to the historical past and philology was that science of language which

made the recovery of the past in authentic form possible.

Unique to humanist philological practice was the fact that it transformed the method into a strategy to bring about the downfall of

scholastic intellectual authority in both the secular and religious

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 17 domains. The humanist grammarian’s claim to an interpretative prerogative supported by a command of the original language eftectively neutralized all other approaches to the written word. For an analysis which established the precise historical meaning of the text was able to discredit other commentary simply by demonstrating that its premises were founded on historically mistaken linguistic assumptions. The essentially ahistorical scholastic view of language, which established meaning through traditional logical discussions, was successfully challenged by humanist philologic exegesis, founded on the authority of the original word. The humanist view of language as an instrument of correction,

persuasion, and reform must have been extremely seductive to Garcilaso as he contemplated his response to the vision of indigenous history presented by European chroniclers of the discovery and con-

quest of America. The intent to forge a favorable image of the Amerindian, persuade the reader to accept it, and move the authori-

ties to actions consistent with the nature of that image 1s already evident in his earliest endeavor to represent the Amerindian as a historical figure in La Florida. But unique to the Comentarios reales is that

humanist theory of language not only provides the conceptual framework for the narrative but that the specific linguistic methodologies of humanism become the vehicles for the expression and interpretation of the indigenous past. Humanist attitudes toward language are in fact essentially pragmatic. The linguistic fervor evident throughout the Renaissance was

not a speculative enterprise so much as an applied science. As the grammarian Antonio de Nebrija advised Queen Isabel, the study of language was an integral part of the building of an empire. The

monumental task of study and preservation of the Amerindian tongues undertaken by the missionary friars was the cornerstone of Christian evangelical efforts in the New World. The study of the languages of antiquity — Greek, Hebrew, Latin — was motivated by a _ desire to revitalize a culture perceived as stagnant. In both the secular

and religious domains philology was used as a corrective tool to spearhead a program of reform. Because humanist ideas on language

cannot be separated from practice, I will attempt to illustrate a method in order to uncover the underlying assumptions about language which that method implies and its import for historical textual criticism and exegesis in the pages that follow.

18 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY Humanist philology

One of the first systematic applications of humanist philology was Lorenzo Valla’s ‘“Declamatio de falso credita et ementita donatione Constantini”’ (1440), best known simply as the ““Donation of Constantine.” In this treatise Valla attempted to demonstrate that the ““Donation,” an official document in which the Roman emperor Constantine

supposedly conferred upon Pope Sylvester (314-336) control of the Western Empire, was actually a falsification. The Donation, which Constantine allegedly made out of gratitude to Sylvester for curing him of leprosy, had been considered authentic since it formed part of the respected Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals and suited the political aims of the Papacy very well. For centuries the Church had based its claims of political authority over the Western monarchies on the document’s legitimacy. In 1440 Valla was in Spain serving as Secretary to Alfonso of Aragon, who was trying to lay claim to a portion of disputed Italian

territory. Valla’s “Donation,” then, was intended to discredit the document and thus weaken the Church’s legal hold on the area. Valla’s criticism of the Donation is based on a detailed attack on the forger’s use oflanguage. Through a line-by-line reading he was able to demonstrate that word usage in the text was often historically incon-

sistent and could not be contemporary with Sylvester’s papacy. One of the most effective and representative passages 1s the commentary on the word “satrap,” a term applied to officials at Rome in the middle of the eighth century. Valla begins the commentary with a vituperative tirade against the forger before turning to the textual criticism itself: What! How do you want to have satraps in here? Numskull, blockhead! Do

the Caesars speak thus? Whoever heard of satraps in the councils of the Romans? I do not remember ever to have read of any Roman satrap being mentioned or even of a satrap in any of the Roman provinces. But this fellow speaks of the Emperor’s satrap . . ."!

Valla’s devastating criticism in this passage is based on the simple fact

that the use of the term “satrap”? was anachronistic in a document which supposedly dated from the fourth century. Its inclusion in the text of the Donation thus identified the document as the product of a much later age, effectively proving that it could not possibly have been

an authentic document of Constantine. Valla’s philologic exegesis reached maturity with his application of the method to the biblical texts. In the Collatio novi testamenti (1453-7) he turned to the original language manuscripts of the New Testament

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 19 in order to verify the accuracy of the Latin translation.'? His commentary on certain confusing or corrupt passages of the Vulgate was based

on a grammatically and historically precise determination of the literal meaning of certain phrases in the primitive Greek and Hebrew texts. This time, however, Valla’s work was greeted with much more intense opposition, for the corrective intent behind this type of criticism challenged both the traditionally accepted language of the Latin

Bible and the entire body of interpretation which the medieval Church had erected upon it. In carrying out this task Valla found errors of negligence and ignorance on the part of the copyists, conscious corruptions, simple mistranslations, and stylistic faults which obscured the meaning of the original Greek. He identified, for example, cases of homonym confusion where a scribe taking dictation had mistaken a word for another similar sounding one, inconsistencies resulting from differences in the grammars of Greek and Latin, stylistic abuses which complicated the | simplicity of the Greek in order to enliven the Latin prose, etc. All of

these he annotated and corrected in order to render the Vulgate translation more faithful to the Greek. In contrast to medieval textual

scholarship, Valla’s achievements were considerable. He was, in Bentley’s words, “able to show by manifold example how scholars might restore the New Testament’s text to a more accurate state, recapture its spirit in a more precise translation, and recover its original meaning in a more pertinent exegesis — all this by taking proper account of the philological, linguistic, grammatical, and historical realities that lay in and behind the Greek text of the New Testament.’”!®

The return to the original languages of the Bible and the authority which philologic exegesis lent those languages was to become the cornerstone of Christian humanist religious reform. Desiderius Erasmus was the first to recognize in Valla’s work a weapon to effect a purification of the thought and practice of Occidental Christianity. Like Valla before him, Erasmus cried out for a reform, not of Catholic dogma, but of the way Christ’s Word was interpreted and practiced throughout Europe. His criticism was directed at what he perceived as the two main evils: the religious establishment’s concern with speculations and interpretations which had little to do with the simplicity of Christ’s doctrine, and the degeneration of the religious practices of the common people into fetishism and superstition. Against this state of affairs Erasmus proposed a return to the original sources of Christian-

20 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

ity — to a Philosophia Christi — founded on the study of the Word of Christ as it had been recorded by the Apostles and interpreted by the

early Fathers of the Church.

A return to the sources of Christianity implied, first of all, a purgation of its texts. Valla had already pointed out that the Latin version of the New Testament was corrupt or incorrect in many places. In order to insure a true understanding of the Word of Christ it

had to be restored to its original significance. After centuries of scholastic interpretation based on the four-fold method of interpretation (literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical) the Scriptures must

be liberated from all those layers of commentary and the Word restored to the purity of its original meaning. Erasmus proposed a return to the example set by the patristic biblical exegetes, particularly Jerome, whose techniques in translating the scriptures by erudition and command of language, if not always his results, he regarded highly. Jerome was believed to have authored the Vulgate translation because he found that the Septuagint Greek translation and the Latin version which was based on the Greek text differed from the Hebrew original. Since the Apostles’ writings were based on the Hebrew texts, he argued, a new Latin translation based on the original language was necessary.

Erasmus’ discovery of a manuscript of Valla’s Collatio in 1504 provided the final impetus to begin his philologic exegesis of the Bible.

Valla’s commentary, based on a comparison of the Latin and Greek texts of the New Testament, arrived at the following conclusions: the Vulgate often differed from the Greek text due to conscious alterations

made in the Latin version in support of Church teachings and other corruptions resulting from the carelessness or ignorance of scribes; moreover, the Greek wording was generally clearer. Recognizing the revolutionary nature of Valla’s methodology as well as its exegetical value, Erasmus wrote a bold defense of the Italian’s conclusions and, more importantly, of his method. In the preface to his edition of the

Collatio, to which he gave the new title Adnotationes in Novum T estamentum and published in 1505, he both responds to Valla’s critics

and anticipates the attack which his own philological efforts would inevitably invite: What crime is it in Laurentius if after collating some ancient and correct Greek copies he has noted in the New Testament, which is derived from the Greek, some passages which either differ from our version (the Vulgate) or seem to be ineptly rendered owing to a passing want of vigilance in the

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 21 translator, are expressed more significantly in the Greek; or finally if it appears that something in our text is corrupt?!*

In 1516 Erasmus published his revolutionary edition of the New Testament. The Greek and corrected Latin Vulgate texts appeared side by side, accompanied by a series of annotations which exemplified

and justified the method he had used to arrive at the new readings. Following Valla’s grammatico-historical style of exegesis he began by

establishing the literal sense of each passage in question. He then proceeded to support and expand this with the commentary of the Church Fathers, occasionally turning to a more recent commentator (usually Valla). And, finally, in the light of this broadened perspective, he returned to the text once again. This counterpoint which Erasmus establishes between his own interpretation, based on a command of the original language, and the authority of previous commentators, was indispensable for protecting

his work from its most bitter critics. Since he himself was not a theologian but a grammarian, it was particularly crucial to prove that

his changes were in keeping with Church dogma and clean of any heretical stain. However, it is clear that the appeal to the authority of

other interpreters is subordinated to the conclusions at which he arrives as the result of his own philologic exegesis. Erasmus’ independence in the face of his predecessors is in fact one of the trademarks of his philology which, as Bentley has observed, often functioned by negative contrast to the misguided comments of the patristic exegetes, the medieval commentators, and finally his humanist precursors.'> Even those he most revered and relied upon, the fathers Origen and Jerome and Lorenzo Valla, were on occasion taken to task for deviating from the original Greek texts. Such pillars of the Church as Augustine and

Aquinas came under frequent attack by the exegete, showing that while he took pains to stay clearly within the bounds of orthodoxy in

his interpretations he was unafraid to challenge Church traditions when philological standards demanded it. Erasmus’ vulnerability as a reformer and religious establishment outsider would be mirrored by

Garcilaso’s position with respect to traditional Spanish _historiography on the New World. As we will see in the following chapters, his method was adapted by Garcilaso to challenge faulty interpretations of the indigenous past as well as to shield his bold version of Inca

history and culture from attack.

The following passage illustrates the revolutionary results the

22 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

philologic method yielded in Erasmus’ hands. It is his commentary on

the word “Faith” in the note on Romans 1:17: No Latin word corresponds exactly to the Greek (aitoris). In Latin to have faith in someone means to believe what he says. The Greek means this too, but it can also mean “he who does not deceive” (qui non fallit). The Sacred Texts often misuse these words, for they frequently say fides where they mean fiducia, or trust in God, which does not differ much from hope. Sometimes the

word “‘faith’? embraces both the assent to matters narrated and promises made, and also trust inspired by God’s goodness and the consequent expectation that he will fulfill these promises. This is the faith that men should have in God. But there is also the faith that

is said to be of God, which He shows us in his Promises. God 1s faithful, trustworthy, weorever because He does not deceive; man 1s said to be faithful

when he believes, but this usage, though common, goes beyond the strict meaning of the word.’®

Erasmus’ corrective commentary on the concept of Faith, based on the meaning of the original Greek term, clearly demonstrates how a return to the original languages of the Scriptures could effect changes in the traditional scholastic interpretation of certain concepts central to Catholic belief. In this particular passage he restores the active sense inherent in the Greek term to the exclusively passive meaning of the Latin. Thus, God’s perfect faithfulness to mankind becomes the primary motivating factor of the faith we have in Him. The translation effected by Erasmus is nothing less than revolutionary since it renders the concept of Faith as a reciprocal relationship, as it were,

between humanity and God, subverting the theocentric view of fidelity represented by the Latin word and the Scholastic doctrine erected upon it. In the hands of Erasmus, then, philology becomes a tool for the translation and restoration of the biblical texts as well as a strategy for religious reform. In spite of the substantial contributions made by Erasmus to the philological method and the restoration of the Greek New Testament his occasional lack of precision as a biblical scholar was severely criticized. He was accused, among other things, of translating from Latin back into Greek the last few verses of Apocalypse, missing from the Greek manuscript he was using. One of his most formidable critics

was Diego Lopez de Zuniga, editor of the Greek New Testament printed for the Complutensian Polyglot Bible in 1514 at Alcala de Henares. The meticulous care given to the restoration of the original language manuscripts at Alcala was a monument to humanist philology and Erasmus’ respect for the erudition of the Spanish editor 1s

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 23 revealed in the fact that he quietly incorporated Lopez de Zuniga’s suggestions into a later edition of his New Testament on the authority of the Complutensian text.'!’? However, there is a fundamental differ-

ence between the corrective work undertaken by Erasmus and the strictly restorative, conservative nature of Complutensian bible schol-

arship. Erasmus’ New Testament and the corrective intent which motivated it represents, above all, a commitment to reform. For the humanist the command of language constitutes both an intellectual resolve to accuracy and correctness and following from that a strategy

for change. The philological method was a tool, not only for the restoration of the original language texts of the Bible, but more significantly, for the correction of the Latin Vulgate upon which scholastic interpretation was founded. Erasmus’ correction of the Vulgate and the fresh Latin translation which appeared with the Greek in the second and third editions of his New Testament can only

be understood as an integral part of his advocacy of a return to the “Philosophy of Christ’. In Spain, one of the most prolific centers of philologic activity, this commitment is represented by Antonio de Nebriya and Fray Luis de

Leon. Both were determined to carry out the study of the original languages of the Bible but, mast importantly, both of them persevered

in the interpretation of the Sacred Texts based on a command of

Greek and Hebrew. Nebrija and Fray Luis perceived that the philologic method of grammatico-historical exegesis was a means, and

corrective translation a strategy, in the struggle to return to the original meaning of the Scriptures. Neither one had the reforming zeal of Erasmus, but both were ultimately more rigorous scholars. Their

commitment to the restoration of the original sense of the Bible through a command of the biblical languages places them in the vanguard of humanist linguistic theory and practice. Marcel Bataillon has recognized in Antonio de Nebrija not only the precursor of Spanish Erasmism, but a predecessor of Erasmus him-

self'® In 1460, at the age of nineteen, young Nebrya was in Italy studying grammar and the classical authors. During ten years at Bologna and other centers of Italian learning he was profoundly influenced by the critical thought and method which had led Valla to write the Collatio. In 1470 he returned to the Peninsula committed to eradicating “barbarism” from Spanish soil. For Nebrija this meant

the teaching of Latin grammar and the model authors of classical antiquity. His first work, the Jntroductiones Latinae (1481), was a man-

24. LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

ual of rhetoric and grammar. The multitude of editions which appeared all over Europe until about 1578 testify to the success and popularity of the book. In 1492 he published three more grammatical works — the “‘vocabularios’”’ or bilingual dictionaries, one Latin to Spanish and the other Spanish to Latin, and what is perhaps his best known work, the Gramdtica castellana. Although Nebrija’s fame is primarily a result of his research on questions of Spanish grammar, we know by his own admission that soon after the completion of the /ntroductiones he had already com-

mitted himself to the study of the Sacred Texts. He initiated his investigations with a commentary of fifty biblical passages, the Tertia

quinquagena (1516). He was, however, severely criticized for his philologic work by Diego de Deza, Bishop of Palencia and Inquisitor General of Spain at the time. The manuscript was confiscated by the authorities and he was forbidden to publish any other investigations of

that nature. In response to the attack he appealed to Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros, founder of the University of Alcala and advocate of philologic studies, to serve as his editorial judge. Moreover, he published a valiant defense of his method, dedicated to Cisneros who had fortuitously replaced Deza as Inquisitor General. The Apologia, composed about 1504-6 making it roughly contemporaneous with Erasmus’ 1505 edition of Valla’s Adnotationes, merits a

close examination since it presents both a detailed statement of Nebrija’s method and the assumptions about language upon which it is founded. The apology opens with a rhetorical question: Qué hacer en una republica donde se premia a los que corrompen las Letras Sagradas, y, al contrario, los que corrigen lo que estaba mal, vuelven a su sitio lo que estaba fuera de él, y enmiendan lo falso y mentiroso, se ven infamados y

anatematizados, y aun condenados a una muerte indigna, si tratan de defender su manera de pensar?

[What is one to do in a republic where those who corrupt the Sacred Scriptures are rewarded, while, on the contrary, those who correct what was out of place, and emend that which is false and mistaken, find themselves defamed and anathematized, and even condemned to an unworthy death, if they try to defend their way of thinking? ]’®

Nebrija understood the grammatico-historical correction of the Bible as the philologically precise restoration of the words of the Scriptures

to their original meaning. Citing Jerome and Augustine as his authorities, he claims that the philologic method of exegesis is amply justified by their statements that whenever there is an incongruency

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 25 between different versions of the biblical text one should always go to

the original source — “‘siempre que en el Nuevo Testamento haya alguna diversidad entre los libros latinos, recurramos a los griegos; y slempre que en el Antiguo Testamento difieran los cdédices latinos entre si o con los griegos, recurramos a los hebreos; 0 sea, que en las dudas siempre hay que recurrir a la lengua precedente.”’ [whenever there may be some diversity in the New Testament among the Latin texts, let us have recourse to those in Greek; and whenever in the Old

Testament the Latin codices may differ among themselves or from | those in Greek, let us have recourse to those in Hebrew; in other words,

when in doubt one must always revert to the preceding language. | The implications could not be any clearer. Nebrija places the Greek and Hebrew texts in a privileged position with regard to the Latin version. The Latin translation in fact completely depends on the authority of the original languages. This is followed by an exhortation

on the need to preserve the integrity of the ancient languages: “El hebreo esta entre nosotros enteramente abandonado; y si se hace

lo que éstos pretenden pronto bajara al panteon del olvido esta lengua tan antigua como venerable, que fue la depositaria de los fundamentos de nuestra religion.”’ [Among us, Hebrew has been com-

pletely abandoned, and if what these people intend is done, this language as ancient as it is venerable, and which was the one entrusted with the foundations of our religion, will soon descend to the pantheon of oblivion. |] The defense of the study of Hebrew and of Greek is based on the fact that these languages are the original receptacles of the ideas on which

the Church was founded, and as such are its most accurate transmitters. Yet Nebrija cannot avoid revealing a reverence for the ancient languages which 1s apparently independent of the religious justifica-

tion: “Porque, si nos quitan los libros hebreos, o nos prohiben maneyjarlos; si dicen que tampoco hacen falta los griegos, en los cuales se echaron los cimientos de la naciente Iglesia, volveremos a aquel antiguo

caos, en que no habian aparecido aun las letras, y faltos de los dos Testamentos, nos veremos envueltos en las sombras de una noche sempiterna’’ (my emphasis). [Because, if the Hebrew texts are taken away from us, or if we are forbidden to employ them; if they say that neither do we need the Greek texts, in which were cast the foundations of the nascent Church, we will return to that ancient chaos, in which letters

had not yet appeared, and lacking both Testaments, will find ourselves

surrounded by the shadows of everlasting night.] ‘The emphasized

26 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

clause, warning of a return to the chaos which reigned before the appearance of letters, clearly alludes to a concept of language which 1s predominantly secular — the ability of the great ancient languages to

transmit, through their very form, the force of their civilizations. Nebrija’s defense is at once a plea for the restoration of the original meaning of the Scriptures and a praise of the ancient tongues themselves as vehicles for the eradication of that linguistic chaos, that barbarian state, which threatens civilization. Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, who was well acquainted with Nebrija’s work as will be seen later in this study, bases his defense of Quechua in the Comentartos reales

on precisely the same argument. The preservation of the integrity of the languages of antiquity was for the humanists a defense against the barbaric forces of cultural decay. Nebrija’s vindication of the grammarian’s right — indeed duty — to

undertake the emendation of the biblical texts is founded on a belief

that only a philologic exegesis can uncover the lost or forgotten

significance inherent in the original words: | No hay que extranar que cosas que antiguamente eran conocidas de todos, se

ignoren ahora por completo. Tal sucede con los nombres de plantas o animales. Qué era el onocrotalus? Qué era el porphyrio? Qué era el cyprus, el git, y por qué se siembra éste con el cimino? Lo mismo se diga de los metales,

de los artefactos y vestidos, de los lugares y personas. Todo esto conviene saberlo, no sdlo para satisfacer la curiosidad, sino para entender bien los Libros Sagrados... Diran que hay libros en que se explican esas cosas. No, porque los antiguos hablan de ellas como de cosas conocidas, y los modernos como de cosas leidas y no entendidas. Yo, en cambio, hablo de ellas como de

cosas vistas y palpadas.. . [We should not find it strange that things which in ancient times were known by all, should today be completely unknown. It happens thus with the names of plants or animals. What was the onocrotalus? What was the porphyrio?

What was cyprus, and melanthium, and why 1s the latter planted with cumin? The same may be said of metals, of artefacts and clothing, of places and people. It is advisable to know all this, not only to satisfy one’s curiosity but also to understand the Sacred Books well . . . ‘They will say that there are books in which these things are explained. No, because the ancients speak of them as of familiar things, and the modern writers as of things read and not understood. I, on the other hand, speak of them as of things seen and

touched .. .]

For Nebriya, the philological method places the grammarian in the position of privileged interpreter. ‘The access that the method gives him to the authentic meaning of the text makes his authority equivalent to that of someone who has seen and directly experienced reality.

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 27 The analogy with the historiographic authority of eyewitness testimo-

ny (“yo hablo de ellas como de cosas vistas y palpadas’’) is clearly intentional. A knowledge of the original language gives the grammarian’s interpretation of the text an immediacy and a validity which are unattainable by any other means. A command of the language of the original is equivalent to a direct experience of reality. And he adds: Pero diran aun: Sobre el sentido falso o verdadero de esas palabras, han levantado ya los doctores otros sentidos misticos o morales. En lo que hayan hecho otros yo no me meto; alla ellos. Yo sdlo interpreto lo que ha dicho el

autor de la Sagrada Escritura por boca de los Profetas y de los Apéstoles, ateniéndome a sus palabras. [But still they will say: Upon the true or false sense of those words, the scholars

have already raised other mystic or moral senses. In what others may have done I do not interfere; let them answer for themselves. I only interpret what the author of the Holy Scriptures has said through the mouth of the Prophets and Apostles, and I abide by their words. |

Nebrija argues in favor of an interpretation based on the words of the

Scriptures and limited to them. His refusal to directly attack the scholastic method of interpretation, which placed the authority of Church tradition above that ofa strict grammatico-historical exegesis and relied on the elaboration of secondary meanings, is all the more effective because of the comparison it tacitly establishes. The reply is implied by the entire weight of the Apologia’s argument. A correct interpretation of the Sacred Texts must concern itself exclusively with the words in their full and true meaning as they appear in the Greek and Hebrew codices. Nebrija closes his defense with a summary and a reaffirmation of his

method and its purpose: to restore the Latin Vulgate translation believed to be the work of St. Jerome to its pristine state. Alluding to the confiscated manuscript of the first Tertza qguinquagena he defiantly states: Esto lo hemos hecho ya en parte nosotros mismos, y en parte lo haremos, comparando los codices modernos latinos con los de la venerable antigiiedad, en los cuales facilmente se ve lo que escribi6 San Jerénimo, y si esta conforme

o no con los cédices griegos o hebreos. Diganme, por su vida, los que me censuran, qué linaje de herejia es este. (In part we have done this already ourselves, and in part we will do it, comparing the modern Latin codices with those of venerable antiquity, in which it is easily seen what St. Jerome wrote, and whether it is in accordance or not with the Greek or Hebrew codices. Let those who censure me tell me, on their life, what kind of heresy this 1s. |

28 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

The Inquisition’s tolerance of Nebrija’s defiance can be explained

in part by the friendship and protection Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros offered him, but most significant is simply the matter of time. The Apologia was published in 1505, the same year in which Erasmus began his philologic endeavors by publishing Valla’s Adnotationes. It

preceded the great controversy over the interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures brought to a head by Erasmus’ translation of the Greek New Testament which openly challenged the authority of the Vulgate. It also antedated Martin Luther’s cataclysmic rebellion. Fray Luis de Le6n would not be so fortunate. By the middle of the sixteenth

century the threat which humanist philology presented was clearly

perceived by the Church, and severely punished. At Trent, the prohibition against any translation of the Bible was reinforced and the Vulgate declared the only true and authorized edition of the biblical

text. The Vulgate was not only sanctified by centuries of use in the Church, but was now decreed to be absolutely free from error by the Council of Trent.”° Fray Luis de Leon’s method of exegesis, essentially philological in nature, and his insistence on the primacy of the original language texts of the Scriptures, was to cost him five years of his life in

the jails of the Inquisition. During those years two of his colleagues would die in prison for the same offense. The threat presented by humanist philology on the Iberian peninsula was particularly acute due to the recent conversion to Christianity of a large Jewish population. Thus, Fray Luis’ translation of the Song of Songs, directly from the original Hebrew, was to have repercussions in Spain which perhaps it might not have had elsewhere. A study

} of his biblical work and of the inquisitorial process against him will shed some light both on the state of philology at the time of the Counter-Reformation and its importance as a linguistic strategy of religious reform in the eyes of the Church authorities.?! In the prologue to his translation of the Song of Songs (1561) Fray Luis presents his method of rendering the Hebrew text into Spanish to the reader. The first step is to set the Cantar de los Cantares in a context

which is familiar to his European audience. Hence, the love affair between Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter is cast in the pastoral mode and the main characters transformed into “‘pastor’’ and “‘pastora.”’ This initial act of what Roman Jakobson calls intersemiotic translation renders the Cantar’s sexually explicit language immediately ac-

ceptable and comprehensible by setting it within an established

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 29 Western literary code.?? The explicit sexual language of the Cantar is recast in the plaintive mode of the pastoral, in which the expression of human love is always colored by protestations of spiritual suffering. The importance of this intersemiosis to Fray Luis’ translation cannot be underestimated since it paves the way for the traditional allegorical

interpretation, whereby the figures of Solomon and his wife are substituted by Christ and his Church; but more significantly, it allows Fray Luis to undertake a literal translation of the original Hebrew by, in effect, neutralizing the carnal aspects of human love of which the

text speaks all too plainly.” The allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament preferred by traditional Catholic exegetes is clearly of secondary interest, however,

once the language of the Cantar has been purified by the initial intersemiosis. Fray Luis immediately proceeds to declare his intention of undertaking a word-for-word translation of the text. Upon excusing himself for avoiding a spiritual interpretation, since it has already

been done by more qualified persons, he states: Solamente trabajé en declarar la corteza de la letra asi llanamente, como sien este libro no hubiera otro mayor secreto del que muestran aquellas palabras desnudas y, al parecer, dichas y respondidas entre Salomon y su Esposa, que sera solamente declarar el sonido de ellas, y aquello en que esta la fuerza de la comparacion y del requiebro; que aunque es trabajo de menos quilates que el

primero [the allegorical interpretation], no por eso carece de grandes dificultades, como luego veremos.** [I have worked only at explaining the crust of the words in a plain manner, as

if in this book there were no other secret greater than the one revealed by those naked words, apparently spoken and responded between Solomon and his wife, which will be only to determine their literal meaning and wherein les the force of their comparisons and compliments; for although it is a labor less worthy than the other, not for this does it lack great difficulties, as we shall

see later. | ,

Fray Luis asserts that his translation is above all a literal one. He has rendered the “corteza de la letra,”’ plainly, without delving into any greater mysteries than those expressed by the “naked” words. The difficulties posed by the vast linguistic and cultural differences of two such divergent sign systems as Spanish and Hebrew are also recog-

nized, however. Fray Luis attempts to bridge the remaining gaps between the two texts by resorting to a twofold method of translation and philological commentary which enables him to translate word for word, and to explain the full and often multiple significance of the

30 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

original Hebrew, as well as the spectrum of connotations and semantic bridges which allow for the metaphorical relationships established by

the text. The meticulous nature of the translation stems first of all from the belief that God’s love manifests itself through the words of the Holy Scriptures as well as through His actions throughout history. The importance attributed to language as a vehicle for communication with God is a major motivating force behind Christian humanist philologic practice. Fray Luis expresses this belief in the opening paragraphs of the prologue to the Cantar, thus justifying the method he

has chosen and his fidelity to the original Hebrew text: procuré conformarme cuanto pude con el original hebreo, cotejando juntamente todas las traducciones griegas y latinas que de él hay, que son muchas, y pretendi que respondiese esta interpretacion con el original, no sdlo en las sentencias y palabras sino aun en el concierto y aire de ellas, imitando sus figuras y maneras de hablar cuanto es posible a nuestra lengua,

que, a la verdad, responde con la hebrea en muchas cosas. (p. 29) [I tried to conform as much as I could to the original Hebrew, comparing all the Greek and Latin translations of it that there are, which are many, and I tried to make this interpretation correspond to the original, not only in the ideas and words expressed but even in the arrangement and air of them, imitating its figures and manners of speech as much as is possible in our language, which, verily, corresponds to the Hebrew in many ways. | A command of the original language is essential to Fray Luis’ method.

Humanist philosophy of language places the original word in a privileged position because it is the most adequate vehicle for the transmission of meaning, but also because of a belief that the rhythms, sounds, and shapes of the words are part of the essence of signification. Thus, for Valla the recovery of the texts of antiquity constituted, in and ofitself, the revival of an order which had been lost with the decay of those civilizations; thus a misuse of language or a mistranslation constitutes an assault against that order. For Erasmus a return to the sources of Christian thought must be accompanied by a purgation of the language of its texts. For Fray Luis as well translation demands

total fidelity to the original, insofar as the characteristics of the secondary language will permit. The translation must conform to the original both in content and in form. The commentary becomes an integral part of that process since it fills the gaps where the lack of a complete equivalence between the sign systems of Hebrew and Spanish creates ambiguities in the text.

Such an attitude toward language and translation imposes strict

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY ZI responsibilities on the translator. Fray Luis does not hesitate to make these clear: El que traslada ha de ser fiel y cabal y, si fuere posible, contar las palabras para dar otras tantas, y no mas ni menos, de la misma cualidad y condici6n y variedad de significaciones que las originales tienen, sin limitarlas a su propio

sentido y parecer, para que los que leyeren la traducci6n puedan entender

toda la variedad de sentidos a que da ocasi6n el original . . . (p. 29) [He who translates must be faithful and accurate and, if possible, must count the words in order to give as many others, and not more nor less, of the same

quality and condition and variety of meanings as the original ones have, without limiting them to his own sense and opinion, so that those who may read the translation will be able to understand all the variety of meanings to

which the original gives rise. . .]

The strict fidelity of the philologic translator is underlined through

direct contrast with the methods of an allegorical or spiritual interpretation: El extenderse diciendo, y el declarar copiosamente la raz6n que se entiende, y

el guardar la sentencia que mas agrade, jugar con las palabras anadiendo y quitando a nuestra voluntad, eso quédese para el que declara, cuyo propio oficio es; y nosotros usamos de él después de puesto cada un capitulo en la

declaracion que sigue. (p. 30)

[To enlarge upon an interpretation, and copiously explain the meaning as one understands it, and to keep the idea that most pleases one, and to play with the words by adding or taking away from them at will, is better left to him who explains, whose proper occupation it is; and we, after having set down each chapter, make use of it in the explanation that follows. ]

This type of interpretation is nothing more than a copious elaboration of secondary meanings, implies Fray Luts, in contrast to the succinct

and precise nature of the philological method of exegesis, which uncovers the true significance of the original words. It is also selective in the meanings it presents, according to the personal preferences of the interpreter. Moreover, it is largely capricious since the interpreter

may play with the language and distort its original meaning by adding and subtracting words at will. Considering the fairly contemptuous tone of his description, it is

surprising to find that Fray Luis admits to including this type of spiritual interpretation in his translation. It is in fact an integral part of his commentary which is divided into three parts or “‘pasos,”’ the first of which is usually a philologic gloss of ambiguous or difficult passages. This is followed by a literal narration, or explanation, of the

92 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

action. Finally, the spiritual meaning is elaborated, but the allegorical interpretation is always subordinated to the philologic exegesis which precedes it. Fray Luis is extremely careful to render the interpretation homogenous with the meaning of the original text. Indeed, humanist

philological practice, from Valla to Fray Luis, did not intend to do away with the allegorical interpretation so favored by scholastic exegetes. It simply demanded that such practices be faithful to the original language of the text. Humanist philology maintained, as a basic premise, that a historically and linguistically accurate understanding of the original language must take precedence over other methods of interpretation. A closer look at the actual commentary on the Cantar will help elucidate the theoretical pronouncements set forth in the prologue. It becomes evident from Fray Luis’ repeated statements that the two most significant problems he encountered in his translation were 1) the polysemantic nature of the Hebrew lexicon and 2) the lack of Spanish equivalents for certain words and expressions. Thus, his commentary frequently consists of definitions, circumlocutions, and glosses which serve to elaborate the precise and complete meaning of the original: “Yo rosa del campo: la palabra hebrea es habatzeleth, que segun los mas doctos en aquella lengua, no es cualquiera rosa, sino una clerta especie de ellas en la color negra, pero muy hermosa y de gentil olor” (pp. 98-99) [I, rose of the field: the Hebrew word 1s habatzeleth, which, according to those most knowledgeable about that language, is not just any rose, but rather a certain species of them, black in color,

but very beautiful and with an exquisite scent]. The semantic accuracy demonstrated in establishing the precise meaning of habatzeleth,

for which there is no Spanish or, apparently, Latin equivalent, is essential to conveying the full significance of the biblical metaphor which represents the specifically dark-skinned beauty of the woman in the original Hebrew text. A rigorous philologic exegesis is also applied

to cases where the Hebrew word has a plurality of senses: Pero hay gran diferencia de pareceres en lo que dice, puesta en el cerro collado, porque la palabra hebrea talpioth se declara diversamente por diversos. Unos dicen que es collado o lugar alto; otros cosa que ensefia el camino a los que pasan; y otros dicen ser lo mismo que cerca 0 edificio fuerte y

alto, o barbacana, y todo aquello con que se fortalece alguna casa 0 edificio

fuerte...

Lo que a mi me parece mas acertado en este lugar, para abrazar todas esas diferencias ya dichas, es trasladar asi: Tu cuello es como la torre de David puesta en atalaya; que es decir casa puesta en lugar alto y fuerte, y que sirve de descubrir los enemigos, si vienen, y mostrar el camino a los que pasan; y

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 33

fuerte. (p. 132) por el oficio de que sirve y por el sitio que tiene, de necesidad ha de ser casa

[But there are great differences of opinion as to what “placed upon the ridge or hill’? means, because the Hebrew word talpzoth is explained differently by different people. Some say it is a ridge or high place; others, something that points out the way to those who pass by; still others say it is the same as a wall

or a strong and tall building, or a tower, and anything that fortifies some house or strong building. What seems most correct to me at this point, in order to embrace all the differences mentioned above, is to translate thus: ‘““Your neck 1s like the tower

of David placed like a watch-tower’’; which is to say like a house placed upon a strong and high place, and which serves to discover enemies if they come, and to show the way to those who pass by; and because of the purpose it

serves and the position it has, must of necessity be a strong house. |

Fray Luis’ meticulous philological analysis of the original text leads him to the full meaning of the Hebrew word, and to a reconciliation of its semantic diversity, thus allowing for a comprehensible and accurate rendering in Spanish. ‘The commentary becomes, in Fray Luis’ hands, a viable solution to one of the fundamental problems of translation, the lack of complete equivalency between linguistic systems. It

is an integral and indispensable subtext of the Cantar. Such rigorous philologic exegesis could not help but lead to the observation of mistakes and inaccuracies in previous translations. In

fact Fray Luis did challenge the clarity and precision of certain passages of the Vulgate and Septuagint translations. Just as each of his predecessors, Valla, Nebrija, and Erasmus, had proposed corrections to obscure or corrupt sections of the Vulgate text, Fray Luis suggested

that a better rendering of certain passages was possible, and that the errors resulting from the work of careless scribes should be corrected.

His corrections of the Vulgate and Septuagint and the method which he utilized further offended Catholic authorities when the translation began to be disseminated publicly. Although the Spanish version of the Song of Songs was intended for the private use of his

cousin, the nun Isabel Osorio, the text was apparently stolen from Fray Luis’ cell and copies circulated as far as Peru. This openly defied

a prohibition against biblical translations into the vulgar languages first issued by the Council of Tarragona and later reaffirmed in Pope Paul IV’s Index of 1559. A similar yet more severely worded ban was

decreed by the Council of Trent in 1564. The text of the Cantar contained several emendations to the Septuagint and the Vulgate; the latter had, after all, been declared free from error at ‘Trent and was now the official version of the Catholic Church.

84 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

The Inquisition’s case against Fray Luis de Leon was built essentially on these two offenses and was strengthened by the fact that the accused was a New Christian. Thus, Fray Luis’ questioning of the correctness of the Vulgate translation, particularly since he rested his argument on the authority of the original Hebrew for his claims, was immediately suspected as a source of heresy and hebraism. Indeed, the first five charges that were brought against him, as well as the eighth, presented Fray Luis as ‘‘descendiente de generaci6on de judios.’”’** In 1572 the Holy Office arrested Fray Luis de Leon and instituted formal

action against him. The collection of documents of the proceedings contains an elaborate genealogic study of Fray Luis’ family along with

a detailed account of the accusations and cases against some of his relatives who had been tried for practicing the Hebrew faith.?” Also implicated in the proceedings were two other eminent hebraists at the University of Salamanca — Martinez and Grajal — both of whom were also accused of preferring the original Hebrew text of the Bible over

that of the Latin Vulgate in their commentaries and exegesis. A careful reading of the documents, however, reveals that Fray Luis’ orthodoxy on questions of faith was only marginally challenged. The Inquisition’s overriding concern was with his philologic method of biblical exegesis and the conclusions to which that had led him with

regard to the Vulgate and Septuagint translations. This becomes clearly evident ifone compares the official list of accusations presented

against him by the tribunal of the Inquisition and the initial declarations and denunciations made by his personal enemies Bartolomé de Medina and Leon de Castro. Medina and Castro were obsessed with revealing Fray Luis’ Jewish ancestry, undoubtedly in the hope that

this would render the accused more vulnerable in the eyes of the authorities. But the evaluations of his writings on biblical interpretation presented as testimony by prominent theologians selected by the Inquisition points clearly to more serious concerns. Although the length and wordiness of these documents makes citation awkward the following passage from the evaluation of Fray Mancius Hernandez is clear and concise, as well as representative of other charges against him. Referring to Fray Luis’ statements that certain passages in the Vulgate could be “better and more clearly’ rendered, he writes: Y asi es una determinacion, a lo que parece, libre y atrevida demasiadamente, aunque no hay en ella proposici6n que notoriamente sea herética; pero tiene comunicacion en el lenguaje y en el intento que parece pretender quitar la autoridad a la Vulgata, que es lo que los herejes pretenden, y darla a

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 35 los libros griegos y hebreos, siendo cosa averigtiada estar en muchas partes corruptos, y que es peligroso querer por ellos emendar los latinos, por tantos centenarios de anos usados en la iglesia, y ultimamente tan autorizados por el

Sancto Concilio.”®

[And thus it is a determination, so it seems, which is too daring and free, although there is not in it any proposition that may be notoriously heretical;

but there is a communication in its language and intent which seems to endeavor to take authority away from the Vulgate, which is what the heretics endeavor, and to give it to the Greek and Hebrew texts, being as it is a proven thing that they are corrupt in many places, and that itis dangerous to want to emend the Latin texts because of them, which have been used for so many

years in the Church, and lately much authorized by the Holy Council. |

At issue here 1s the authority of the Vulgate, on which the traditional

language of the Church and dogma are based, in the face of a challenge presented by a method of exegesis which goes beyond the Vulgate by giving ultimate authority to the original language texts of the Scriptures. Fray Luis clearly understood this to be the case and he

devotes by far the greater part of his defense to addressing these charges. He insists repeatedly that he never challenged the infallibility of the Vulgate on questions of dogma and faith; on the contrary, he has always defended it in his writings. He affirms, however, that he has in

the past suggested the possibility of making the Latin translation clearer and more precise in certain places. In regard to the very sensitive issue of making a totally new translation, Fray Luis is very careful to assure his judges that not only had it never been his intention to undertake such an ambitious project, but that he is firmly opposed to any new translation that does not have the approval of the Pope and

the Church. It must be remembered that humanist philology had indeed produced corrective translations which were intended to replace the Vulgate. Erasmus translated the New Testament from the Greek and Luther followed suit with a translation of the Bible into the vernacular (1522-34) which outraged the Church. Fray Luis’ own translation directly from the Hebrew into Spanish, although it had been intended for private use only, had circulated throughout the Iberian peninsula and beyond, even so far as the American colonies. This transgression of three major edicts prohibiting the translation of the Scriptures, especially into the vernacular, was particularly offensive to the Church during this period of reaction to the damaging effects of humanist religious reform. In 1576, after almost five years of incarceration, Fray Luis de Leon

was finally acquitted of the charge of heresy. He was, however,

36 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

officially reprimanded for having questioned the authority of the Vulgate “in such dangerous times.” It had been sixty years since Erasmus had adopted Valla’s philological method with the intention of effecting a reform of the language and practices of the medieval

| Church. The strategy had been successful, but in the interim Christianity was splintered into numerous factions and sects. Sobered by his

experience in the cells of the Inquisition, Fray Luis would renounce the correction of the biblical text based on new translations from the original languages. In the closing lines of a letter which addressed the matter of a commission appointed by Pope Sixtus V to undertake the correction of the Vulgate (c.1588), his disillusionment with the task is evident: Pensar que con la Vulgata ni con otras cien traslaciones que se hiciesen, aunque mas sean al pie de letra, se pondra la fuerza que el hebreo tiene en muchos lugares, ni se sacara a luz la prenmez de sentidos que en ellos hay, es

grande engafio, como lo saben los que tienen alguna noticia, de aquella

lengua, y los que han leido en ella los Libros Sagrados. (p. 1395) [To think that with the Vulgate, or with another hundred translations that might be done, no matter how literal they may be, one will produce the force of expression that is in the Hebrew in many passages, nor bring to light the fullness of meaning that is in those passages, 1s a great delusion, as all those who have some knowledge of that language and have read the Sacred Books in it know. |

But what is most striking about this passage is the fact that Fray Luis’ disillusionment concerns only the efficacy of translation as a form of correction. His more important belief in the primacy of the original language as the only adequate vehicle for understanding the full significance of the Sacred Texts remains defiantly intact.?® At the end of the sixteenth century the authority of the original language text

was still respected and philology continued to be the privileged method of textual interpretation among humanists. In 1560, as Fray Luis de Leén was putting the finishing touches to his translation and philologic commentary of the Song of Songs, Garcilaso Inca de la Vega was embarking on an arduous trip down the Andean sierra from Cuzco to Lima where he would await a galleon to

make the ocean passage to Spain. The conquistador Sebastian Garcilaso de la Vega had left his illegitimate mestzzo son a modest inheritance to enable him to travel to Europe in order to complete his education. Perhaps the ship which brought Fray Luis’ illicit translation to Peru was the same one which took the young Garcilaso to the Iberian peninsula. Although we can only speculate about how close

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY 37 he might have come to such a masterpiece of the humanist philologic

tradition during his voyage, there is no doubt that when Garcilaso arrived in Europe a few months later he entered a culture permeated with humanist linguistic activity. Within ten years of his arrival, Fray Luis would be persecuted by the Inquisition for his translations and for his use of the philological method to question the accuracy of the Vulgate. Shortly thereafter Martinez and Grajal, both Hebrew schol-

ars and philologists at Salamanca, would die in the cells of the Inquisition for similar crimes. This was the background against which Garcilaso was to develop the ideas on language that would lead him to the translation of Le6n Hebreo’s Dialoght d@amore and later to his revolutionary commentaries on the history and culture of the Incas. In the remaining chapters of this study I will attempt to elucidate

Garcilaso’s discursive strategies and narrative techniques and ultimately his objectives and intentions in the reinterpretation of Inca history and culture by situating his text in the practical traditions of the humanist linguistic and textual arts. In emphasizing discursive performance in the Comentarios reales in relation to the methods and

activities of the group of scholars and intellectuals with whom Garcilaso chose to identify his work, I hope that the role of the humanist language arts in the text will be seen as a central, indeed

essential creative component in the representation of Inca civilization. Itis evident even from a cursory reading of the Comentarios reales that

language plays a central part in the text. The introductory chapter devoted to the explanation of grammatical and semantic peculiarities of the language of the Incas, the extensive use of Quechua terminology, the philologic exegesis and translation of Quechua terms in order to achieve an accurate interpretation, the affirmation of the indispensability of a command of the original language in order to represent

Inca history truthfully, all point to the essential role that humanist linguistic notions play in the work. Clearly, the concern with language dominates the narration of the historical material. It 1s first of all simply a means of communicating information, but language 1s also the object of a discourse which is self-

conscious and critical. Garcilaso is the first narrator of Amerindian

history and culture to be fully aware of the problematic relation between European discourse and the representation of indigenous realities. Friar Ramon Pané, the author of the first account of the native Caribbean cultures, bemoaned in the most naive terms his

38 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

inability to capture in Spanish the internal logic of Arawak mythological narratives, apologizing to his readers for the often chaotic results.2° Blas Valera, the mestizo priest whose unpublished work Garcilaso frequently cites, included translations of Quechua terminology in his Latin narrative.*! But no work before the Comentarios reales

addressed the problem of representing the Amerindian past in a European tongue so systematically and so profoundly. Garcilaso’s narration of history is mediated by philological exegesis, translation, and hermeneutics. His role as narrator of the indigenous past is that of a practitioner of language who explicitly manipulates the linguistic arts of his times in order to optimize the communicative efficacy of his discourse.

3

Language and history in the Comentarios reales

Viktor Frankl has shown that historiography is characterized by changes in the concept of historical truth and its representation.! — Thus, during the chivalrous Middle Ages historical discourse was shaped by the desire to record and preserve the fame of great men and

heroic deeds. Historical truth consisted in the representation of the exemplary. Renaissance historiography, inspired by the master histo-

rians of the classical age Herodotus and Pliny, Thucydides and Polybius, incorporated the testimony of the eyewitness into its representation of historical reality. ‘This concept of historical truth acquired particular poignancy with the discovery of the New World and the subsequent encounter of European historical consciousness with a

referent never before recorded. The ensuing conflict between the accounts of those who traveled to America and the speculations of the revered authors of antiquity brought the authority of the eyewitness into a particularly privileged historiographic position. Father José de Acosta’s refutation of Lactantius’ theory on the existence of antipodes is representative of the decline in the authority of the ancients in favor

of a historiography based on actual experience.’ In short, the very novelty of each encounter with American realities rendered other types of historiographic accreditation increasingly irrelevant. It should not be surprising, therefore, to find that New World historiography relied increasingly on the authority of the eyewitness

during the decades that followed the discovery and conquest. In contrast to Herodotus, for example, who made particularly vivid use of the eyewitness in his history of the ancient world, as happy to draw on his own experiences, as on hearsay, common opinion and personal inquiry,?> many narrators of early American history scrupulously distinguished personal testimony from other sources. Moreover, they dressed their reports in elaborate rhetorical language which attested to their personal dignity, integrity, acumen, and thorough familiarity 39

40 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

with the events in question. One can, in fact, divide colonial Latin American historical narrative into two general types: the bookish histories written from a distance and lacking direct contact with the material, and those which challenged them based on the authority of eyewitness testimony, either as an attribute of the actual narrator of the account or of the privileged source on whose prerogative the validity of the history rests. ‘Thus Fernandez de Oviedo, in his Historia natural y general de las Indias, islas, y tierra firme del Mar Océano (1535-7), accuses Pedro Martir de Angleria (Decades de orbe novo, 1530) of falsely

representing events by relying on vicarious bookish knowledge and a highly artificial rhetorical style. In clarification of his own methods, he affirms the absolute authority of the eyewitness: pues no escribo de autoridad de algun historiador 0 poeta, sino como testigo de vista en la mayor parte de cuanto aqui tratare. Y lo que no hobiere visto direlo por relacion de personas fidedignas no dando en cosa alguna crédito a un solo testigo, sino a muchos en aquellas cosas que mi persona no hobiere experimentado. [For I do not depend on the authority of some poet or historian when I write, but upon myself as an eyewitness of most of the things I shall speak of here; and what I have not seen myself I shall relate from the accounts of trustworthy persons, never depending upon the evidence ofa single witness, but upon that of many, in those things I have not experienced in my own person. }*

But certainly the most effective challenge was voiced by those who

participated in the voyages of discovery and the wars of conquest. Their testimony constitutes a corrective historiography, a veritable rewriting of the history of Europe’s first encounters with the New World. The accounts of Las Casas, Cieza de Leon, Blas Valera, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Cabeza de Vaca, et al., rely on their own authority as participants in the events to question the accuracy of versions based

on information obtained from books or hearsay, on knowledge divorced from practical experience. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria has noted that the structure of the first person narrative of the period closely resembles that of the relacién, a legal document whose primary

purpose was to give testimony to the Crown regarding one’s experiences in military or exploratory expeditions.° The famous “‘cartas de relacion”’ in which Hernan Cortés testified to Charles V regarding the conquest of Mexico were precisely this type of document. The assimi-

lation of a judicial discursive format by colonial historiography, suggests Gonzalez Echevarria, reveals the need to guarantee further its own veracity. As a discourse without antecedents, often written by commoners who held no titles or credentials, the credibility of early

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 41

American historiography was extremely vulnerable and the authority of its narrator constantly in question.® This subtle shift from the predominance of the eyewitness to the “‘Iwitness” narrative voice 1s perhaps nowhere more evident than in Bernal Diaz’s Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espaita (1568).

The Historia verdadera is in form as well as intent the testimony of a retired soldier who comes out of anonymity in his old age to testify against the rhetorical virtuosity of erudite historians like Lopez de Gomara in an attempt to vindicate the contributions of the common soldier in Cortés’ expedition. In Bernal’s narrative the proliferation of the first person pronoun — “‘y digo otra vez que yo y yo y yo, digolo tantas veces, que soy el mas antiguo.. .”’ — dramatizes the challenge which the title itself implies.’ Bernal places his narrative authority in direct opposition to Lopez de Gomara’s, in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the latter’s account.

Garcilaso Inca de la Vega’s attempts at corrective history are among the most radical examples of the revisionist historiography that was characteristic of this period. For if Garcilaso did not write with Las Casas’ hyperbolic vehemence or with Bernal’s indignant directness, his goals were ultimately more subversive. In La Florida del

Inca, a history of the de Soto expedition, the figure of the Indian 1s drawn in epic proportions, while Garcilaso’s potentially controversial representation is buttressed by an intricate system of accreditation allegedly based on three eyewitness accounts. La Florida derives its historiographic authority first of all from the oral testimony on which

it claims to be based — an account dictated to the narrator by an anonymous friend who participated in de Soto’s incursions into southeastern North America. Garcilaso repeatedly protests complete fidelity to his source, to whom he refers simply as “‘mi autor.”’ He describes his own role in the writing of the history as that of “scribe.” Into this

account Garcilaso also weaves an intricate system of verification which is intended to corroborate and reinforce the testimony of the primary witness. The probatory references consist primarily of eyewitness accounts which substantiate the claims of his informant, particularly with regard to the representation of the Indians. These include two unpublished accounts by veterans of the expedition, Juan

Coles and Alonso de Carmona, as well as references to established sources like Father José de Acosta’s Historta and Cabeza de Vaca’s account of the ordeals of the first Floridean expedition? That Garcilaso should go to such pains to render his narrative

42 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

credible is not surprising, given the fact that La Florida represents a bold attempt to integrate the figure of the Indian and the Hispanic concept of the caballero, the paradigm of masculine excellence in the

sixteenth century. Garcilaso had attempted to model his own life according to this ideal which combined nobility of spirit and military prowess with the cultivation of letters and the art of verbal eloquence. {In his youth he had served as a captain in the Alpujarras wars (1567-8)

and in his later years dedicated his life to literary activities. The prototype of the Renaissance caballero is perhaps best represented by the Marqués de Santillana. Member of the military aristocracy and avid reader, collector, and imitator of the classics, Santillana was a poet in his own right, composing excellent imitations of the odes of Horace in the vernacular.’ The Indian warrior heroes of Garcilaso’s

narrative, although they are deprived of letters, are nonetheless eloquent masters of verbal expression in the classical tradition. Garcilaso’s historiographical intentions are made clear in the opening lines of the prologue: Conversando mucho tiempo y en diversos lugares, con un caballero, grande amigo mio, que se hallo en esta jornada, y oyéndole muchas y muy grandes hazahas que en ella hicieron asi espanoles como indios, me pareciO cosa

indigna y de mucha lastima que obras tan herdicas que en el mundo han pasado quedasen en perpetuo olvido. Por lo cual, viéndome obligado de ambas naciones, porque soy hijo de un espajiol y de una india, importuné muchas veces a aquel caballero escribiésemos esta historia, sirviendole yo de escribiente.

[Conversing over a long period of time and in different places with a great and noble friend of mine who accompanied this expedition of Florida, and hearing him recount the numerous very illustrious deeds that both Spaniards and Indians performed in the process of conquest, I became convinced that when such heroic actions as these had been performed in this world, it was unworthy and regrettable that they should remain in perpetual oblivion. Feeling myself therefore under the obligation to two races, since I am the son of a Spanish father and an Indian mother, I many times urged the cavalier to record the details of the expedition, using me as his amanuensis. ]!°

The equal status given to both Spaniards and Indians in the very opening lines is developed throughout La Florida in the representation

of the characters, their actions, and their words. What results is the transformation of the figure of the native as ignorant savage, common

in earlier accounts, into that of wise leader, eloquent orator, and gallant warrior, an equal to the best Europe had to offer.'! This vision of the Indian as caballero will carry over into his representation of the Inca leaders in the Comentarios reales, as will be seen later.

It should be noted that this passage is, in the final analysis, an

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 4%

expression of loyalty on the part of the narrator which, he makes clear, is evenly divided between his father’s people, the Spaniards, and his mother’s race, the natives of the New World, represented here by the

Indians of Florida. This loyalty 1s expressed as a historiographical commitment to give equal status to Spaniard and Indian protagonists. Yet this expressed equality in effect serves to highlight Indian achievements since the historical norm being violated pertains to the representation of Indian, not Spanish, behavior. The figure of the mestizo narrator 1s essential to the justification of the egalitarian treatment given to the deeds of both conquistadores and Indians, but the effect is likewise an underscoring of his indigenous loyalties. One can only be skeptical about Garcilaso’s insistence on affirming that his role in the writing process was limited to that ofscribe. Even a cursory reading of La Florida betrays Garcilaso’s authorial interven-

tions throughout the narrative. And when one takes into consideration that his anonymous source, identified by modern scholars as the conquistador Gonzalo Silvestre, had died some fifteen years before La Florida was published in 1605, it is doubly difficult to believe his claim of having played such a neutral role in its composition.'? Garcilaso’s

afhrmation can perhaps best be explained in terms of its rhetorical function, as a response to his perception of the fragility of his own narrative authority. Garcilaso’s acute awareness of the vulnerability of his position is evidenced in the connection he makes between the

fastidiousness of his eyewitness source and the truth of his own representation: y en lo que toca al particular a nuestros indios y a la verdad de nuestra | historia, como die al principio, yo escribo de relacion ajena, de quien lo vi6 y manej¢ personalmente. El cual quiso ser tan fiel en su relaciOn que, capitulo

por capitulo, como se iba escribiendo, los iba corrigiendo, quitando o anadiendo lo que faltaba o sobraba de lo que él habia dicho, que m una palabra ajena por otra de las suyas nunca las consintid, de manera que yo no

puse mas de la pluma, como escribiente. (p. 314) [But in regard to what concerns our particular Indians and the truth of my

history, as I said in the beginning, I have simply recorded the words of another who witnessed and supervised the writing personally. This man was so anxious to be accurate that he corrected each chapter as it was written, adding what was lacking and deleting what he himself had not said, for he would not consent to any word other than his own. I, therefore, as the author

contributed no more than the pen. | (Varner, p. 158) Garcilaso’s challenge to traditional historiography culminates in Comentarios reales de los incas (1609). For it is precisely in the history of

his mother’s people that he openly confronts the Spanish

44 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

historiographic establishment, offering his own work as a corrective reinterpretation. Historical truth in the Comentarios reales, however, 1s not defined in terms of the testimonial authority of the eyewitness, as it is in La Florida. It is instead conceived within a linguistic framework, and executed throughout the text as a vast enterprise of exegesis and interpretation. The object of Garcilaso’s exposition in the Comentarios reales is Inca

history and culture, not as an unprocessed historical record but as discursive structure, for he realizes that Inca history was already in textual form, as an oral narrative stored in the collective memories of his Inca elders. Therefore, he is careful to present his own knowledge of the Inca past as one which was acquired in the form ofa story told to him by his great-uncle at one of the frequent family gatherings: ...slendo ya yo de diez y seis o diez y siete anos, acaescio que, estando mis parientes un dia en esta su conversacion hablando de sus Reyes y antiguallas,

al mas anciano dellos, que era el que dava cuenta dellas, le dixe: — Inca, tio, pues no hay escritura entre vosotros, que es la que guarda la memoria de las cosas pasadas jqué noticias teneis del origen y principio de

nuestros Reyes? Porque alla los espanoles y las otras naciones, sus comarcanas, como tienen historias divinas y humanas, saben por ellas cuando empegaron a reinar sus Reyes y los ajenos y el trocarse unos imperios en otros, hasta saber cuantos mil anos ha que Dios cri¢ el cielo y la tierra, que todo esto y mucho mas saben por sus libros. Empero vosotros, que careceis dellos iqué memoria teneis de vuestras antiguallas, ;quién fue el primero de nuestros Incas?, ¢como se llam6?, qué origen tuvo su linaje?, ide qué manera empezo a reinar?, icon qué gentes y armas conquisto este grande Imperio?,

dque origen tuvieron nuestras hazafnas? (Bk 1, ch. 15) | During these talks, I, asa boy, often came in and went out of the place where they were, and I loved to hear them, as boys always like to hear stories. Days,

months, and years went by, until I was sixteen or seventeen. Then it happened that one day when my family was talking in this fashion about their

kings and the olden times, I remarked to the senior of them, who usually

related these things: “Inca, my uncle, though you have no writings to preserve the memory of past events, what information have you of the origin and beginnings of our kings? For the Spaniards and the other peoples who live on their borders have divine and human histories from which they know when their own kings and their neighbors’ kings began to reign and when one empire gave way to another. They even know how many thousand years it is

since God created heaven and earth. All this and much more they know through their books. But you, who have no books, what memory have you preserved of your antiquity? Who was the first of our Incas? What was he called? What was the origin of his line? How did he begin to reign? With what

men and what arms did he conquer this great empire? How did our heroic deeds begin?’’ |"

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 45

The old Inca’s oral narrative follows reproduced by Garcilaso in written form and interpolated in the text of the Comentarios reales. Significantly, he presents his great-uncle’s account as a historical text, differing from European ones only to the extent that it is in oral rather

than written form and, therefore, more vulnerable to the ravages of time. In every other respect Garcilaso treats it like a historical narrative in its own right and 1s careful to set it off from the main text by

presenting it as a citation, thus firmly establishing its textual autonomy.’ That Garcilaso considers the old Inca’s account as independent from his own is made explicit in his closing remarks: “‘Esta larga relacion del origen de sus Reyes me did aquel Inca, tio de mi madre, a quien yo se la pedi, la cual yo he procurado traduzir fielmente de mi lengua materna, que es la del Inca, en la ajena, queeslacastellana...”’ (Bk 1, Ch. 17) [This long account of the origin of our kings was given me by the Inca, my mother’s uncle, of whom I asked it. I have tried to translate it faithfully from my mother tongue, that of the Inca, into a

foreign speech, Castilian] (Livermore, 1, p. 46). Once again, Garcilaso’s narrator assumes a subservient and humble posture with respect to an eyewitness oral source, as he had in La Florida with respect to the “caballero”’ for whom he had supposedly served as a simple scribe. In this case, however, his source’s authority 1s based not

only on his potentially having witnessed the events in question, but especially on the fact that he was a Quechua speaker. The dutiful role of amanuensis in the transcription of the authoritative testimonial account 1s mirrored in the Comentarios reales in the figure of the faithful translator. In neither case were these assertions of fidelity confirmable since both Silvestre and the old Inca had long been dead at the time of

publication. The verifiability of such affirmations was, in any case,

beside the point since their significance in Renaissance historiography, as in Garcilaso’s text, was essentially rhetorical. For, in assuming a subservient narrative posture with respect to his sources, Garcilaso enhances their prestige and consequently bolsters his own credibility and authority. The reference to the old Inca’s narrative as a “relaci6n”’ 1s also revealing. Gonzalez Echevarria has pointed out that the relacién is not only a form of legal testimony but, as its Latin root (res-latio) implies, it is a verbal representation of reality organized into a coherent form; in short, a text.!° The recognition of this fact is precisely what moves

Garcilaso to protest a faithful translation that respects its textual

46 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

autonomy. Indeed, the affirmation of the textuality of Inca history, as we will see shortly, is essential to the conceptual framework of his own text. Historiographic authority in the Comentarios reales is founded on a concept of language that is clearly of humanist origin. As we have

seen, text restoration and interpretation based on the philologic method of exegesis was at the heart of the humanist culture which reshaped Europe’s intellectual landscape during the years of colonial expansion into the New World. As a tool for the recovery of the original language texts of both pagan and Christian antiquity, philology successfully challenged the authority of traditional Catholic exegesis. As a strategy for reform it espoused emendatory translation as a way Of restoring to the text its pristine, unadulterated meaning. The motto, “‘Ad Fontes!,” signified an entire philosophy of language for the humanists, in which the authority of the original language was

essential to the communication of truth. Garcilaso’s challenge to the authority of traditional historiography in the Comentarios reales is motivated by the belief that all European representations of Inca history are essentially faulty. In the ““Proem to the Reader”’ he reproaches the Spanish historians precisely for their

inability to create an accurate verbal depiction of the material: Verdad es que tocan muchas cosas de las muy grandes que aquella republica tuvo, pero escrivenlas tan cortamente que aun las muy notorias para mi (dela manera que las dizen) las entiendo mal. Por lo cual, forg¢ado del amor natural de la patria, me ofresci al trabajo de escrevir estos Comentarios, donde clara y distintamente se veran las cosas que en aquella republica havia antes de los

espanioles. (Proem)

[It is true that these have dealt with many of the very remarkable achievements of that empire, but they have set them down so briefly that, owing to the manner in which they are told, I am scarcely able to understand even such matters as are well known to me. For this reason, impelled by the natural

love for my native country, I have undertaken the task of writing these Commentaries, in which everything in the Peruvian empire before the arrival of

the Spaniards is clearly and distinctly set down. | (Livermore, I, p. 4) However, his opening objection is based, not on the fact that these

other histories have omitted certain information or included false information, but on the manner in which the facts are presented. His

specific complaint is that they are written with such paucity (“‘escrivenlas tan cortamente’’) that it is difficult for him to understand even those aspects with which he is most familiar. While his complaint about the sparseness of the Spanish accounts is somewhat ambiguous, it is safe to assume that he is not referring to any lack of

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 47

length — as any reader who is familiar with the voluminous nature of most New World histories knows — but to limitations of depth and breadth in the presentation of the material. Clearly his concern lies with the manner of representation (“‘de la manera que las dizen’’). Thus, when Garcilaso offers his own version of Inca history he presents

it to the reader as a reinterpretation of the same material already treated by the Spaniards. The Comentarios reales, he states, 1s an intelligible reinterpretation of the history and culture of the Incas. The boldness of Garcilaso’s challenge to the Imperial historiographic establishment becomes more evident if we consider the follow-

ing facts. First, Spanish historiography concerning the New World was rigorously controlled by the Crown. In 1571 a special office was created, with the title of ““Cronista Mayor de Indias,”’ to oversee the compilation of historical materials and the production of the official version. All extra-official accounts were subject to the approval of the

Cronista Mayor before being released for publication. Hence, the function of the office, which initially had been that of providing information to the Council of the Indies, became increasingly censorial, in effect creating a historiographical monopoly.'® The entire weight of the Crown’s authority ultimately shielded the official and approved histories from outside challenges by unsanctioned versions. Garcilaso was precisely one of those illegitimate historians whom the authorized historiography was designed to exclude. A number of

circumstances contributed to making him an immediately suspect historical source. The fact that he was born in the New World alone would arouse suspicions about his intentions.’’ It is a well-known fact that differences in interests between those to whom America was home and the Crown began to surface soon after the process of settlement

began. These disagreements reached a critical point when the king moved to institute reforms in the treatment of the Indians which threatened the economic privileges of the colonizers. Given these constraints it is not surprising that when Garcilaso published La Florida del Inca in 1605 he became the first historian born in the New

World to publish a work on American history.

But Garcilaso Inca was also a mestizo, as his chosen name so graphically illustrates. In his very person he represented the union between Spain and indigenous Peru as well as their considerable differences. The blood of both conqueror and conquered flowed through his veins, which made him subject to the additional suspicion

which that dichotomy aroused. His loyalty was not all that was in

question, however. His Indian heritage further undermined

48 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

Garcilaso’s historiographic legitimacy, since the natives of the New World were generally considered to be ignorant savages, or at best, intellectually and morally inferior to the Europeans.!?

Yet, despite all of the apparent shortcomings of its author, the Comentarios reales was approved for publication in 1604 and when it finally appeared in print five years later it was virtually uncensored.'®

Its challenge to the European representation of the culture and history of the Inca Empire remained intact, but the success of Garcilaso’s history ultimately rested on his ability to make his racial

identity a legitimizing factor rather than a stigma. A reading of the prefatory letters to his first work, the translation of Leon Hebreo’s Dialoght d amore, which appeared in 1590, reveals that

Garcilaso had already conceived and perhaps even begun work on both La Florida and the Comentarios reales while he was putting the

finishing touches on the translation. It should not be surprising, therefore, to find that much of what constitutes his zdeartum on language and history is contained in seminal form in the Didlogos de amor and La Florida. The prologue, which by the sixteenth century had become a pompous and highly rhetorical literary convention, assumes with Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, as with Cervantes, a singular strategic importance.”° Perhaps because both writers were acutely aware of violating established norms, their prologues present a unique metalinguistic dimension. In Garcilaso’s case, the prefaces are dominated by the desire to justify himself and his undertaking. With historiographic legitimacy seemingly beyond his reach, he was forced from the very beginning to establish himself as a credible narrator. Garcilaso’s accreditation 1s founded, ironically enough, on the very

factor that initially rendered him a suspicious and illegitimate narrator — his Inca heritage. ‘The claim to both a cultural and racial identification with the indigenous rulers of Peru becomes a central motif throughout his literary career. His change of name after arriving

in Spain, from Gomez Suarez de Figueroa to Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, is certainly the most symbolic manifestation of the desire to establish his mestzzo identity. As ‘““Garcilaso Inca” he signs La traduccién del indio de los tres didlogos de amor de Leon Hebreo, as the translation’s full

title reads. His racial identity with the native rulers of Tahuantinsuyu

also plays a prominent role in the history of Hernando de Soto’s expedition, La Florida del Inca, where it appears prominently, even ostentatiously, in the title. Garcilaso’s self-identification as a mestizo allows him to proclaim his

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 49

indigenous heritage as a differentiating and privileging factor simultaneously with his ties to Spain. His own definition of the term underscores the fact that assuming the narrative persona of the half-caste

implies both a process of self-definition which involves the public proclamation of his Amerindian roots and a destigmatization of that condition: “‘A los hijos de espanol y de india o de indio y espaniola, nos llaman mestizos, por dezir que somos mezclados de ambas nasciones; fue impuesto por los primeros espanoles que tuvieron hijos en indias, y

por ser nombre impuesto por nuestros padres y por su significacion, me lo llamo yo a boca lena, y me honro con él. Aunque en Indias, sia uno dellos le dizen ‘soils un mestizo’ o ‘es un mestizo’, lo toman por menosprecio.”’ (Bk 1x, ch. 31) [““The children of Spaniards by Indians are called mestizos, meaning that we are a mixture of two races. The

word was applied by the first Spaniards who had children by Indian women, and because it was used by our fathers, as well as on account of its meaning, I call myself by it in public and am proud of it, though in the Indies, if'a person is told: “You’re a mestizo,’ or ‘He’s a mestizo,’ it

is taken as an insult.’’] In a process akin to the usage of “‘nigger”’ among blacks in the United States to refer to or address one another other, Garcilaso transforms mestizo into an epithet of racial pride. The affirmation of his indigenous heritage is already incorporated and developed in the prefatory letters to the Didlogos de amor. In his dedication to the king, Garcilaso presents the fact that he is a native of

Peru as one of the justifications for undertaking the translation: La segunda causa es entender yo, si no me engafio, que son éstas las primicias que primero se ofrecen a VRM de lo que en este género de tributo se os debe por vuestros vasallos los naturales del Nuevo Mundo, en especial por los del

Piru y mas en particular por los de la gran ciudad del Cuzco, cabeza de aquellos reinos y provincias, donde yo naci. (Prologue, Didlogos de amor) [The second reason is my understanding, if 1 am not mistaken, that these are the first fruits to be first offered to Your Royal Highness of this kind of tribute, which is owed to you by your subjects native to the New World, especially by those from Peru and more particularly by those from the great city of Cuzco,

head of those realms and provinces, where I was born. |

The customary offer of tribute to Felipe IIT does not obscure what Garcilaso seeks to highlight; the fact that he is a native of the New World, and as such he offers its first literary fruit. The fourth justification for the undertaking is even more explicit in its elaboration of the author’s indigenous heritage: La cuarta y Ultima causa sea el haberme cabido en suerte ser de la familia y

sangre de los Incas, que reinaron en aquellos reinos antes del felicisimo

50 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY imperio de VRM. Que mi madre, la palla dona Isabel, fue hiya del Inca Gualpa Topac, uno de los hijos de Topac Inca Yupanqui y de la Palla Mama Ocllo, su legitima mujer, padre de Guayna Capac Inca, ultimo rey que fue

del Pirt (Prologue).

[ May the fourth and final reason be that it was my fortune to be born of the family and blood of the Incas, who reigned in those realms before the most felicitous empire of Your Royal Highness; for my mother, the princess lady Isabel, was the daughter of the Inca Huallpa Tupac, one of the sons of Tupac Inca Yupanqui and the princess Mama Ocllo, his legitimate wife: he was also

the father of Guayna Capac Inca, the last king of Peru.] This brief genealogy of his Inca ancestry establishes his identity as a

member of the royal family of the pre-Hispanic rulers — a fact the importance of which he underlines by placing his indigenous heritage on an equal footing with his illustrious Hispanic blood, the dela Vega line.?!

Garcilaso’s insistence on the nobility of his American origins cannot

be attributed to a simple case of compensatory boasting, since his racial identity 1s inextricably tied to a linguistic one. Garcilaso repeat-

edly presents himself throughout his works as a native speaker of Quechua. In the prologue to the Dzdlogos de amor he affirms: porque ni la lengua italiana, en que estaba, ni la espanola, en que la he puesto, es la mia natural, ni de escuelas pude en la puericia adquirir mas que un indio nacido en medio del fuego y furor de las cruelisimas guerras civiles de su patria, entre armas y caballos y criadoen el ejerciciodellos... (Prologue)

{because neither Italian, the language in which it was written, nor Spanish, into which I have put it, is my native tongue, nor could I in my childhood acquire more schooling than an Indian born amidst the fire and furor of the cruelest civil wars in his native country, amidst arms and horses brought up in

the exercise of both. } ,

This statement can only be understood as an example of the rhetorical formula of false modesty — the excusatio propter infirmitatem. But in

Garcilaso’s case it serves both the coquettish purpose of drawing attention to the fact that his command of Spanish is indeed superior (he is generally recognized as one of the classics of the language), and to his chosen linguistic identity as a native speaker of Quechua. In La Florida the point is once again made:

por no haber tenido en Espana con quien hablar mi lengua natural y materna, que es la general que se habla en todo el Pert, aunque los Incas tenian otra particular que hablaban entre si unos con otros, se me ha olvidado de tal manera que... con saberla hablar tan bien y mejor y con mas elegancia que los mismos indios que no son incas, porque soy hyo de palla y sobrino de

Incas... (pp. 281-282)

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 51

[for having found no person in Spain with whom I may speak my mother tongue, which is the one generally used in Peru (although the Incas have a special language that they employ in speaking among themselves), I have so forgotten it (...) and I, as the son of an Inca princess and the nephew of Inca princes, know how to speak it as well if not better and more eloquently than

those Indians who are not Incas. (Varner, pp. 79-80)

There can be no doubt, then, that Garcilaso considers Quechua to be his native tongue, although he admits that lack of exposure to the language since living in Spain has adversely affected his fluency. His

identity as an Inca, son of an Indian princess and nephew of the indigenous ruler of Tahuantinsuyu, is a linguistic as well as a racial fact. In La Florida language is again presented as a corroboration of his

indigenous heritage. Moreover, the frequent inclusions of Quechua terminology into a predominantly Spanish discourse are not considered a linguistic violation by Garcilaso. Quite the contrary, they serve to complement and enrich a narrative which he insists on presenting

as the literary achievement of an Indian of the New World: Este nombre curaca, en lengua general de los indios del Peru, significa lo mismo que cacique en lenguaje de la isla Espanola y sus circunvecinas, que es

de otra. (288) senor de vasallos. Y pues soy indio del Pert y no de Santo Domingo ni sus

comarcanas se me permita que yo introduzca algunos vocablos de mi lenguaje en esta mi obra, porque se vea que soy natural de aquella tierra y no

[The title ““curaca” in the common tongue of the Indians of Peru signifies the same as “‘cacique”’ or lord of vassals in the language of Hispaniola and its

neighboring islands. Since I am a Peruvian Indian and not from Santo Domingo or its vicinity, I felt it my privilege to introduce into this work certain words of my own language so as to make it clear that I am a native of

Peru and not of some other land. | (Varner, p. 95) Garcilaso’s indigenous linguistic identity 1s most forcefully pro-

claimed and most thoroughly elaborated in the Proem to the Comentarios reales. For it 1s precisely in this work about the history and

customs of pre-Hispanic Peru that it achieves its full textual significance. In the Comentarios reales Garcilaso’s command of Quechua becomes the central justification for undertaking a revisional history of the Incas and forms the foundation of his claims to a privileged historiographic authority. It allows Garcilaso to present his narrative as the only possible true and correct interpretation of Tahuantinsuyu; En el discurso de la historia protestamos la verdad della, y que no diremos cosa grande que nosea autorizandola con los mismos historiadores espafioles que la

tocaron en parte o en todo; que mi intencion no es contradezirles, sino de

52 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY servirles de comento y glosa y de intérprete en muchos vocablos indios, que,

como extranjeros en aquella lengua, interpretaron fuera de la propriedad della, segun que largamentese veraenel discursode la historia... (Proem) [In the course of my history I shall affirm its truthfulness and shall set down no important circumstances without quoting the authority of Spanish historians who may have touched upon it in part or as a whole. For my purpose is not to gainsay them, but to furnish a commentary and gloss, and to interpret

many Indian expressions which they, as strangers to that tongue, have rendered inappropriately. This will be fully seen in the course of my

history. | (Livermore, I, p. 51)

This passage deserves careful consideration since it presents Garcilaso’s claim to narrative authority clearly in linguistic terms. Unlike the accounts which rest on the authority of the “I-witness”’ and claim to rectify the historical record itself (e.g., Bernal Diaz’s Historia

verdadera) Garcilaso offers his history as a reinterpretation. His authority as narrator in the Comentarios reales is derived exclusively from the interpretative prerogative that a command of the original language of the Inca texts grants him. The fact that the source text is in oral form and thus subject to a certain degree of instability does not seem to concern him, since historical truth in the Comentarios reales is defined as the correct exegesis of certain key Quechua terms. It cannot

be emphasized too much that for Garcilaso, as for the humanist philologists, historical truth lies in the accurate interpretation of the original word as the privileged vehicle of the totality of meaning. It is surprising that the title, Comentarios reales de los incas, has usually

been explained as an allusion to Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de bello

gallico and yet no one has taken into account the philologic and literary significance of the word “‘commentary”’ in a Renaissance context. The suggestion that Garcilaso modeled his text on the histor1cal commentary genre becomes even less acceptable if one considers the typological characteristics of that genre. The historical commentary typically dealt with events contemporary with its author. In fact,

it was a sort of catalogue of events intended for the use of future historians, but which soon became an autonomous genre in its own right. If differed from history in that it had the chronological limits of the author’s lifetime, 1t was not bound by a theme or thesis, it could therefore include a variety of events and historical actions. Its primary purpose was to inform, to transmit information to future historians,

not to explain or persuade. The prototype of humanist historical commentary was Bruni’s Rerum suo tempore gestarum commentarius, much

of whose information was lifted verbatim from his personal and official epistolary.?? Clearly, the Comentarios reales does not fit this modelin any

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 53

of its principal characteristics; not its chronological limitations (the CR spans several centuries of pre-Incaic and Incaic history), nor its eclectic, non-thematic nature (Garcilaso states that his account has as its single unifying theme Inca civilization), and especially not in its primary purpose of transmitting information as opposed to explaining the past or persuading the reader (which are precisely the goals of Garcilaso’s interpretation of Inca history and culture). The model for Garcilaso’s commentaries must be sought elsewhere. Michel Foucault, in 7he Order of Things, devotes several pages to a discussion of the central role of the discourse of commentary in the sixteenth century.*? Foucault argues that the acquisition of knowledge during the Renaissance was conceived as interpretation, since the world was looked upon as a vast system of signs related to one another through a hierarchy of similitudes and affinities. Knowledge consisted of the deciphering of that resemblance and the interpretation ofits broader significance: “‘. .. knowledge therefore consisted in relating one form of language to another form of language; in restoring

the great, unbroken plain of words and things; in making everything speak. That is, in bringing into being at a level above that of all marks,

the secondary discourse of commentary. The function proper to knowledge is not seeing or demonstrating; it is interpreting.’’** In fact,

the revival of antiquity during the Renaissance implied a vast enterprise of reinterpretation and, in practice as well as theory, commen- ~ tary emerged as a predominant discursive mode. Both Christian and pagan sources were treated in the same manner — that is, they were restored through a textual exegesis which manifested itself'as a secondary discourse or metatext. A brief glance at the litany of commentaries on the works of Aristotle, for instance, or at the philologic commen-

taries of Valla, Erasmus, Reuchlin, or Fray Luis de Leon on the biblical text, should suffice to demonstrate that commentary had achieved the status of subgenre in the Renaissance.”° We have already seen that Garcilaso presents the Comentarios reales

as a reinterpretation. His criticism of those “‘other’’ histories, those written by the Spaniards, is firmly grounded on the argument that an insufficient knowledge of Quechua — “Que el espanol que piensa que sabe mas del, inora de diez partes las nueve”’ (p. 49) [The Spaniard who thinks he knows the language best is ignorant of nine-tenths of it] (Livermore, I, p. 51) — has necessarily led to false interpretations of the historical record. In terms borrowed directly from humanist philology

Garcilaso describes his undertaking as one of commentary and gloss and his historiographic role as that of an interpreter of the language of

54 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

the Indians. Indeed, he takes great pains to emphasize that his intention Is not to invalidate the record of events as the Spaniards have

presented it, but to interpret that record accurately. He assures the reader that he will not introduce new material or contradict the facts that have been presented by other historians. Moreover, he goes so far as to commit his own account of events to the authority of the Spanish histories. But perhaps most significant is his presentation of the old

Inca’s narrative as an autonomous text. Garcilaso’s commentary Is only secondarily of the Spanish histories; that is, only insofar as the exegesis of the Quechua texts results in a rectification of errors of interpretation committed by the Spanish historians. The Comentarios reales is above all a commentary of the original language text of Inca history as it was transmitted to him through the oral narrative of his great-uncle, and the clarifications and amplifications which he later requested of his mestzzo compatriots in Peru as he prepared to write his

interpretation of Inca history and culture. Foucault reminds us that commentary always implies the existence ofa primary text to which the metatext must subordinate itself: ““And

yet commentary is directed entirely towards the enigmatic, murmured element of the language being commented on: it calls into being, below the existing discourse another discourse that is more fundamental and, as it were, “more primal,’ which it sets itself the task of restoring. There can be no commentary unless, below the language

one is reading and deciphering, there runs the sovereignty of an original text.’’*®° What Foucault fails to mention, however, 1s that the original text is sovereign not simply because it came first, but because

for the humanists the original language is the receptacle of full signification. It is not the text itself but its language that has semantic

privilege. We are reminded here of the poignant declaration that a disenchanted Fray Luis made concerning the correction of the Vul-

gate translations: “‘Pensar que con la Vulgata ni con otras cien traslaciones que se hiciesen, aunque mas sean al pie de la letra, se pondra la fuerza que el hebreo tiene en muchos lugares, ni se sacara a luz la prenez de sentidos que en ellos hay, es grande engano, como lo saben los que tienen alguna noticia de aquella lengua, y los que han leido en ella los Libros Sagrados.”’ [To think that with the Vulgate or with another hundred translations that might be done, no matter how literal they may be, one will produce the force of expression that is in

the Hebrew in many passages, nor bring to light the fullness of meanings that is in those passages, is a great delusion... |?’ As we have seen, Erasmus’ commentary on the Latin Bible was

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 55

motivated by the belief that only a command of Greek and Hebrew could lead to the accurate interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures. His attack on scholasticism was based on the argument that scholastic theology had been erected on a linguistically faulty foundation — the Latin Vulgate version of the biblical text. By returning to the Greek and Hebrew primary sources Erasmus was able to demonstrate that certain concepts could be reinterpreted and their meaning rendered more accurate and complete. For Garcilaso too the source of historical truth is ultimately a command of the original language. A true history of Tahuantinsuyu is only accessible through the exegesis of its texts

because only Quechua, hke Hebrew for Fray Luis and Greek for Erasmus, can be the receptacle of full meaning and thus the vehicle for

the transmission of truth. Garcilaso closes the citation of his greatuncle’s narrative with an apology which echoes Fray Luis’ lament regarding the difficulties of rendering in Latin the semantic richness of the original Hebrew words. Although he pledges to have translated the old Inca’s words faithfully from Quechua into Spanish he regrets his inability to reproduce the majesty of the original words in their full signification because of the limitations imposed by the new language: Esta larga relacion del origen de sus Reyes me dio aquel Inca, tio de mi madre, a quien yose la pedi, la cual yo he procurado traduzir fielmente de mi lengua materna, que es la del Inca, en la ajena, que es la castellana, aunque no la he escrito con la majestad de palabras que el Inca hablo mi con toda la sugnificacién que las de aquel lenguaye tiene, que, por ser tan significativo, pudtera haverse

estendido mucho mas de lo que se ha hecho. Antes la he acortado, quitando algunas

cosas que pudieran hazerla odiosa. Empero, bastara haver sacado el verdadero sentido dellas, que es lo que conviene a nuestra historia. (my emphasis) (Bk 1, Ch. 17) [This long account of the origin of our kings was given me by the Inca, my mother’s uncle, of whom [ asked it. I have tried to translate it faithfully from my mother tongue, that of the Inca, into a foreign speech, Castilian, though I have not written it in such majestic language as the Inca used, nor with the full significance the words of that language have. [f I had given the whole significance, the tale

would have been much more extensive thanitis. On the contrary, I have shortened it,

and left out a few things that might have been odious. However, it is enough

to have conveyed its true meaning, which is what is required for our

history. | (Livermore, 1, p. 46.)

Historiographic authority in the Comentarios reales is founded on the Inca’s identity as a native speaker of Quechua and historical truth is achieved as the result of a vast enterprise of exegesis and interpretation of the language of the original text. ‘This emphasis on the word as the kernel of semantic plenitude accounts for the looseness with which

56 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY “text’’ 1s implicitly defined in the Comentarios reales. For Garcilaso, the

authentic text of Inca history is any discourse, oral or written, imme-

diate or reconstructed from memory which, and this is of central importance, is composed in Quechua.

The authority attributed to the original language text by the humanists and their commitment to preserving its integrity stemmed from a reverence of linguistic purity that manifested itselfinitially only with regard to the languages of classical antiquity. Curtius has demonstrated that the concept “‘classicus,’’ or model author was founded, according to the authors of antiquity, upon a grammatical criterion — correct speech.?® The concept of eloquence which 1s at the center of humanist attitudes toward language also incorporated the concept of excellence based on correct usage and purity of speech. Thus Lorenzo Valla repeatedly chastized the forger of the Donation of Constantine for

corrupting the Latin tongue by introducing anachronistic debase‘ments. And, it is precisely by pointing out the violations, both stylistic

and historical, that Valla was able to prove the Donation a forgery

attributable to an age where the use of Latin was already in an advanced state of decay.

The humanist revival of antiquity was first of all a revival of linguistic excellence, a standard which was soon extended to the emerging vernaculars.?? From Dante’s De vulgart eloquentia to the prologue of Nebrija’s Gramdtica castellana there is an insistence on the value of a standard for speech in the vernacular and its preservation, ‘para lo que agora 1 de aqui en adelante en el escriviese en un tenor 1 entendiese en toda la duracion de los tiempos que estan por venir.”’ [so that what may now and from henceforward be written in it, may be of a tenor and understandable for the duration of all times yet to come. |*°

Garcilaso’s attitude toward his native Quechua for the first time extends humanist linguistic values to include a New World tongue. In the prefatory section of the Comentarios reales, entitled ‘“‘Advertencias

acerca de la lengua general del Pert,” he presents a convincing argument for the restoration of Quechua to its original state of integrity: para atajar esta corrupcion me sea licito, pues soy indio, que en esta historia yo escriva como indio con las mismas letras que aquellas tales dicciones se deben escrivir. Y no se les haga mal a los que las leyeren ver la novedad presente en contra del mal uso introduzido, que antes deve dar gusto leer

aquellos nombres en su propiedad y pureza. (Advertencia)

[To avoid further corruption, I may be permitted, since I am an Indian, to write like an Indian in this history, using the letters that should be used in

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 57 these words. Let none who read take exception to this novelty in opposition to the incorrect usage that is usually adopted: they should rather be glad to be

able to read the words written correctly and with purity. | (Livermore, 1, p. 5.)

To “write like an Indian” means then to write correct Quechua, in contrast to the corruptions newly introduced by the Spaniards. Later in the ““Advertencia”’ he explains that the grammatical pointers he has presented have an even more transcendental purpose — they are also intended for the mestizos and criollos of Peru, so that through correct

usage they may preserve and sustain Quechua in its pristine state.*!

Thus, Garcilaso appears to be advocating not only the historical preservation of the indigenous language but the continued employment of correct Quechua throughout Peru in the future, an attitude strikingly reminiscent of Nebrija’s intentions with respect to Spanish expressed in the prologue to his Gramdtica castellana. Clearly, Garcilaso’s desire to restore his native language, to rectify

the corruptions it had suffered through misuse by the Spaniards, transcends a simple patriotism. It forms an integral part of the restoration of Inca history and culture which the Comentarios reales undertakes. Like Nebrija, he realizes that language is the transmitter of the history of a civilization to future ages, long after its political demise.*? Hence, the Comentarios reales emends the Spanish representa-

tions and restores the integrity of Inca civilization through a philologic restoration of the Quechua tongue. But, significantly, he realizes that the preservation of the indigenous language must be accompanied by its continued use, so that Inca history will be both accessible and meaningful for generations to come. In this respect Garcilaso is once again squarely within the humanist tradition of text restoration. Hanna Holborn Gray reminds us of the importance of the practice: “‘since authority resided with the written word, of scripture and of antiquity, 1t was necessary to ensure that

texts were preserved accurately or, if corrupted, restored to their original form.’*? Yet, it would be more accurate to say that textual restoration was essential to the humanist endeavor, not because the written word was considered the ultimate authority, but because the original word was thought to be the only adequate vehicle for the

transmission of truth. The restorative enterprise launched by the humanists was aimed at the recovery of the original language texts and the emendation of corruptions and adulterated translations. The fact that these texts were in written form was not the essential compon-

ent of a philosophy of language which was founded on the semantic

58 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

privilege of the original language, as Garcilaso realized when he applied philologic principles to an oral text. The profound change in linguistic attitudes brought about by Renaissance humanism is nowhere more evident than in the practice of translation. ‘The ways in which the humanists dealt with the transfer of meaning from one linguistic system to another reveals once again

the reverence in which the original language text was held. What separates the Middle Ages from the Renaissance is not the quantity of

translative work which was produced, but rather the nature of the enterprise. The School of Translators at Toledo, for example, was extremely active during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Both in Spain and in Italy a vast number of Hebrew and Arabic works were rendered into Latin and romance. But, as Flora Ross Amos points out,

the medieval translator was hardly concerned with precision and often reproduced simply the main ideas presented in the original, adding and subtracting words at will.4* According to St. Jerome, whose “Epistle to Pamaquius”’ has been called the magna charta of medieval translation, strict word-for-word renditions are necessary only when working with the Holy Scriptures where even the word order was thought to contain a mystery.* In the case of profane texts, however, Jerome considers it sufficient to express the sense and effect of

the original. This mandate was of necessity interpreted quite loosely by medieval translators who as late as the fifteenth century in Castile were still bemoaning what they perceived as an unbridgeable distance between Latin and the romance. For the humanist, however, translation implied a total commitment to the integrity of the source, to the faithful reproduction of all the features of its language. Bruni, in De interpretatione recta, describes the task of the translator as one which demands complete fidelity: ‘“Thus the best translator devotes himself in his translations with his whole mind and soul and will to the original

| author, and consciously tries to duplicate his figures, colors, mood, rhythm, to express all the features of his speech.’’*® The fact that Garcilaso’s first literary undertaking was a translation is frequently overlooked or simply mentioned in passing, as one of the works which bears his name. This unfortunate shortsightedness, however, 1s indicative of a modern prejudice that often considers translation to be a marginal literary activity. But the importance of the art of translation during the Renaissance was rivaled only by that of historiography, while a strictly creative literature was considered outside the

realm of truth and, therefore, of respectability. The significance of the translation of Leon Hebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES 59

in Garcilaso’s literary production is considerable.?’ Varner has noted that the Dialoght @amore was a highly respected product of Renaissance Neoplatonism, but its conceptual complexity made it a chal-

lenge few translators were up to. Its translation demanded both considerable linguistic abilities and philosophical sophistication. It was also a work strongly influenced by the Jewish cabbalistic tradition

that had already been expurgated by the Inquisition. Thus, Garcilaso’s choice for his first literary endeavor was both a challenging

and delicate one, particularly in the hands of a Peruvian mestizo. It was, however, a highly symbolic one. The Dialoght @amore was a landmark of Renaissance humanism and the work of a Jew — the perennial outsider — who had written in a language that was not his native tongue while trying to explain concepts which were alien to his audience. It is not difficult to understand how the Inca must have felt

an intellectual and personal affinity with Hebreo.

Earlier we saw how Garcilaso forged and then employed the narrative persona of the mestizo to highlight and destigmatize his Amerindian heritage thereby bolstering his narrative authority. Yet the self-conscious assumption of the posture of the half-caste is ultimately tied to his role as narrator of Inca civilization to a European audience. The figure of the mestzzo becomes a metaphor for the translator as mediator between two languages, two cultures, the Old and New Worlds. Translating the Dialoght damore undoubtedly helped Garcilaso transcend the limitations of his personal condition by transforming it into a professional literary role. ‘The remainder of this study will attempt to show how the narrator’s role as interpreter shapes the discourse of history in the Comentartos reales. The translation of the Dialoghi d amore demanded the development of linguistic ideas and a method of interpretation that would undoubtedly be applied later in the Comentarios reales. ‘The prefatory sections to the Didlogos de amor provide a window into Garcilaso’s thoughts on

language and translation: De la mia puedo afirmar que me costaron mucho trabajo las erratas del molde, y mucho mas la pretension que tomé de interpretarle fielmente por las

mismas palabras que su autor escribiO en el italiano, sin afadirle otras supérfluas, pues basta que lo entiendan por las que él quiso decir y no por mas. Que anadirselas fuera hacer su doctrina muy comun, que es lo que él

mas huyo, y estragar mucho la gravedad y compostura de su hablar. [For my own part, I can affirm that the errata in the printing caused me a lot of work,.as did even more so my own aspiration to faithfully interpret it by the

very words the author wrote in Italian, without adding to it any other superfluous ones, for it is enough that he be understood by means of those that

60 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY he chose to say and not by more. For adding to it would have been to make his doctrine very common, which is what he most shunned, and to greatly spoil the solemnity and composure of his speech. |

The resemblances between this statement and Brunt’s are striking. Garcilaso also considers fidelity to the original language to be of central importance. Any modification of the actual wording used by the author, including the addition of extra words, can only lead to the corruption of the meaning as well as the elegance of the original language. The importance which he attributes to the form of the discourse should be noted. Fidelity is defined in semantic as well as morphological terms, reflecting the humanist view that all the features of a language contribute to the communication of meaning. Thus in the Comentarios reales he praises Father Blas Valera’s translation of some Inca verses because he reproduced not only the meaning of the

original, but also the phonemic and metric characteristics of the Quechua in his Latin version.*®

If Garcilaso’s ideas on translation show a decidedly humanist orientation in the Didlogos de amor, in the Comentarios reales they are explicitly philologic in nature. Garcilaso’s insistence on faithfulness to

the original language in the translation and exegesis of Quechua terminology throughout the text echoes the main tenet of humanist © philology from Lorenzo Valla to Fray Luis de Leon: fidelity to the original language. In the next chapter we will see that not only were Garcilaso’s views on language and translation distinctly humanist, but that his use of philologic discourse as a corrective strategy in the Comentarios reales placed him squarely within the humanist tradition of moral, political, and cultural reform. Humanist philology plays a central role in the conceptual framework of Garcilaso’s revisional historiography as well as on the narrative surface of the text. As we have seen, colonial Latin American historical narrative entered a revisionist phase with the ascendance of the eyewitness as a privileged authority. And yet an authentic version of indigenous history and culture remained inaccessible since most of the events had not been witnessed by the Spaniards, nor were there written accounts whose testimony could be tapped by the Europeans. There were, however, oral narratives preserved in the memories of the surviving Incas. Garcilaso’s self-imposed task in the Comentarios reales,

then, was to transform this record into a valid historical source in the

eyes of his European audience, and to secure his own narrative authority and interpretative privilege. By presenting his narrative in

LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN THE COMENTARIOS REALES O01

philological terms — as the commentary of the original language text — and himself as a native speaker of Quechua, he secured his interpreta-

tive prerogative. But most importantly, by etching his text in the discourse of commentary he allowed the original Inca text to surface

and endure as the ultimate authority.

4 Philology, translation, and hermeneutics in the Comentarios reales

In the preceding chapter we saw that Garcilaso defined his task in the Comentarios reales as a reinterpretation of Inca history; and, that his metahistorical remarks revealed a filiation with a philosophy of lan-

guage which clearly reflects the influence of humanist philology. Historiographic authority derived from a command of the original language allowed Garcilaso to claim an interpretative privilege that was beyond the reach of the vast majority of Spanish historians. We also saw that Inca history is presented as an oral text in the Comentarios reales, inscribed in a narrative composed in Quechua and stored in the collective memories of the Inca elders. Garcilaso’s own history, as he

repeatedly stated, was a reinterpretation of a preexisting text. His corrective intent was directed at the Spanish histories, but the object of interpretation on whose authority the corrections were made was

that original Quechua text to which he had access through his command of the original language, via his great-uncle’s oral account

and, later, in correspondence with relatives and friends in Peru. I would now like to demonstrate that the conceptualization of history as a metatext, as the commentary ofa primary discourse, 1s actualized in the Comentarios reales as a vast enterprise of translation and exegesis of

the language of that original text. In the pages that follow I will examine how philology functions as a formal element in the text; how

it shapes the narration of Inca history and its interpretation. I will argue, in short, that Garcilaso’s “history” is both conceptually and structurally a philological commentary, exploring the consequences that the formal characteristics of the narrative have on the representa-

tion of the Inca past.! Garcilaso’s familiarity with the philologic method was the result of multiple and varied exposure. Philology permeated humanist linguistic thought throughout the sixteenth century, and it 1s almost certain

that he had direct contact with the method through a number of channels. In the Comentarios reales there is an explicit reference to 62

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 63 Antonio de Nebrija, whose Vocabulario Garcilaso cites and whom he

describes as “‘acreedor de toda la buena latinidad que hoy tiene Espana.” (1x, 30) [to whom all good Latinists today are indebted] (Livermore, 1, 607). Given the nature of the remark and Nebrija’s intellectual stature it seems highly probable that Garcilaso was familiar with the larger corpus of the humanist’s production and not just his bilingual dictionary. A reference to the French historian and philologist Jean Bodin (Historia General, 1, 3) is particularly significant since in his Method for the Easy Comprehension of History (1566) Bodin devoted an

entire chapter to the application of philology to historical inquiry.? Although Garcilaso actually refers to the Six Books of the Republic (1576), again it seems unlikely that the Inca’s acquaintance with such

an influential contemporary should be limited to just one of the | author’s two major historical works. But perhaps the most significant factor in Garcilaso’s philologic development was his association with a group of Andalusian scholars _ that included the Jesuit philologists and biblical scholars Jeronimo de

Prado, Juan Bautista de Villalpando, Juan de Pineda, and Pedro Maldonado de Saavedra. José Durand has provided essential information regarding the humanist affiliation of Garcilaso’s Andalusian intellectual circle.’ All these men were commentators and exegetes of the biblical text, and with them Garcilaso undoubtedly exchanged ideas on language, history, and textual exegesis. He also shared his works in progress with them and received encouragement, aid, and advice. Jeronimo de Prado helped Garcilaso with the translation of Hebreo’s Dialoght d@ amore and Maldonado de Saavedra provided him

with the remains of the Valera manuscript, which proved an invalu-

able source for his work on the Incas. No less important was Garcilaso’s friendship with Bernardo de Aldrete, described by José Durand as “‘quizas el mas eminente fildlogo que hubo en Europa hacia 1600.’’* The friendship with Aldrete seems to have arisen precisely out ofshared linguistic interests. In fact, the Spanish philologist was one of

the first linguists in Europe to demonstrate a curiosity about the influence of native American languages on the evolution of Spanish and he quotes Garcilaso as an authority on the origin of the word Pert in his Origen y principio de la lengua castellana (1606).° Regardless of all

the circumstantial evidence, however, it is the text of the Comentarios

reales itself that ultimately makes the strongest argument for the influence of humanist philology on Garcilaso’s historical discourse.

As we saw in chapter 2, humanist philology was primarily a method. Although it implied a new attitude toward language, it was

64 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

not so much a speculative enterprise as it was a practice, a discursive mode, and frequently a tool at the service of larger goals. Gray argues

that for Lorenzo Valla philological exegesis was in fact a form of argumentation.® This is clearly the case in the Donation of Constantine,

where Valla used a philological analysis of the language of the document to prove it a forgery, and thus confuted the Church’s claim

to territorial dominion. For Erasmus philology was, above all, a means for effecting religious reform, as he repeatedly argued for a return to the sources of Christianity — the original language texts of the

Bible and writings of the Church Fathers, whose doctrines were founded on readings of the original texts. Both Valla and Erasmus maintained that the only access to the ideas that words communicated

was through an exact grammatico-historical understanding of the words in their original form. Any interpretation that failed to elucidate the language of the text properly could be proven erroneous by such a method; but most importantly, one’s own case could be supported through the sheer force of linguistic authority. Although the humanist philologists invariably relied on a series of authoritative references to buttress their arguments, particularly on sensitive reli-

gious questions, it is clear that the primary focus and principal authority was linguistic. Erasmus, for example, makes frequent use of _ St. Jerome’s authority on matters of biblical interpretation, and yet he does not hesitate to criticize him when his readings lack philological

precision. For the humanist, authority is ultimately derived from a

command of the original language, and any interpretation must necessarily first uncover the exact meaning enclosed in the words of the text. The following passage, from a letter dated in 1518, sums up Erasmus’ “plan of work” for his commentary and translation of the Greek New Testament providing a concise description of the method: Having first collated several copies made by Greek scribes, we followed that

which appeared to be the most genuine; and having translated this into Latin, we placed our translation by the side of the Greek text, so that the reader might readily compare the two, the translation being so made, that it was our first study to preserve, as far as was permissible, the integrity of the Latin tongue without injury to the simplicity of the apostolic language. Our next care was to provide that any sentences, which had before given trouble to the reader, either by ambiguity or obscurity of language, or by faulty or unsuitable expressions, should be explained and made clear with as little deviation as possible from the words of the original, and none from the sense ... Some annotations were added (which have now been extended), wherein we inform the reader, upon whose authority this or that matter rests,

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 65 relying always upon the judgment of the old authors. We do not tear up the Vulgate edition .. . but we point out where it is corrupt, giving warning in

any case of flagrant error on the part of the translator, and explaining it, where the version 1s involved or obscure. It is desirable that we should have the divine books as free from error in their text as possible, this labour of mine

not only corrects the mistakes which are found in copies of the sacred volumes, but prevents their being corrupted in the future; and if it is wished

that they should be rightly understood, we have laid open more than six hundred passages, which up to this time have not been understood even by great theologians. . .’

The first step in Erasmus’ method was the collation of the various Greek manuscripts in order to determine which text was most authentic and free of corruptions. Since authority resided with the original word, it was necessary to ensure that the texts selected were preserved

accurately or, if not, restored to their original form. Once this was determined he proceeded to the translation and exegesis of faulty, obscure, or unsuitable expressions which might mislead or confuse the reader. It should be noted that Erasmus, like Garcilaso, insists on both fidelity to the form of the language of the translation and to the words and meaning of the original. Finally, he called upon the authority of the Church Fathers to further strengthen his own interpretation. We should not forget, however, that the purpose of Erasmus’ translation is

ultimately hermeneutical. He intends both to correct the text of the Vulgate and to reinterpret certain passages “‘which up to this time have not been understood even by great theologians.” Garcilaso’s aims and method in the Comentarios reales are strikingly

similar. In fact, they differ only to the extent that the original language text on which Garcilaso relies is an oral one, and that he therefore must focus on certain key terms around which there has been confusion and misunderstanding. His exegesis is of necessity almost

exclusively semantic. The obvious difference between the interpretation ofa pagan versus a Christian text is not a significant one since we have seen that the humanists applied the philologic method to secular and Sacred Texts alike. Garcilaso opens the Comentarios reales with two introductory sections. The first of these, the “‘Proemio al lector,” 1s a veritable reader’s guide to the text, in which he declares his intentions and explains his method. Although parts of this passage have already been quoted I would like to reproduce it now in its entirety in order to

facilitate comparison with Erasmus: Aunque ha havido espafioles curiosos que han escrito las republicas del Nuevo Mundo, como la de México y la del Pert y las de otros reinos de aquella gentilidad, no ha sido con la relacion entera que dellos se pudiera dar,

66 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY que lo que he notado particularmente en las cosas que del Peru he visto escritas, de las cuales, como natural de la ciudad del Cuzco, que fue otra Roma en aquel Imperio, tengo mas larga y clara noticia que la que hasta ahora los escritores han dado. Verdad es que tocan muchas cosas de las muy grandes que aquella republica tuvo, pero escrivenlas tan cortamente que aun las muy notorias para mi (de la manera que las dizen) las entiendo mal. Por lo cual, forgado del amor natural de la patria, me ofresci al trabajo de escrevir

estos Comentarios, donde clara y distintamente se veran las cosas que en aquella republica havia antes de los espanoles, assi en los ritos de su vana religion como en el govierno que en paz y en guerra sus reyes tuvieron, y todo

lo demas que de aquellos indios se puede decir, dende lo mas infimo del exercicio de los vasallos hasta lo mas alto de la corona real. Escrivimos solamente del Imperio de los Incas, sin entrar en otras monarquias, porque no tengo la noticia dellas que desta. En el discurso de la historia protestamos la verdad della, y que no, diremos cosa grande que no sea autorizandola con los mismos historiadores espanioles que la tocaron en parte o en todo; que mi intencion no es contradezirles, sino servirles de comento y glosa_y de intérprete en muchos vocablos indios, que, como estranjeros en aquella lengua, interpretaron

fuera de la propriedad della... (my emphasis) [Though there have been learned Spaniards who have written accounts of the states of the New World, such as those of Mexico and Peru and the other kingdoms of the heathens, they have not described these realms so fully as they might have done. This I have remarked particularly in what I have seen written about Peru, concerning which, as native of the city of Cuzco, which

was formerly the Rome of that empire, I have fuller and more accurate information than that provided by previous writers. It is true that these have dealt with many of the very remarkable achievements of that empire, but they have set them down so briefly that, owing to the manner in which they

are told, I am scarcely able to understand even such matters as are well known to me. For this reason, impelled by the natural love for my native country, I have undertaken the task of writing these Commentaries, in which

everything in the Peruvian empire before the arrival of the Spaniards is clearly and distinctly set down, from the rites of their vain religion to the government of their kings in time of peace and war, and all else that can be

told of these Indians, from the highest affairs of the royal crown to the humblest duties of its vassals. I write only of the empire of the Incas, and do

not deal with the other monarchies, about which I can claim no similar knowledge. In the course of my history I shall affirm its truthfulness and shall

set down no important circumstances without quoting the authority of Spanish historians who may have touched upon it in part or as a whole. For my purpose is not to gainsay them, but éo furnish a commentary and gloss, and to interpret many Indian expressions which they, as strangers to that tongue, have

rendered inappropriately. | (Livermore, I, p. 4)

Garcilaso’s statement of purpose and method is inscribed in a discourse that is explicitly philological — because he has found the Spanish interpretations of Tahuantinsuyu to be defective, he offers his abilities as a native speaker of the language of the Indians to comment,

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 67

gloss, and interpret many of the Quechua terms that had been misinterpreted by Spanish historians owing to a lack of linguistic competence. His purpose, Garcilaso is careful to point out, 1s not to contradict the historical record but to correct the interpretation of that record through a philological restoration of the original language. And, in fact, he vows to rely on the authority of the Spanish historians, presumably in nonlinguistic matters or where there is no conflict of interpretation. Like Erasmus’ biblical philology, Garcilaso

proposes a reinterpretation of Inca history based on the translation and exegesis of the original language in consultation with the appropriate authorities. In the second prefatory section, significantly entitled ‘““Advertencia acerca de la lengua general de los indios del Peru,”’ he presents a brief comparative study of Quechua and Spanish in order to familiarize the reader with some of the characteristics of the former — “‘Para que se

entienda mejor lo que con el favor divino huviéremos de escrivir en esta historia, porque en ella hemos de dezir muchos nombres de la lengua general de los indios .. .”’ [For the better understanding of what, with divine aid, we shall write in this history, it will be well to give some notes on the general language of the Indians of Peru, many words of which we shall quote.] (Livermore, I, p. 5) Hence, a knowIledge of the original language, even if only rudimentary, is introduced as a necessary aid for the intelligent reading of the Comentarios reales itself, since the text incorporates so many Quechua terms. Garcilaso’s statement of purpose and method, then, coincides with

Erasmus’ in its essential points: to interpret the text through an exegesis of the original language: to support that interpretation with references to the appropriate authorities; and, to restore the original language of the text to a state of integrity. The commentary on the origin of the name Peru in the opening pages of the Comentarios reales is a good introduction to Garcilaso’s method. He argues, first of all, that the word Peri does not exist in the

Quechua lexicon and concludes that it must be the product of a misunderstanding between Spaniards and Indians resulting in the corruption of the original term. He then presents the following reenactment of the first verbal encounter — on one of the early voyages

of exploration of the Pacific coast the Spaniards found an Indian fishing at the mouth of a river and took him aboard for questioning: El indio, por los ademanes y meneos que con rostros y manos le hazian (como

a un mudo) entendia que le preguntavan, mas no entendia lo que le preguntavan, y a lo que entendio que era el preguntarle, respondio a priessa

68 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY (antes que le hiziessen algun mal) y nombr6 su propio nombre diziendo Bert, y anadio otro y dijo Pelt. Quiso decir: “Si me preguntais como me llamo, yo me digo Bert, y si me preguntais donde estava, digo que estava en el rio”’ Porque es de saber que el nombre Pel en el lenguaje de aquella provincia es nombre apelativo y significa rio en comun, como luego veremos en un autor grave... Loscristianos entendieron conforme a su desseo, imaginando que el indio les havia entendido y respondido a proposito, como si él y ellos huvieran hablado en castellano, y desde aquel afio, que fue el ano de mil y quinientos y

quinze o diez y seis, llamaron Pert: aquel riquissimo y grande Imperio, corrompiendo ambos nombres, como corrompen los espanoles casi todos los

vocablos que toman del lenguaje de los indios de aquella tierra. (1, 4) [The Indian understood that they were asking him something from the gestures and grimaces they were making with hands and face, as if they were addressing a dumb man, but he did not understand what they were asking, so he told them what he thought they wanted to know. Thus fearing that they

might do him harm, he quickly replied by giving his own name, saying, ‘“Beru,” and adding another, “pela.” He meant: “‘If you’re asking my name, I’m called Beru, and if you’re asking where I was, I was in the river.” ‘The word peli is a noun in the language of that province and means “a river”’ in general, as we shall see from a reliable author . . . ‘The Christians understood what they wanted to understand, supposing the Indian had understood them and had replied as pat as if they had been conversing in Spanish; and from

that time, which was 1515 or 1516, they called that rich and great empire Peru, corrupting both words, as the Spaniards corrupt almost all the words they take from the Indian language of that land.|_ (Livermore, 1, p. 16)

This dramatization of a failed attempt at communication which results in the misinterpretation and corruption of the words Beri (proper name) and Pelt (river) illustrates one of Garcilaso’s basic premises — that the Europeans are incompetent interpreters of the language of the Indians. He then proceeds to rectify the error based on his own linguistic competence, further enhancing his case with quotes

from Cieza de Leon, Acosta, Lopez de Gémara, and finally, his favorite authority on linguistic matters, Blas Valera.® Garcilaso objects, however, to the suggestion by Valera that the name Peru could also have been deduced from the Quechua word ptrua, commonly used in Cuzco to refer to a container for storing fruit. Like Valla and Erasmus, Garcilaso’s attitude toward authors and texts which he considers authorities is always critical since he feels that authority ultimately resides with a grammatico-historical exegesis of

the original word. The refutation of Valera’s second suggestion is strikingly reminiscent of Valla’s exegesis of the language of the Donation, in which he pointed out the historical incongruencies and anach-

ronisms in the use of several terms: Declarando yo lo que el Padre Blas Valera dize, digo que es mas verisimil que

la imposicién del nombre Pert nasciesse del nombre propio Bert o del

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 69 apelativo PelU, que en el lenguaje de aquella provincia significa rio, que no del nombre Pirua, que significa ordn, porque como se ha dicho, loimpusieron los de Vasco Nufiez de Balboa, que no entraron la tierra adentro para tener

noticia del nombre Pirua, y no los conquistadores del Pert, porque quinze anos antes que ellos fueran a la conquista lamavan Peru los espanoles que

vivian en Panama a toda aquella tierra que corre desde la equinocial al mediodia, lo cual también lo certifica Francisco Lopez de Gdmara en la ENistoria de las Indias, capitulo ciento y diez, donde dize estas palabras: ‘‘Algunos dizen que Balboa tuvo relacién de como aquella tierra del Pert tenia oro y esmeraldas; sea assi o no sea, es cierto, que havia en Panama gran fama del Pert cuando Pizarro y Almagro armaron para ir alla.”’ Hasta aqui es de Gomara, de donde consta claro que la imposicién del nombre Pert |

Imperio. (1, 6)

fue mucho antes que la ida de los conquistadores que ganaron aquel

[Having thus quoted Padre Blas Valera’s words, I should add that it is more likely that the name Peru should have originated from the proper name Bert or the noun peli, meaning “‘a river’ in the speech of the province, than that it should come from the word pirua, ‘‘a granary.” For, as has been said, the name was given by the followers of Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who did not go

inland where they would come across the word pirua, and not by the conquerors of Peru. Fifteen years before the latter set out on their conquest, the Spaniards living in Panama called all the coast south of the equator Peru. Weare assured of this by Francisco Lopez de Gomara in his History of the Indtes

(ch. cx), where he says: ““Some say Balboa heard reports of how the land of Peru had gold and emeralds; whether this be true or not, it is certain that Peru had great fame in Panama when Pizarro and Almagro prepared to go there,” etc. This is from Lopez de Gomara, whence it is clear that the application of _ the name Peru occurred long before the departure of the conquerors who won

the empire. | (Livermore, 1, pp. 20-21)

_ Garcilaso’s use of textual authorities in this passage is a classic example of the philologic method. His argument is based on evidence that the use of the name Peri by the Spaniards antedates any contact with the Incas at Cuzco. For this he relies on an account of Balboa’s expedition and on Lopez de Gémara’s history, in which the author implies that news of the riches of the region called “Peri” had reached Pizarro and

Almagro in Panama before they embarked on the expedition that would culminate with the conquest of Cuzco. The conclusion of the argument is self-evident — the suggestion that pzrua is the source of the

name Peru is anachronistic and therefore incorrect. While at first glance the philological commentary on Peri may appear to be a mere linguistic curiosity, its methodological significance Is considerable. Coming as early as it does, in the fourth chapter of Book 1, it serves to familiarize the reader from the opening pages with the principal mode of argumentation Garcilaso will use throughout the Comentarios reales. It also allows him to establish his philological

70 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

expertise and the superiority of his corrective method v1s-d-vis the linguistic incompetence of the Spaniards through the commentary of a familiar, yet uncontroversial, term. The fact that his commentary on this very term had already been recognized by the renowned philologist Bernardo de Aldrete would not have been lost on many readers. If Garcilaso’s philologic practice reached maturity and acquired full textual significance in the Comentarios reales, itis important to point

out that it was not a novice’s achievement but the result of years of practice and elaboration. We have seen that he expressed philological ideas in the preface of his very first literary undertaking, the Didlogos de amor, among them the humanist credo of fidelity to the original text.

Although unfortunately no notes or rough drafts of the translation have survived that would permit us to verify it, Garcilaso must have used philological techniques to achieve what was an essentially philological goal. However, the annotations which he made in the margins of his personal copy of Lopez de Gomara’s Historia general provide the

most convincing evidence that philology influenced Garcilaso’s historiographic thought even before he began to write his own history of Peru. Miré Quesada has suggested that these annotations are a seed of the Comentarios reales.2 I would like to propose what is perhaps a more

precise description; that these notes and comments constitute a methodological apprenticeship. In many cases, these marginal reflections

are of a linguistic nature. But more significantly, they repeatedly assume philologic form: Este n(ombre) Lima, con q’en lengua de indios nombra a la ciudad de los reyes le corrompen los espanoles en pronunciarle assi; que no se ha de pronunciar sino Rimac, con r. sencilla, co(mo) (de)be pronunciarse la r. en m(edi)o de la dici6n, y no con rr. duplicada, como pronuncian los espafoles, (es) par(tic)ipio de pr(esen)te y significa el q’ habla, porq’en este valle Rimac o de los Reyes... el (qua)i ydolo era, como el oraculo de Apolo de Delphos, que daba respuestas a todo lo que le preguntavan, y porq’hablava el ydolo o

el demonio en él le Ilamaron Rimac.. .!°

[This name Lzma, with which the city of the kings is named in the language of

the Indians, 1s corrupted by the Spaniards in pronouncing it thus; for it should rather be pronounced Rimac (with a simple 7, as the 7 is pronouncd in the middle of a word, and not with a trilled 7, as the Spaniards pronounce it), and is a present participle which means “‘he who speaks,”’ because in this valley named “‘Rimac’”’ or “of the kings”’ . . . there was a certain idol, like the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, which gave answers for everything that was asked to it, and because the idol or the demon in it spoke, it was called ‘‘Rimac.”’] (my translation)

The correction of the corruption of Rimac~—Lima is based on an exegesis of the meaning of the original Quechua term — he who speaks

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 71 — given to the valley for its famous oracle. An almost identical version, albeit somewhat condensed, appears in the Comentarios reales:

El nombre Rimac es participio de presente; quiere dezir el que habla. Llamaron assi al Valle por un idolo que en él huvo en figura de hombre, que

hablava y respondia a lo que le preguntavan, como el oraculo de Apolo Délphico, y otros muchos que huvo en la gentilidad antigua: y porque hablava le Ilamavan el que habla, y también al valledondeestava. (v1, 30) [The word “Rimac’”’ is a present participle meaning “he who speaks.”’ The valley was so called on account of an idol there, in the shape of a man, which spoke and gave answers to questions, like the oracle of Apollo at Delphi and many others mentioned in the histories of the ancient heathens. Because of this, it was called “‘he who speaks” and the valley was given the same name. | (Livermore, 1, p. 380)

In yet another example from the annotations to the Historia it 1s phonetic precision that allows Garcilaso to establish the differences in meaning of the polysemantic guaca, a term to which he will devote considerable attention in the Comentarios reales, as we will see shortly: ‘la significacion de estos nombres guacha o guaca, para lo c(ua)l es de

saber que aunq(u)e en las letras parecen uno mismo difieren en la pronunciacion y por ella en (la) significacién; q(ue) el nom(br)e q’significa ydolo se pronuncia la postrera silaba hiriendo con la lengua

en (lo alto del) paladar.” [for the meaning of these names guacha or guaca, one must know that although in their letters they seem one and the same, they differ in their pronunciation and because of that in their

meaning; for the name which means “idol,” the final syllable is pronounced with the tongue striking against the upper part of the palate.] (My translation). In order to make this same word signify “‘to cry”, however, the final syllable must be pronounced at the back of the throat. Garcilaso’s considerable contributions to Quechuan phonetics can be appreciated in the unusual and graphic example of the sounds involved in the semantic change — “‘me parecio compararlos a los que

hazen la urraca y el cuervo en sus graznidos: q’la urraca pronuncia

afuera en el paladar: y el cuervo dentro de las fauc(es), pues pronunciando como la urraca sign (ific)a ydolo, y pronunciando como el cuervo significa (llo)rar.”’ [it occurred to me to compare them to the

sounds that the magpie and the crow make in their cawing; for the magpie pronounces outside the palate, while the crow pronounces inside the gullet, so that pronouncing as the magpie does it means “idol,” and pronouncing as the crow does it means “to cry.’’}!! The

emphasis on phonetics is a unique characteristic of Garcilaso’s philologic commentary, undoubtedly a response to the particular problems he encountered owing to the strictly oral nature of Quechua

72 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

in pre-Hispanic times. Linguistic corruption will repeatedly assume phonetic form in the Comentarios reales, as Garcilaso exposes how the

untrained ears and tongues of the Spaniards violated the integrity of

Quechua pronunciation, serving to compound the semantic confusion. Philologic exegesis in the Comentarios reales cannot be fully appreci-

ated, however, unless it is understood as a narrative strategy committed to subverting the unfavorable representation of the Indian given by the Hispanic historiographic establishment. While in the annotations philology was necessarily limited by the text of Lopez de Gomara’s Historta, in the Comentarios reales it achieves conceptual and

structural predominance. We should recall that in the prologue Garcilaso attributes his corrective efforts to compelling patriotic sentiments. Philology, then, is applied selectively throughout the text to certain Quechua terms which he had determined to be pivotal points

in his reinterpretation, either because they documented Spanish incompetence or because they undermined unfavorable interpretations. Before proceeding to the presentation of the merits of Inca civiliza- _

tion, however, Garcilaso establishes a fundamental chronological division in the pre-Hispanic history of Peru: “‘Para que se entienda mejor la idolatria, vida y costumbres de los indios del Peru sera necessario dividamos aquellos siglos en dos edades: diremos cOmo vivian antes de los Incas y luego diremos cOmo governaron aquellos Reyes, para que no se confunda las costumbres ni los dioses de los unos con los otros.”’ (1, 9) [For the better understanding of the idolatry, way

of life, and customs of the Indians of Peru, it will be necessary for us to divide those times into periods. First we shall say how they lived before the Incas, and then how the Inca kings governed, so as not to

confuse the one thing with the other, and so that the customs and gods of one period are not attributed to the other.] (Livermore, 1, p. 30) This distinction between the pre-Incaic and Incaic phases, Garcilaso claims, is one which the Spanish historians failed to make.

Their inability to understand fully the language of the Indians led them to confuse the barbaric customs and deeds of the earlier period with those of the civilizing Incas. From a philologic perspective, this chronological imprecision would be sufficient to condemn the results, but in the Comentarios reales it serves a dual purpose, for it also permits

Garcilaso to fix the onset of Inca rule at a crucial juncture in the political and religious development of the peoples of Peru, as we will see in the next chapter. The philological significance of this division is

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 73 considerable since it allows Garcilaso to claim that his own narrative is

founded on a true chronology, lending further credence to his reinterpretation. The descriptions of the first period of Peruvian history provide a sordid background against which later to highlight Inca virtues. In every instance the reader is presented with the most primitive states of affairs imaginable, where man resembles beast: “. .. es de saber que en

aquella primera edad y antigua gentilidad unos indios havia poco mejores que bestias mansas y otros peores que fieras bravas...”’ (1, 9)

[It must therefore be realized that in the first age of primitive heathendom there were Indians who were little better than tame beasts and others much worse than wild beasts . . .] (Livermore, I, P- 30) En las demas costumbres, como el casar y el juntarse, no fueron mejores los

indios de aquella gentilidad que en su vestir y comer, porque muchas naciones se juntavan al coito como bestias, sin conocer mujer propia, sino como acertavan toparse, y otras se casavan como se les antojava, sin eceptar

hermanas, hijas ni madres. (I, 14) [In their other customs, such as marriage and cohabitation, the Indians of those heathen days were no better than in their eating and dressing. Many tribes cohabited like beasts without having any special wife, but with anyone they chanced to fall in with. Others married as their fancy directed them without excepting sisters, daughters, and mothers.] (Livermore, 1, p. 38)

Not surprisingly, Garcilaso is most concerned with their religious practices: y principiando de sus dioses, dezimos que los tuvieron conforme a las demas simplicidades y torpezas que usaron, assi en la muchedumbre dellos como en

la vileza y baxeza de las cosas que adoravan, porque es assi que cada provincia, cada nacion, cada pueblo, cada barrio, cada linaje y cada casa tenia dioses diferentes unos de otros, porque les parescia que el dios ajeno, ocupado con otro, no podia ayudarles, sino el suyo propio. Y assi vinieron a tener tanta variedad de dioses y tantos, que fueron sin numero... (I, 9) [To begin with their gods, we may say that they were of a piece with the simplicity and stupidity of the times, as regards the multiplicity of their gods

and the vileness and crudity of the things the people worshipped. Each province, each tribe, each village, each quarter, each clan, each house had gods different from the rest, for they considered that other people’s gods, being busy with other people’s affairs, could not help them, but they must have their own. Thus they came to have so great a variety of gods, which were

too numerous to count. | (Livermore, I, pp. 30-31)

Passages such as these have elicited criticism for being insensitive to the merits and contributions of the pre-Incan cultures while mimicking the Hispanic disdain for the Indians. I would like to suggest that

74 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

the chronological distinction that forms the basis for Garcilaso’s reinterpretation Is to a great extent responsible for the perception. For

if he argues that at the heart of the Spanish interpretations lies a chronological error in the demarcation of Incan and pre-Incan times,

the affirmation is implicit that such practices had indeed existed, although before the advent of the Incas. A demonstration of the fact,

then, is expedient in the larger philological framework of the Comentarios reales. Every vice that Garcilaso attributes to the pre-Incan |

tribes has its virtuous counterpart in the description of the Tahuantinsuyu, and significantly, is frequently substantiated by the philological exegesis of a key Quechua term. Thus, the insistence on the plurality and lowliness of the pre-Incan deities presents a dramatic

contrast to the sophisticated religious beliefs of the Incas. For Garcilaso 1s particularly interested in demonstrating that, contrary to what most Spanish historians had related, his people were essentially monotheistic and had arrived, through the exercise of natural reason, at knowledge of the true God. As will be seen shortly, this division also serves a strategic function in Garcilaso’s providentialist conception of

Tahuantinsuyu’s role in Christian history. Accordingly, Garcilaso argues that the Incas had two deities; the Sun, which they worshiped externally by building temples and conducting elaborate ceremonies, and Pachacamac, whom they adored mentally (since he was invisible) as the true God. Pachacamac, and not the Sun, was their highest deity, and as such it was imposed on the tribes they conquered. ‘The Sun maintains an ambiguous position as

“benefactor of Mankind” and the other heavenly bodies are presented not as gods in their own right, but only as deserving reverence by virtue of their relationship to the Sun. Since he could not deny the intensity of worship surrounding the figure of the Sun in Incan times, he perforce suggests that the Sun was worshiped merely as a physical manifestation or attribute of the goodness of the invisible supreme deity called Pachacamac. Significantly, Garcilaso attempts to substantiate this argument by philological commentary of certain key terms. In fact, in the majority of cases involving philologic exegesis the Quechua term in questionis a religious one; Garcilaso is constantly preoccupied with proving that the Spaniards had been particularly mistaken in their interpretations of Inca theology and cult practices. There is no doubt that the most

damning criticisms leveled against the indigenous civilizations of America were based on the testimony of chroniclers and missionaries

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 75

regarding the supposed religious practices of the Indians. Thus, the exegesis of the word Auaca (or guaca, as it originally appeared in his annotations to Lépez de Gomara’s Historia) is executed in order to undermine Spanish contentions that the Incas indiscriminately worshipped a whole array of objects: Y también por no saber la propriedad del lenguaje para saber pedir y recebir la relacion de los indios, de cuya inorancia ha nascido dar a los Incas muchos dioses o todos los que ellos quitaron a los indios que sujetaron a su Imperio,

que los tuvieron tantos y tan estranos como arriba se ha dicho. Particularmente nascié este engano de no saber los espafioles las muchas y

diversas significaciones que tiene este nombre huaca. (11, 4) | Moreover they are not well enough acquainted with thelanguagetobeable to ask for and obtain information from the Indians, and their ignorance has led them to attribute to the Incas many or all of the gods the latter removed from the Indians they subjected to their empire, and these subject peoples had many strange gods, as we have said. A particular source of this error was that the Spaniards did not know the many diverse meanings of the word

huaca. | (Livermore, 1, p. 76) It should be noted that Garcilaso attributes this error to the Spanlards’ inability to understand the language, which in turn results in confusing the pre-Incan and Incan periods. He then proceeds to list the various meanings of the term Auaca, only one of which signifies idol.

The Incas, he argues, called any sacred object by that name. They also

used the term to refer to religious offerings to the Sun, to temples, sanctuaries, and oratories. But huaca was also any object which had an unusual or prominent characteristic that set it apart from others of the

same type. Hence, any particularly beautiful or excellent thing was called huaca, and even monstrous or ugly ones. The birth of twins, eggs with two yolks, and physical anomalies were all Auaca. The term was also used to refer to the Andes, as well as to the individual peaks which stood out among the rest.'* He closes the section with a reiteration of

the Spanish misinterpretation: A todas estas cosas y otras semeyantes Ilamaron fuaca, no por tenerlas por dioses ni adorarlas, sino por la particular ventaja que hacian a las comunes; por esta causa las miravan y tratavan con veneracion y respeto. Por las cuales

significaciones tan diferentes los espafioles, no entendiendo mas de la primera, y principal significacion, que quiere dezir idolo, entienden que tenian por dioses todas aquellas cosas que llaman huaca, y que las adoravan los

Incas como lo hazian los de la primera edad. (I, 4) [ All these things and others like them were called huaca, not because they were

considered gods and therefore worthy of adoration, but because of their special superiority over the common run of things, for which reason they were

regarded and treated with veneration and respect. Because of these very

76 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY various meanings, the Spaniards, who only understood the first and main sense of “idol,” think that the Indians regarded as gods everything they called Auaca and that the Incas worshipped all these things just as the Indians

of the first age had done. | (Livermore, I, p. 77) II The hermeneutical intention of the Comentarios reales is evident from the prefatory pages, which are a veritable invitation to the reader to

participate in the process of reinterpretation. Barthes describes the manifestation of the hermeneutical code in the text as the postulation, formulation, problematization, and resolution of an enigma.'? In the Comentarios reales this enigma corresponds to the semantic void that is created between the Spaniards’ incorrect interpretations denounced by Garcilaso in the prologue and his openly proclaimed intentions to

perform a corrective reinterpretation. Garcilaso’s “‘history”’ is not simply a correction of the errors committed by Spanish historians but a new interpretation of Inca history and culture. Philologic commentary is the source and authority for this hermeneutics since it brings to the surface of the text the true and complete meaning of the original

Quechua terms. In the Comentarios reales philology is both exegesis and hermeneutics

since Garcilaso does not limit himself to a correction of the errors committed by Spanish historians but provides his own reinterpreta tion of Inca history and culture. Philologic commentary is the source

for this reinterpretation. To validate his claims that the Incas had arrived at knowledge of the one true God in the form of Pachacamac, Garcilaso provides the following analysis of the term: es nombre compuesto de Pacha, que es mundo universo, y de Camac, participio

presente del verbo cama que es animar, el cual verbo se deduze del nombre

cama que es anima. Pachacamac quiere dezir el que da anima al mundo universo, y en toda su propia significacién quiere dezir el que haze con el

universo lo que el anima con el cuerpo. (II, 2) (‘The word is composed of pacha, “the world, the universe,” and camac, present participle of the verb cama, “‘to animate,” derived from the noun cama, “the

soul.”” Pachacamac means “‘him who gives life to the universe,” and in its fullest sense means “‘him who does to the universe what the soul does to the

body.”’| (Livermore, I, p. 70)

The exegesis of the term Pachacamac is, in effect, the seed element in

the chapter whose title, ““Rastrearon los Incas al verdadero Dios Nuestro Senor’ [The Incas Glimpsed the True God, Our Lord], clearly testifies to Garcilaso’s interpretative intent. As we will see

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 77

below, the interpretation of the Incas’ monotheism is crucial to the success of Garcilaso’s larger reinterpretation of Tahuantinsuyu’s place in world history. For the moment, however, we will limit the discussion to showing how, through a philologic exegesis, Garcilaso exposes, layer by layer,

the meaning of the original Quechua terms and, at the same time, neutralizes the Spanish misinterpretations: Pero si a mi, que soy indio cristiano catolico, por la infinita misericordia, me preguntassen ahora ‘como se llama Dios en tu lengua?’ diria ‘Pachacamac,’ porque en aquel general lenguaje del Peru no hay otro nombre para nombrar

a Dios sino este, y todos los demas que los historiadores dizen son generalmente impropios, porque o no son del general lenguaje o son corruptos con el lenguaje de algunas provincias particulares o nuevamente

compuestos por los espanoles, y aunque algunos de los nuevamente compuestos pueden pasar conforme a la significacién espafola, como el Pachayachachic, que quieren que diga hazedor del cielo, significando ensenador del mundo — que para dezir hazedor havia de dezir Pacharurac, porque rura quiere dezir hazer — aquel general lenguaje los admite mal porque no son suyos naturales, sino advenedizos, y también porque en realidad de verdad en parte baxan a Dios de la alteza y majestad donde le sube y encumbra este nombre Pachacamac, que es el suyo propio, y para que se entienda lo que vamos diziendo es de saber que el verbo yacha significa

aprender, y afadiéndole esta silaba chi significa ensefiar; y-el verbo rura significa hazer y con lachi quiere dezir hazer que hagan o mandar que hagan, y lo mismo es de todos los demas verbos que quieran imaginar. Y assi como

aquellos indios no tuvieron atenciOn a cosas especulativas, sino a cosas materiales, assi estos sus verbos no significan ensenar cosas espirituales ni hazer obras grandiosas y divinas, como hacer el mundo, etc., sino que significan hazer y ensenar artes y oficios baxos y mecanicos, obras que pertenescen a los hombres y no a la divinidad. De toda la cual materialidad esta muy ajena a la significacién del nombre Pachacamac, que, como se ha dicho, quiere dezir el que haze con el universo lo que el alma con el cuerpo,

que es darle ser, vida, aumento y sustento, etc. (11, 2)!4 [But if anyone should now ask me (who by God?’s infinite mercy am a Catholic Christian Indian), ‘‘What is the word for God in your language?” I should answer, ““Pachacamac,”’ because in the general language of Peru there is no word but this for God. All the rest given by historians are generally incorrect. They are either not from the general speech, or are corrupted from the tongue of some special province, or are merely invented by the Spaniards.

Some of the newly invented words are acceptable renderings from the Spanish, such as the Pachayachdécher, which they pretend means “‘creator of heaven,” though it means “‘teacher of the world” — for creator one would have to say Pacharurac, from rura, “‘to make” — nevertheless they do not fit into

the general language for they are not natural to it, but strangers. And also in honest truth they rather lower the name of God from that dignity and majesty to which the correct name of Pachacamac raises it. In order to explain our meaning, we may mention that yacha is “‘to learn,” and on adding the syllable

78 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY chi is ‘‘to have made,” and so on with other verbs. And as the Indians paid no attention to abstract speculation, but only to material things, these verbs do not mean “‘to teach spiritual things or to make great and divine things, such as the world,” etc., but ‘“‘to make and teach trades or humble, mechanical

crafts,” acts that appertain to men and not to the deity. The name Pachacamac is quite free of these material associations. It means, as we have said, ‘‘todo to the universe what the soul does to the body, to give it being, life,

growth, and sustenance,” etc. (Livermore, I, p. 72) This passage illustrates Garcilaso’s view of the importance of linguistic

competence in the interpretation of the very delicate subject of Inca theology. The commentary begins with a grammatical and semantic

analysis of the terms employed by the Spaniards, like Pachayachachic, in order to show the conceptual limitations and the errors that result from the use of inappropriate terminology. Garcilaso was preoccupied with the false conclusions that had been drawn from inaccurate and incorrect translations of Quechua terms; not only because they were damaging to the opinion that Europeans had of the

Indians, but because they were actually obstacles in the process of successful Christianization since they communicated erroneous infor-

mation to the neophytes. Thus, performing an exegesis that reveals the inadequacies of the name employed by the Spaniards, he 1s able to affirm the conceptual subtlety and sophistication of the Indian term which closely resembles the Christian concept of God (as manifested in the semantic range of the proper terminology) and at the same time

discredit the Spanish interpretation based on corrupt or inappropriate terminology. It is interesting to note that Garcilaso was aware that meaning is culturally, as well as grammatically, determined. His observations concerning the verb rura, which means “‘to make’’, but when applied

to the deity becomes anomalous since the culture limits its use to concrete human situations, underscore the significance of the roots that comprise the composite term — Pacha which means universe and comprises the ideas of both space and time, and cama which Garcilaso translates as spirit or life force. The Indians did not limit the application of this concept to human beings as the Judeo-Christian tradition

does the concept of soul, but applied it even to objects considered inanimate by Western standards — Pachacamac: invisible, unknown God who animates the universe. By condemning the use of neologisms

and adulterated terminology by the Spaniards and restoring the original Quechua term Garcilaso is able to discredit the Spanish interpretations and validate his own vision of an essentially monothe-

istic Tahuantinsuyu.

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 79 But let us return for a moment to humanist philology. As we saw in chapter 2, the philologic method was not a Renaissance invention, but

had been used in biblical translation as early as the third century. What was unique to the humanists, however, was the systematization of philologic exegesis for interpretation, which in effect transformed the method into a hermeneutics. Erasmus’ commentary on the word sermo which substituted the Vulgate translation’s verbum (In principio erat verbum) in the second edition of his New Testament is exemplary. He argued that John had written Jogos in the primitive Greek version, a word which is polysemous and in Latin can signify Sermo, verbum, oratio, ratio, sapientia, and computus. But sermo, he claimed, was a

more accurate translation of John’s intended meaning. The divergence of usage by classical authors of verbum and sermo substantiated Erasmus’ preference. The noun verbum signifies a word or a saying, such as a proverb or maxim; it 1s also frequently used to designate a

part of speech — the verb — which in Greek is rhema. Its limited application, therefore, did not fully render the meaning of logos as speech rather than word. He concluded his grammatical exegesis by pointing out that Latin authors more correctly, more aptly, and more customarily expressed the full semantic range of logos with sermo and not verbum.

Yet Erasmus was not satisfied with performing a corrective exegesis of the Vulgate translation; for him philology was always the basis ofan

interpretation. Thus, in the Annotationum in Evangelium Joannis he supports his choice of terms on theological grounds — “‘But Christ is for

this reason called logos, because whatsoever the Father speaks, He speaks through the Son.’’'> Boyle summarizes Erasmus’ interpretation: “Because the logos is the copious discourse of the Father, the sufficient revealing oration, verbum is inadequate to designate him.

Erasmus cleverly shifts the ground of debate from orthodoxy to grammar, and then from grammar to a new mediation with the orthodox claim that Christ is God’s full revelation.’’!® The same interplay between corrective exegesis and interpretation characterizes Garcilaso’s narrative strategy in the Comentarios reales. In

the chapter entitled, “De muchos dioses que los historiadores espanoles impropriamente aplican a los indios”’ (11, 4) [Of Many Gods

Wrongly Attributed to the Indians by the Spanish Historians], he continues to support his interpretation of the essential monotheism of the Incas by demonstrating that certain words which the Spaniards had assumed were names of deities had in fact been misinterpreted. His argument is once again grounded on a meticulous grammatical

80 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

exegesis of the original Quechua word, apachecta. First, he demonstrates that the hispanized form apachita is corrupt and should be written apachecta, in the dative case, signifying ‘““To him who causes us

to carry.” Garcilaso then goes on to explain that in Quechua an utterance is frequently abbreviated without sacrificing semantic efficiency or emotive force. The single word apachecta corresponds to the

Spanish syntagma equivalent to “let us give thanks and let us offer something to the one who causes us to carry these loads, giving us strength and vision to climb such rugged slopes as these.”’ Asa result of this expansive translation and commentary he is able to conclude that

apachecta was not the name of the mountain deity, as the Spaniards

thought, but rather an abbreviated prayer of thanks addressed to Pachacamac — “he who causes us to carry.”’ Like the analysis of the multitude of meanings enclosed in the term huaca, the commentary of apachecta 1s aimed at subverting on linguistic

grounds the Spanish interpretations which attributed a plurality of gods to the Indians. This negative operation of neutralizing the authority of other representations is ultimately one more step in the

| reinterpretation of Inca theology as monotheistic, a process which | Garcilaso began with the extensive commentary on the term Pachacamac. The grammatical exegesis and restoration of the correct Quechua form apachecta is the first step in a commentary that ultimately is a profound reflection on Inca theology. The purpose of this passage 1s above all to show that the Indians were not addressing the mountain but the great invisible God they called Pachacamac who they knew through natural reason deserved thanks for the difficult task finally accomplished. ‘Thus, humanist philological techniques allow Garcilaso to correct and reinterpret simultaneously in a dialec-

tical operation that alternates between corrective exegesis and hermeneutics. Although religion takes center stage in Garcilaso’s corrective rein-

terpretation of Tahuantinsuyu, his application of the philologic method to the royal appellatives of the Incas 1s no less significant. Through the exegesis of these names the ethical “essence” of Inca civilization 1s revealed to the reader. And, as we will see, this process serves both to validate the specific claims that Garcilaso makes con-

cerning the great virtues of the political and social structures of the Inca Empire, and as a linguistic manifestation ofits inherent qualities.

Let us return for a moment to the basic assumption underlying humanist philologic exegesis — that the original word is the privileged

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 81

receptable of meaning. The philologic method was founded on a theory oflanguage that clearly reflects the Neoplatonic vein of Renais-

sance thought. Foucault has shown that in the sixteenth century words and things participated in a universe structured on a foundation of affinities and analogies, correspondences and similitudes. The linguistic system of the Renaissance, he states, was not binary, but tertiary: language was composed of the signifier, the signified, and the similitude which they shared between them and which served to bond them into one articulated form.'’? This complementary relationship between language and referent, signifier and signified, is at the heart

of.Garcilaso’s philologic practice, allowing him to rely on the Quechua word as the ultimate interpretative authority, as well as the most appropriate vehicle of representation. It is perhaps most readily evident in the commentary on the names and epithets of the Incas, an operation that enables him to uncover the essential virtues of Inca civilization of which the king is considered to be both an embodiment and a manifestation.

The ethical and moral laws that the first Inca Manco Capac is alleged to have introduced to the barbarous tribes of the First Age are

incorporated and augmented by each of his descendants. Tahuantinsuyu unfolds in the Comentarios reales as an ideal society where the principles of justice, brotherly love, and charity prevail.'® Garcilaso’s presentation of the reign of each Inca is characteristically

| formulaic in nature. The accounts invariably open with an exegesis of the names of the ruler followed by a narration of his conquests and accomplishments, and they close with a reaffirmation of his virtues

and achievements as reflected in the solemnity of his protracted funeral rites. ‘The stylized nature of the representation is undoubtedly

a consequence of the orality of the original accounts on which Garcilaso relies.'® It should be recalled that the guzpu was a means of

recording numerical information only, and that the guipucamayu, keeper of the records, complemented this information with memorized oral narratives. Such a method, out of necessity, subjugates particulars to larger structuring principles. Garcilaso’s representation of Inca history, then, is conceived as the expression of certain central ideas embodied in each successive Inca, inscribed in his names, and manifested historically in the form of his reign. ‘Through an exegesis of the names of the Incas one gains access to the ideas that comprise the essence of Tahuantinsuyu.

Given the oral nature of much of his source material and the

82 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

temporal distance that separated Garcilaso from his experience of that

material it is not difficult to understand why his narrative was conceived as the manifestation of certain broad principles. Such a stylized

and formulaic representation suffered, however, from a lack of chronological specificity and factual detail that jeopardized its historiographical validity. Garcilaso himself refers to the accounts of his Inca relatives as “‘fabulas historiales,”’ showing that he was cognizant of the fact that they did not conform to European historiographic standards. Due to the esoteric nature of his sources he once again turns to language to impart authority to his representation of the political

and social structures of ‘Tahuantinsuyu. In the realization that the validation of the historical record itself was impossible he falls back on

the authority of the original word as the vehicle and guarantor of truth. Garcilaso’s reliance on an exegesis of the royal names to substantiate his claims regarding the virtues of the Inca rulers 1s reminiscent of

Fray Luis de Leon’s commentary on the names of Christ in De los nombres de Cristo (1583).2° Gibson has shown that Fray Luis’ linguistic

thought is essentially Platonic, particularly in its affirmation of the complementary relationship between signifier and signified described

by Foucault.?) Fray Luis argued that the same compatibility that exists between a name and its original object must be maintained when that name is applied to another object.2? The new referent

, shares in the nature of the original and therefore is also able to enter into a homologous relationship with its sign. ‘The interpretations of the

names of Christ, as consummate manifestations of His nature, are based precisely on this premise. Thus, the philologic commentary of the names brings to the textual surface Christ’s attributes in their full significance. One can, however, go one step further than Fray Luts and argue that if both referents are in a complementary relationship with the sign, then they must also be linked in the universe of analogies

and affinities which the Renaissance linguistic system represents. Hence, an exegesis of the names of things can lead to an understanding

of their nature, but most significantly, it also leads to a validation or

proof of that nature. The shared sign guarantees the ontological similitude of its referents. Garcilaso’s exegesis of the Inca royal names clearly reflects this complementary relationship between signifier and signified: “‘Con-

siderando bien los indios la grandeza de las mercedes y el amor con que el Inca se las havia hecho, echavan grandes bendiciones y

PHILOLOGY, TRANSLATION AND HERMENEUTICS 83

loores a su principe y le buscavan titulos y renombres que igualassen

con la alteza de su animo y significassen en junto sus herdicas virtudes.”’ (1, 24) [The Indians, pondering the greatness of the favors

and love the Inca had displayed towards them, praised and blessed him greatly and sought names and titles fit to express the nobility of his mind and signify the sum of his heroic virtues.] (Livermore, 1, p. 59)

Like Fray Luis, Garcilaso attempts to uncover, layer by layer, the essences inscribed in the names of the Incas through a philological exegesis of the royal appellatives. The following passage from the chapter which narrates the reign of Manco Capac, first ruler of the Tahuantinsuyu, is representative: Y assi, entre otros (nombres) que le inventaron, fueron dos — El uno fue Capac, que quiere dezir rico, no de hazienda que, como los indios dizen, no

truxo este Principe bienes de fortuna, sino riquezas de animo, de mansedumbre, piedad, clemencia, liberalidad, justicia y magnanimidad y

deseo y obras para hazer bien a los pobres, y por haverlas tenido este Inca tan grandes como sus vasallos las cuentan, dizen que dignamente le Ilamaron Capac; también quiere dezir rico y poderoso en armas. El otro nombre fue

llamarle Huacchacuyac, que quiere dezir amador y bienhechor de pobres,

Inca. (I, 24)

para que, como el primero significava las grandezas de su animo, el segundo significasse los beneficios que a los suyos havia hecho, y desde entonces se

llamo este principe Manco Capac, haviendose Ilamado hasta alli Manco [Such were two in particular among others they invented. One was Capac,

meaning “‘rich,”’ not in estates, for as the Indians say, this prince did not bring worldly goods but riches of the soul: mildness, mercy, clemency, liberality,

justice and magnanimity, the desire to benefit the poor, and good works. Because this Inca had such great store of these riches as his followers relate, they say he was worthily called Capac, which also means “rich and powerful in

war.” The other name was Huacchacuyac, “‘a lover and benefactor of the poor,” as the first name referred to the greatness of his soul, the second signified the benefits he had conferred on his fellows. Thenceforward he was called Manco Capac, having previously been known as Manco Inca. |]

| (Livermore, I, p. 59)

The commentary on Capac and Huacchacuyac activates a burst of signifiers which in turn circumscribe the prince’s character. This 1s followed by an exposition of Manco Capac’s conquests and achievements, presented as a perfectly faithful manifestation of the moral and

ethical attributes inscribed in his names. One cannot help but be struck by the complete uniformity between signifier and referent in Garcilaso’s representation of this Inca’s reign. Each of Manco’s actions is portrayed as an emanation of the qualities inscribed in his names. His conquests, hence, are actuated by a desire to improve the

84 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

quality of life and raise the general standard of living of the conquered.

Indeed, the accounts of his military campaigns are a paradigm of clemency, justice, gentleness, liberality, and compassion which Capac encapsulates. Force is used only as a last resort and the defeated enemy is lavished with tokens of the Inca’s clemency and generosity. In the Comentarios reales Manco Capac’s actions in history become manifesta-

tions of the essential ideas embodied in his names. Their source is ultimately not historical but linguistic, as is the guarantee of their veracity. This exegesis of the royal names reveals perhaps most clearly the Neoplatonic theory of language upon which Garcilaso erects his Comentarios reales. The original language is conceived as the perfect

vehicle of the Idea which acquires material form in the signified. There is also a precedent for this in the Judeo-Christian tradition which conceives of the Logos as the source of historical reality and the original hidden name of God as the revelation of His nature. Philology gives Garcilaso access to the Idea because its essence 1s inscribed in the

original language. Thus, through an exegesis of the Quechua appellatives of the Inca he can argue that he has arrived at the ruler’s

true nature. Garcilaso 1s not so much interested in presenting historical facts as

in interpreting the essential qualities of Tahuantinsuyu. Through a philologic commentary of the original Quechua, then, Garcilaso performs his corrections of the errors made by the Spanish historians and elaborates his own reinterpretation of Inca history and culture. Language is both the authority on which his interpretation is founded and its source. Tahuantinsuyu unfolds for the reader as an emanation which originates within the original word and whose truth is guaranteed by the perfect complementarity that exists between the sign and its referent. Philological commentary in the Comentarios reales is both a

corrective historiographical strategy and a hermeneutics which yields a new — and improved — image of ‘Tahuantinsuyu.

J Contexts and intertexts: the discourse on the nature of the American indian and the Comentarios reales

Bakhtin, in “Discourse in the Novel,” calls attention to two funda-

mental characteristics of any discourse.’ First, that no act of enunciation is autonomous, that it has meaning only because it is uttered in the context of other utterances. Secondly, that the relations between utterances in any act of communication are dynamic, that meaning arises out of a dialogical interaction between one’s word and the words of others. Although Bakhtin chose to set down his observa-

tions in a terminology which suggests that he is speaking of oral communication, he was in fact referring to the written word and, more specifically, to the way a text participates in the discursive space of a

given culture.? The figure of the oral dialogue is an especially apt manner in which to represent this phenomenon of discourse, where the text takes shape in reaction to other texts and in anticipation of how future texts may respond to it. Kristeva, who introduced Bakhtin’s ideas to Western readers, adapted this broad notion of the dialogical interrelationships between a text and the discursive space in which it is inscribed into a specific

theory of intertextuality. She proposed that a text’s dialogue with other texts was in principle identifiable, that the discoursive space that

made it intelligible was to a great extent analyzable.? Furthermore, Kristeva argued that an intertextual analysis provided both insight into how a given text is molded by its con-texts, and how it assimilates

them in order to transgress or transform them. As an analytical tool, the study of intertextuality allows one to go beyond the investigation of sources and influences as traditionally conceived, that is, the notion

that the text 1s a passive recipient of ideas from a select group of precursors, in order to show how it participates dynamically in the discursive space of a culture.‘ In the preceding chapter, Garcilaso’s predominantly philological

attitude toward language was shown to be actualized in the 85

86 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY Comentarios reales as a vast enterprise of exegesis and interpretation. But

the fundamental question of what motivates his narrative strategies

still remains. At first glance, it would seem that exegesis in the Comentarios reales is simply a corrective enterprise motivated by a series

of casual readings which uncovered linguistic errors and mistranslations in the Spanish narratives of the discovery and conquest period. This is in fact one aspect of intertextuality in the work.

But along with these immediate intertexts of quotes and direct references that leave a visible mark of the alien text on the written page, there is also an implicit intertextual space in Garcilaso’s text that constitutes a critical dialogue with the works that comprise the discourse on the nature of the American Indians. This discourse, essentially polemical in nature, represents Spain’s attempt to define its legal, moral, and political relationship to the Amerindian peoples of the newly discovered lands. The efforts of European culture to define and assimilate a previous-

ly unknown continent and its civilizations have been the subject of numerous studies, including the classic works by Reyes, Henriquez

Urena, O’Gorman, and Hanke, and more recently by Gliozzi, Pagden and Todorov.’ But little has been done to situate the Comentartos reales in this context, in spite of the fact that Garcilaso 1s

explicit about his intentions to describe and interpret Inca civilization.® As we have already seen, interpretation in the Comentarios reales 1s

not limited to the correction and translation of the Quechua lexicon but addresses a series of sophisticated textual problems, from the efficacy of Spanish historical narrative (“dela manera que las dizen’’)

to the presentation and corroboration of Inca history and culture through the philologic exegesis of the original language. In what follows, I will attempt to demonstrate that the Comentartos reales is in fact an integral part of that process of assimilation which addressed the problem of the nature of the peoples of the New World; that Garcilaso

consciously and critically insinuated his own text into a discourse which by the end of the sixteenth century had well-defined ideological positions and modes of argumentation. Spain’s intellectual preoccupation with the indigenous population of the New World had a humble beginning. In 1511, on Hispaniola, a

friar delivered a sermon on the Sunday before Christmas which questioned the justice and morality of the Spanish treatment of the natives and the methods of conquest. Friar Antonio de Montesinos accused his congregation of mistreating and abusing the Indians and concluded that the conquistadores were living in a state of mortal sin.

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 87 Montesinos grounded his argument on the premise that the natives

were rational human beings, and must be treated as brothers in accordance with the teachings of Christ. This apparently simple statement had serious implications during the rest of the sixteenth century, however. In the most immediate sense, it placed in peril of eternal damnation the immortal souls of the Spanish colonizers and of

the King and Queen of Spain, in whose names the conquest and colonization were carried out. But it also raised two fundamental questions: Were the Indians of the New World in fact rational human beings? And, ifso, what exactly was their legal status and relationship to the Spanish Crown? Fernando of Aragon, moved by Montesinos’ accusations, named a council of jurists and theologians to study the problem of the liberty of the Indians. In 1512, the Council concluded that the natives were in fact free subjects of the Spanish Crown and not slaves, but that for the purpose of promulgating the Faith the Spaniards should oversee their education. In December of that same year the Laws of Burgos were issued to guarantee the practice of that which the Council had decided in theory. But, although the spirit of the conclusion was favorable to

the Indians, the concept of Spanish tutorship for the purpose of evangelization was to have unfortunate consequences. The encomienda

system, originally a medieval institution, transplanted to the New World became a focal point of abuse. ‘The encomenderos were given custody of groups of Indians for the purpose of providing them with

religious education and practical instruction in the art of civilized living. In exchange for these services the Indians were supposed to provide their tutors with free mining and agricultural labor. The potential for abuse is all too obvious, and in fact, it was precisely at the encomienda system that Montesinos had directed his attack. But the concept of tutorship espoused by the Council in effect reaffirmed

the system of forced labor even while it condemned some of its

practices.’ |

The history of Spain’s intellectual struggle with the moral implications of the discovery and conquest of the New World covers the larger part of the sixteenth century. The reevaluation of the colonial enterprise prompted by Montesinos’ remarks that resulted in the Laws of Burgos was only the beginning of the process of interpretation through which European culture attempted to define the nature of the Indian and the historical significance of its relationship to the native American civilizations. A thorough analysis of this process would take us well beyond the scope of the present study, but a brief overview 1s essential

88 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

to understanding Garcilaso’s discursive strategies in the Comentarios reales.®

The problem was first approached from the legal perspective, resulting in the passage of a series of laws which attempted to define the juridical relations between Indians and Spaniards. But as Francisco de Vitoria demonstrated, the questions of jurisdiction and sover-

elgnty of states were inextricably tied to a philosophy of human nature, of the person as an individual and as member of a political community. Although Vitoria addressed the specific topic of Spain’s rights in the discovery and conquest of America in his lecture De indts

(1539) his arguments were founded on a thoroughly elaborated theory of what it meant to be human. In fact, Vitoria’s treatise on the New World was an application of ideas that were the product of long years of theological study initiated in Paris under Jean Mair and later elaborated in works such as De potestate civilt (1528), De potestate ecclestae

(1532-3), De potestate papae et concilu (1534), and De temperantia (1537-8). An outline of those ideas will facilitate our discussion.'®

Vitoria’s first step in De indis was to establish a clear division between the natural and spiritual domains. Based on the Thomistic distinction between these two orders Vitoria argued that every human being participates in the natural realm by virtue of his or her human nature, but only through a state of grace can one participate in the

supernatural order, made accessible to mankind through Christ’s redemptive intervention.'' Consequently he afhrmed that there were

two types of communities: the secular community governed by natural law, and the spiritual community governed by supernatural authority. According to Vitoria there were two autonomous juridical | systems; one which dictated the natural rights of the individual and the community, and another which dictated the supernatural rights of the individual and the community when in a state of Grace; in other words, as members of the Christian community of the faithful. These two orders complemented one another, but they were autonomous. Natural authority was considered as legitimate within its own realm as was the Church’s in spiritual matters. What was not legitimate, however, was a crossover. The King had no jurisdiction in spiritual questions, but neither did the Pope in temporal affairs. This redefinition of authority based on the natural/supernatural duality was particularly significant when applied to the New World. First of all, Spain’s prerogative to explore, colonize, and establish its rule in America had been authorized by Papal Bullin 1493. Basedon

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 89 the medieval concept of the universal authority of the Pope, this decree granted all rights and jurisdiction over the newly discovered territories and their inhabitants to the regents of Castile with the ex-

pressed understanding that they would promulgate the Faith. Vitoria’s arguments negated the legitimacy of that grant since Spain’s claim to jurisdiction in America had been founded on the supernatural authority of the Pope, rendered illegitimate in the natural domain. Moreover, the idea that the process of evangelization justified the wars

of conquest against the Indians was also rendered invalid because,

Vitoria said, it was illicit to use physical force to make someone accept : the Christian Faith unwillingly. Religious considerations could not be used to justify the wars against the Indians, which clearly belonged to

the realm of the temporal.

Vitoria addressed the specific question of just war against the Indians in his second relectio, De indis, stve de iure bellt hispanorum in barbaros (1539). Here Vitoria presented the natives of the New World as free peoples, citizens of sovereign states, just like the Europeans. He

then considered the question of the licitness of war from the point of view of the concept of natural sociability, which maintains that the free interaction between individuals and between sovereign states 1s a natural right. War, he claimed, 1s justified only when it is waged as retribution for a violation against this principle. As a strictly punitive measure the declaration of war must satisfy the following three condi-

tions: there must be just cause (the grievance must be of sufficient magnitude to warrant the harshest of possible retributions), the one who declares it must have legitimate authority to do so, and finally, the declarer must have good intentions. Of all the possible justifications of war against the Indians, then, only the following were considered potentially legitimate causes by Vitoria, to the extent that they constitute a violation of the principle of natural sociability: violations of the right of free communication between sovereign states, violations against the rights of newly converted individuals, violations against the Pope’s right to establish a Christian government in communities

which have embraced the Faith, and violations against the rights of innocent individuals, particularly in the case of the victims of human sacrifices. Further, the Spaniards would be justified in waging war against the Indians either in retaliation for a direct offense against them, or as defenders or allies of others against whom an offense had been committed. Vitoria, as stated earlier, based his arguments on the assumption

QO LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

that the natives of the New World were fully rational human beings, endowed with all the natural attributes and abilities which typify the human race. True, they lacked spiritual Grace, but that fact did not in any way deprive them of all the rights of sovereign individuals and communities under natural law. However, there is one cause which stands apart from the others mentioned above because it questions the very premise upon which the entire argument of the relectio rests — the full rationality of the Indians. In the following passage Vitoria discusses the final circumstance under which the king of Spain would

have complete and legitimate authority over the natives which, if resisted, could justify violent intervention. Hay otro titulo que no podria afirmarse con seguridad, pero si discutirse y que parece legitimo para algunos. Yo no me atrevo a darlo por bueno nia condenarlo en absoluto. EI titulo es este: Esos barbaros, aunque, como se ha

dicho, no sean del todo incapaces, distan, sin embargo, tan poco de los retrasados mentales que parece no son idoneos para constituir y administrar una republica legitima dentro de los limites humanos y politicos. Por lo cual no tienen leyes adecuadas, ni magistrados, y ni siquiera son suficientemente capaces para governar la familia. Hasta carecen de ciencias y artes, no solo liberales sino también mecanicas, y de una agricultura diligente, de artesanos

y de otras muchas comodidades que son hasta necesarias para la vida humana.

Podria entonces decirse que para utilidad de todos ellos pueden los reyes de

Espana encargarse de la administracién y gobierno de aquellos barbaros, nombrarles ministros y gobernadores para sus pueblos y aun darles nuevos principes mientras constase que.era conveniente para su bienestar. [ There is another title which can indeed not be asserted, but brought up for discussion, and some think it a lawful one. I dare not affirm it at all, nor do I entirely condemn it. It is this: Although the aborigines in question are (as has

been said above) not wholly unintelligent, yet they are little short of that condition, and are so unfit to found or administer a lawful state up to the standard required by human and civil claims. Accordingly they have no proper laws or magistrates, and are not even capable of controlling their family affairs; they are without any literature or arts, not only the liberal arts, but the mechanical arts also; they have no careful agriculture and no artisans; and they lack many conveniences, yea necessaries, of human life. It might, therefore, be maintained that in their own interests the sovereigns of Spain

might undertake the administration of their country, providing them with prefects and governors for their towns, and might even give them new lords, so long as this was clearly for their benefit. ]'*

Vitoria presented this as the final condition under which the Spaniards could legally and morally exercise authority over the Indians, and yet it is the only “title” to which he did not choose to commit himself. His ambivalence, moreover, is underlined by the predominant use of the conditional and subjunctive tenses. If it were true, he

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS gI says, that the barbarians are mentally deficient and therefore incapable of governing themselves as had been suggested, then it would be licit for the Spaniards to step in to establish a legitimate government for the natives’ benefit. Thus, while Vitoria seemed to suggest that he favored the argument of the full capacity of the Indians for self-rule

and was extremely cautious in presenting the title based on their supposed incapacity in hypothetical terms (“parece no son idéneos para constituir y administrar una republica legitima’’), he nonetheless expressed serious doubt. It is precisely this persistent uncertainty about the nature of the Indians of the New World which paved the way for the renowned debate between Las Casas and Sepulveda, and ultimately Garcilaso’s Comentarios reales.'*

The question raised and left unresolved by Vitoria regarding the specific nature of the American Indians would be at the center of European speculation about its relation to the New World and its inhabitants for the next century. But, before considering later manifestations, some background on the subject will be useful. Vitoria’s cautiously expressed doubts about the intellectual capacity of the Indians were undoubtedly a concession to his old professor at the

University of Paris, Jean Mair. Mair was the first theologian to consider the question of the nature of the indigenous peoples of America. In his commentary on the second of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Mair had suggested that Christian rule in America could be

justified from the point of view of the nature of the peoples being conquered, instead of on the supposed juridical rights of the conquerors. And their nature, according to Mair, was that of the barbarian, which Aristotle in the Polztics had described as a “‘natural slave.”’

Aristotle’s (and Mair’s) barbarian was a member of the human race,

but he belonged to an intellectually deficient class unfit to live a civilized life and therefore dependent for guidance on those more capable. This image of the barbarian as an inferior incapable of selfrule dominated the discourse on the American Indian throughout the sixteenth century.'*

II As Spain approached half a century of dominion in the New World there were still difficult questions to be answered about the legal and moral implications of the conquest. In mid-August of 1550 a council was formed in Valladolid at the request of Charles V to formulate an opinion on the following question: Is it lawful for the King of Spain to

92 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

wage war on the Indians, before preaching the precepts of Christianity to them, in order to subject them to his rule, so that they may be more easily instructed in the Faith?’> Arguing in the afhrmative was

Juan Ginés de Sepulveda; Bartolomé de Las Casas presented the opposing view. Both men came to Valladolid well-prepared to defend

their arguments. Las Casas brought with him almost half a century of experience in working with the Indians in the New World and a hefty manuscript entitled Defense Against the Persecutors and Slanderers of the Peoples of the New World Discovered Across the Seas, which he

later read, word for word, to the council. Sepulveda presented a summary ofhis treatise Democrates secundus, in which he sought to prove

that wars against the natives were just, and even constituted a neces-

sary preliminary to their Christianization. He supported his arguments by attempting to demonstrate the rational incapacity of the Indians. For this he relied on the Aristotelian doctrine of natural slavery, which maintains that there are groups of human beings whose capacity to reason is limited by nature and who are therefore meant to be governed by those who are their natural superiors.'® According to Sepulveda, “*. . . siendo por naturaleza siervos, barbaros, incultos e

inhumanos, rechazan el imperio de los mas prudentes, poderosos y perfectos, el cual deben admitir para gran beneficio suyo, como es justo por aquella justicia natural, segtn la cual deben estar sometidos la materia a la forma, el cuerpo al alma, el apetito a la razon, los brutos animales al hombre, es decir, lo perfecto a lo imperfecto, lo peor a lo

| mejor.”’ [being slaves, barbarians, uncultured and inhuman by nature, they reject the dominion of those more prudent, powerful and perfect, when they should accept it as of great benefit to them, and as

just, because of that natural justice according to which matter 1s subjected to form, body to soul, appetite to reason, and brutish beasts to Man; in other words, that which is imperfect to what is perfect, that which is worse to what is better. |!” Thus, relying on a loose interpretation of the Aristotelian definition of the term “‘barbarian,”’ he concluded that the Indians were by nature inferior to the Spaniards and should be subjugated to their authority, by force if necessary. Las Casas, on the other hand, keyed in on the very loose way in which the term “‘barbarian”’ is used 1n the Democrates, and through a precise exegesis of the way in which Aristotle employs it in the Polttics, was able to conclude that there were actually three types of barbarians

according to the Aristotelian definition: those who were barbarous because of their savage behavior (a definition which he claimed also

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 93 applied to such “civilized’’ peoples as the Greeks and Romans, as well

as to the Spaniards who “‘have surpassed all other barbarians in the savagery of their behavior toward the Indians’’);'® those who were called barbarians because they had no written language, which Las Casas argued were barbarians only in a restricted sense and did not fall into the class that Aristotle described as natural slaves; and finally, there were those who were barbarians in the strict sense of the term, that is, people who lived without social or political organization. Las Casas described them as follows: Es la tercera especie y manera de barbaros tomandose el termino 0 vocablo estrecha y muy estrecha y propiamente, conviene a saber, los que por sus extrafias y asperas y malas costumbres, 0 por su mala y perversa inclinacion salen crueles y feroces, y extranios de los otros hombres y nose rigen por razon, antes son como estolidos o fantochados, ni tienen ni curan de ley ni derecho,

ni de pueblo, ni amistad ni conversacion de otros hombres, por lo cual no tienen lugares, ni ayuntamientos, ni ciudades, porque no viven socialmente, y asi no tienen ni sufren seniores, ni leyes, ni fueros, ni politico regimiento ni comunican en usar de las comunicaciones a la vida humana necesarias, como

son comprar, vender y trocar, alquilar y conducir, hacer compafila unos vecinos con otros... y por la mayor parte viven desparcidos por los montes huyendo de la conversacion humana, contentandose solamente con tener y traer consigo solas sus mujeres como hacen los animales. . .'° [The third kind and manner of barbarous people (taking the term or word narrowly — very narrowly and properly —), as is advisable to know, are those who, because of their strange and harsh and evil customs or because of their evil and perverse inclination, appear cruel and ferocious and alien from other men, and do not rule themselves by reason, appearing rather to be stupid and

puppet-like; neither do they have nor care for any law, right, nation, friendship, or the company of other men, because they have no towns, councils or cities, as they do not live socially; and so they neither have nor endure lords, or laws, or written codes, or political rule; nor are they joined by any use of the interchanges necessary to human life, such as buying, selling and bartering, renting and contracting, and keeping company among neighbors... and for the most part they live scattered among the hills, fleeing from

human company, content merely to have and bring with them only their women, as animals do. |

This third group, argued Las Casas, were the barbarians which Aristotle referred to as natural slaves “. . .porque son natural o accidentalmente siervos, por su extranez y bajo o mal uso de razon, por el cual distan mucho de los otros hombres y tienen necesidad de quien los rija y gobierne y reduzca a vivir como hombres...” [because they are slaves by nature or by chance, because of their strangeness and low or ill use of reason, for which they are very remote from

94. LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

other men and have need of someone who would rule and govern them and reduce them to living like men...’’]?° Las Casas went on to argue,

however, that these were a very small minority, while most of the Indians of the New World had very well-developed social and political organizations. Moreover, he proclaimed that to maintain that a large part of the people of the world were barbaric in the strict sense was to suggest a serious defect in God’s plan to save all mankind and contrary to the perfect functioning of His universe. Thus Las Casas referred to these “‘true barbarians”’ as freaks of nature, comparable to the physically or mentally handicapped, a very small exception to an otherwise perfect scheme which would lead in time to the communion of all peoples in the Christian faith and, finally, to universal salvation. The fourth category of barbarian, according to Las Casas, included

all those who had not received the Light of Grace, for without the grace of the Holy Spirit “‘ni la justicia, ni la prudencia en los romanos, nien turcos, ni en moros, nien otra gente que no tenga cognoscimiento

del verdadero Dios, justicia ni prudencia, ni virtud alguna es...” [neither justice nor prudence, among Romans, or Turks, or Moors, or any other peoples who have no knowledge of the True God, can any justice or prudence or virtue whatsoever be... |?! These barbarians by way of infidelity were in turn subdivided into those who did not harm the Church and those who willfully and with malice attacked it. Las Casas concluded that only against the latter does Christendom have a right to wage war. His defense of the Indians of the New World, then, is ultimately based on the premise that they are not natural slaves, by

Aristotle’s definition as Sepulveda insisted, since they fit only the second ‘“‘barbarians in language” and the fourth “barbarians in peaceful infidelity”’ categories.

Both the Defense and later the monumental Apologética historia sumaria rely on an exhaustive description of the Amerindian cultures to refute the arguments presented by Sepulveda (and subscribed to by the royal chronicler Fernandez de Oviedo, whom Las Casas called a deadly enemy of the Indians) in support of their natural inferiority. A

large part of the Defense is devoted to demonstrating that they had “kingdoms, royal dignities, jurisdiction, and good laws and there 1s among them lawful government.’’?? But the Defense is primarily a legal

treatise which relies heavily on ground broken by Vitoria in the De

indis. It addresses the question of just war as formulated by the Council of Fourteen and concludes with the specifically juridical determination that neither the Spaniards nor the Church have any

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 95 jurisdiction over the natives of the New World. Once this has been established the issue of war is resolved with the following syllogism: ‘All punishment presupposes jurisdiction over the person receiving it,

but the Spaniards enjoy no jurisdiction over the Indians, and hence they cannot punish them.’’?* Lewis Hanke has shown that the Defense and the Apologética historia

sumaria (¢.1559) are closely related insofar as the latter develops the former’s basic themes in much greater breadth and detail.?* There is a basic conceptual difference, however, between the two works. The Apologética addresses the specific problem of the nature of the American Indian leaving behind the juridical framework of the Defense.

O’Gorman, in the excellent introduction to his edition of the Apologética, points out the essentially theoretical nature of the text.” And, in fact, if one looks closely at the preface, or argumento, one can see that, like Garcilaso’s Comentarios reales, the Apologética was conceived as

a corrective history whose primary purpose Las Casas describes as follows: ‘‘La causa final de escrebilla fue dar a cognoscer a todas y tan

infinitas naciones deste vastisimo orbe infamadas por algunos...” [ The final cause of writing this was to make known all the infinite races of this immense world which have been defamed by certain persons. ]*°

In order to make these people “‘known” he relied on the Aristotelian formulation of the conditions necessary for a rational life which are

based on the actualization of three types of prudence: monastic, economic, and political. Las Casas then proceeded to demonstrate the full rational capacity of the natives of the New World in each of these areas. Thus the Apologética should be read as a descriptive work, but

also as a monumental enterprise of interpretation and assimilation. Las Casas’ expression, “dar a conocer’”’ brings into play the full semantic range of its Latin root — cognoscere: to become acquainted with, to get to know, and to learn. An analysis of the conceptual tools

which Las Casas utilizes in his reinterpretation of the Amerindian civilizations will allow us to isolate those areas of indigenous culture which were considered most problematic, which in turn will help us to better understand Garcilaso’s discursive strategies in the Comentarios reales.

Sepulveda’s arguments in the Democrates in support of the wars against the natives of the New World focused on two areas of Amerindian culture: the nature of their public institutions as a reflection of their political inferiority and their spiritual and moral inferiority as manifested in their religious practices.?”? Sepulveda’s mode of argu-

96 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

mentation, however, strongly emphasized the legal considerations while his interpretation of the indigenous cultures suffers from the all too obvious weaknesses of lack of supporting evidence and the corroboration of authoritative sources, a particularly significant omission

in this case since Sepulveda himself had no firsthand experience in American matters. Asa result his pronouncements on the nature of the Indians often had little substance and sounded like simple reformulations of the common prejudices of his time. Las Casas responded to the charges made by his opponent relying on personal experience to establish his authority, but in the Defense the legal framework of the debate restricted the focus of his argument. In the Apologética, however, he attacked the weakest point of Sepulveda’s

argument by constructing an interpretative model of Amerindian culture based on the Aristotelian concept of human nature, supported

by an exhaustive description of the lands and peoples of the New World and set into a Christian universalist historical framework. Utilizing the Aristotelian model, Las Casas argued that a human being with full rational capacity exercised three types of prudence: monastic, the ability to use natural reason in order to procure individual well-being and the necessities of life; economic, the ability to form a family and provide for its needs; and political, the ability to constitute and maintain a thriving community or state by means of laws and customs which are expedient to the public welfare. He then proceeded

to demonstrate that the Indians were fully rational members of the human race, as could be seen in the products of their cultures, and particularly in their political and religious organization. To strength-

en his arguments he also resorted to a comparative format that allowed him to evaluate Amerindian cultures against the background of pagan antiquity. The Afologética opens with a description of the American physical

environment in order to demonstrate that it meets all the requirements for supporting biologically rational beings. Las Casas then proceeds to argue that the natives of the New World are not only potentially rational, but that they are also actually rational. Thus, against Sepulveda’s contention of exclusively supernatural equality which then manifested itself in varying degrees in nature, Las Casas’

aim was to show that the American Indians also actualized full rationality historically, in their political and religious institutions and other cultural practices. If the points of Septlveda’s attack are consolidated one finds that

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 97 they constitute two basic categories: the religious and the political, reflecting the Thomistic distinction between the natural and supernatural domains. With the aid of the Aristotelian model, Las Casas is then able to break these down further into analyzable components,

which allows him to enter into greater detail and facilitates the systematization required for the comparison between Old and New World pagan cultures. But the methodological expediency of the format does not obscure the general lines of the argument which demarcate two great orders, the secular and the divine.

Las Casas’ discussion of the Indians’ full rational capacity as manifested in their secular institutions concentrates on the political organization of New World civilizations and their historical efficacy. We will focus on those sections of the Apologética which pertain to Inca civilization to facilitate comparison with the Comentarios reales. In Las

Casas’ interpretation Tahuantinsuyu represents a stage in the intellectual and spiritual development of the natives of Peru toward the ultimate Christian goal — salvation. Therefore, he separates the history of pre-Hispanic Peru into two periods: the pre-Incan period, during which primitive tribes lived with relatively little political or religious organization, and the period during which the Inca Empire flourished, which lasted until the arrival of Pizarro. The difference between these two epochs, as described by Las Casas, has to do primarily with degrees of political consolidation and organization. [he first period comprised a group of autonomous citystates which manifested all the characteristics of natural reason in their customs as well as their political institutions. Into this plurality of communities the Incas introduced uniformity through the creation of laws and institutions designed for the common good. Although Las

Casas narrates the beginnings of the Inca line as if it were like any

other ruling family of the first period, he singles out the ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui as the turning point in the development of

Inca civilization. Accordingly, he tells the reader that his name signifies ‘‘the king who changed the world, worthy of much love and reverence,” and a brief history of his rise to power is given. Pachacuti,

youngest son of Viracocha Inca, had tried to convince his father and relatives to stand and face a huge invading army because, Las Casas explains, the Sun had appeared to him in a dream and guaran-

teed victory to the Incas. However, Viracocha would not believe his son and deserted the city. Pachacuti then rallied the Inca army and led it into battle. ‘The success of the campaign against such

98 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

formidable enemy forces and the desertion of the reigning Inca won the throne for Pachacuti, and it was said that the Sun had turned the stones of the battlefield into soldiers to aid him in his victory. Las Casas presents Pachacuti as the paradigm ofa just and charitable ruler, in a descriptive style with strong Christian overtones: Nosin causa fue aqueste tan piadoso principe de todos sus reinos muy amado, porque aunque carecia de lumbre de fe. .. no le faltaba piedad y compasion natural de hombre compasivo y humano para con los pobres y necesitados, ni providencia y cuidado real de bueno y virtuosisimo principe, proveyendo a las necesidades extremas y ordinarias de sus indigentes vasallos. ‘Todos a una boca, indios y religiosos y seglares, nuestros espafioles cristianos afirman ser

este principe amicisimo y avidisimo de proveer las necesidades de los

| pobres.”®

[Not without cause was this most pious prince much loved by all his kingdoms, for although he lacked the light of faith . . . he was not lacking in the piety and natural compassion which a humane and compassionate man has for those who are poor and in need; nor did he lack the royal concern and providence of a good and most virtuous prince, providing for the ordinary as well as the utmost needs of his indigent vassals. With one voice, Indians and men ofreligion and laymen alike, all our Spanish Christians affirm this prince to be most friendly and anxious to provide for the needs of the poor. |

Through him Tahuantinsuyu acquires many of the characteristics of an ideal Christian state. The laws which Pachacuti enacted are shown to be equitable and his enforcement of them merciful. Even in war he was generous with the enemy, affording them every opportunity for peaceful submission and its rewards. Las Casas pays particular attention to the laws and customs which concern the treatment of the less fortunate members of the community. The reader is told that the King regularly invited them to eat at his table and that they were generously taken care of with staples from the royal storehouses. The actual choice of words in the following description of Pachacuti is striking: ‘““Hacia otra obra de benignidad real, ejemplar no sdélo de piadoso,

humilde principe y en gran manera humano pero de catolico, caritativo rey e cristiano, conviene a saber que no comia vez alguna que no mandase traer y pusiese a comer consigo tres or cuatro pobres muchachos 0 viejos de los primeros que por alli se hallaban, que no se lee mas de Sant Luis, rey de Francia.”’ [He would habitually perform another act of royal benignity, which was exemplary not only for a pious, humble and very humane prince, but also for a Catholic and charitable king and Christian; it is advisable to know: there was not a

single time when he ate that he did not order three or four poor children or old people from among those who should first be found

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 99 nearby, to be brought and directed to eat with him. No more 1s read about Saint Louis, king of France.]*® The picture painted by Las

| Casas not only leaves the rulers of pagan antiquity looking pale in comparison, but seems to be worded to shame the Christian monarchs as well, a point which 1s reminiscent of More’s Utopza, and which was echoed by Garcilaso in his philological exegesis of the names of the Incas in the Comentarios reales, as we saw earlier. These passages are representative of Las Casas’ arguments in support of the ethical and moral superiority of the Indians in the secular domain. However, there was still the thorny question of their idolatry. His treatment of this sensitive topic would be considered remarkably

open-minded even by modern standards. Las Casas divides human intellectual ability into two categories. All human beings, he argues, were given by their creator a natural intelligence which allows them to lead a fully rational existence. Through this natural intellective ability, which manifests itself in the three types of prudence outlined by Aristotle, every person recognizes that there 1s a God and is naturally inclined to serve Him: Es verdad luego que todos los hombres del mundo, por barbaros, incultos y silvestres y apartados en tierras o en islas y rincones del mundo que sean,

naturalmente por lumbre de la razén y del entendimiento agente, con un cognoscimiento confuso y universal, no claro ni distincto, sin tener lumbre de fe cognoscen que hay Dios.*°

[It is true, then, that, however barbarous, uncultured, uncivilized and isolated in secluded lands or on islands and 1n corners of the world they may be, all men, naturally and by the light of reason and active understanding, in

spite of a confused and universal knowledge, unclear and indistinct, and without having the Light of Grace, know that there is a God. | But natural reason leads only to the knowledge of the existence of God,

not of His nature, which is infinite and perfect and far exceeds the reach of the human intellect. For this reason the understanding of God

that can be achieved through natural reason is at best vague and confused. Only an intellect enlightened by Grace, a privilege made | possible by the advent of Christ through the Holy Spirit, can know the

true nature of God. | Idolatry, Las Casas argues, is the worship of false gods to which

natural reason moves all men who do not have the light of Grace. It does not violate natural law but rather confirms it, therefore it cannot be used as an argument in support of the rational inferiority of the natives of the New World. He then proceeds to demonstrate, through exhaustive comparisons, that the Indians often had a more sophisti-

100 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

cated theology and committed fewer errors in the practice of their idolatry than the pagan cultures of antiquity. He does this by analyzing the religious thought, institutions, and practices of his subjects in

their concrete manifestations: the nature of the individual deities, sacrifices, priesthood, and temples. The underlying assumption of this comparative approach is extremely simple — the natural wisdom or sophistication of the worshiper is reflected in the relative “nobility” or sophistication of the object of worship and the elaborateness of cult practices. Just as he had argued with regard to their secular institutions, Las Casas presents the Incas as having introduced a nobler form of religion

to the general Indian population of Peru. And once again he attributes this deed to the great Pachacuti, of whom he relates that upon taking the throne he began an inquest into the religious practices

of the tribes under Inca rule: Dandole cada uno cuenta de los dioses a quien servian y adoraban, dicen que de muchos de los dioses que le referian se reia y burlaba, dando a entender que aquellas cosas no eran dignas de ser dioses, y asi lo declaré, diciendo que era escarnio tener y adorar cosas tan bayas y viles por dioses, y que no las debian de reverenciar ni ofrecer sacrificios, pero que, por no darles pena, les

daba licencia que los tuviesen como antes los tenian, si quisiesen, con tal condici6n que sirviesen y reverenciasen por sumo y mayor dios que todos los dioses al sol. Porque decia él que el sol era la mejor cosa de todas y la que mas

bienes y provechos hacia a los hombres, por lo cual los hombres eran obligados a tenerlo y venerarlo mas que a otra cosa alguna por dios y senor.?! [As each one gave him an account of the gods they served and worshiped, it 1s said he laughed at and mocked many of the gods they referred to him, giving

them to understand that those things were not worthy of being gods, and thus he explained it, saying that it was a mockery to have and worship as gods such low and vile things, and that they shouldn’t revere them nor offer them sacrifices; but, so as not to cause them sorrow, he allowed them to keep

them as they had before, if they wanted, on the condition that they would serve and revere the Sun as the highest and greatest god ofall the gods. For he said that the Sun was the best of all things and the one that provided the most riches and benefits for men, because of which men were obliged to keep it and

venerate it more than any other thing as god and lord.] This passage presents several interesting points. First, one is impressed by the considerable religious tolerance of Pachacuti, which seems to

be an implicit comparison to and criticism of the Spaniards’ lack of it. But the gesture of allowing the Indians to keep their lesser gods while accepting the Sun as the highest and most worthy deity serves

a dual purpose in Las Casas’ interpretation for it implies strong monotheistic overtones in Inca theology. Indeed, this monotheistic

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 101 tendency coupled with the superior qualities of the Sun as an object of

worship, in contrast to the rusticity and plurality of the pre-Incan deities, form the base of the Apfologética’s central argument which maintains that the Indians were not only fully rational, but that they

demonstrated an even higher level of prudence than the pagan cultures of antiquity. The suggestion that the Incas were essentially monotheistic is further supported by Las Casas’ description of the god Condici (Con Ticci) Viracocha, which according to the friar’s translation of the name means “Maker of the World.” The Incas, he contends, offered their best sacrifices to this deity and considered the Sun to be his first and most important servant, as well as the one who communicated his desires to mankind. Las Casas thus gives an interesting interpretative twist to Inca worship of the solar deity for he implies that the Sun 1s revered only in its function as a physical manifestation of the attributes of the invisible god Condici Viracocha.*? Las Casas’ interpretation coincides perfectly on this point with traditional Christian symbolism, which frequently represented the Sun as the physical manifestation of God, the ultimate source of warmth and light. Although he mentions Saint Dionysius as the authority who corroborates the validity of the comparison, we might add that the tradition persisted in the fifteenth

century which saw Marsilio Ficino’s “De comparatione solis ad Deum” come to light.*? Garcilaso’s interpretation ofsolar worship and the deity Pachacamac discussed earlier, stem from the same tradition.

III By the end of the sixteenth century, then, two basic positions on the

question of the nature of the American Indian had coalesced: the “Sepulveda argument,” which presented the natives of the New World as morally and intellectually deficient barbarians who must be redeemed at any cost, including the use of force, since they lived in

blatant violation of natural and supernatural laws; and the “Las Casas position,’ which maintained that the Indians were fully rational human beings who exhibited a high degree of prudence and natural wisdom in their religious beliefs and political institutions. The

debate on the nature of the American Indians revolved around a central question: Were the natives of the New World fully rational human beings and therefore free to carry on without Spanish intervention, or were they morally and intellectually deficient barbarians

102 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

requiring Spanish tutorship, to be implemented by force if necessary?

The Sepulveda argument relied on a long-standing tradition for support which dated from Columbus’ first contact with the Tainos of the Caribbean whose simple and natural way of life the discoverer had described as childlike. The idyll had quickly soured, however, when Spanish exploitation began to be met with violent resistance. Indian inferiority quickly turned from childish innocence to savage barbarlanism in the writings of many chroniclers who sought to justify the military aspect of the conquest and the subsequent destruction of the indigenous civilizations. ‘The Las Casas position was shared primarily

by missionaries who looked on the martial aspects of conquest as detrimental to the evangelical process and the claim of Amerindian moral and intellectual inferiority as a challenge to the pedagogical premise of their mission.

At the end of the sixteenth century the polemic on the nature of the American Indians was polarized. The royal council which had presided over the Sepulveda—Las Casas debate was unable to reach a consensus and the basic question continued to be raised in chronicles, histories, treatises, and inquiries. In Peru the viceroy Toledo attempted to put an end to the King’s anxieties concerning the licitness of the

conquest. Troubled by his conscience and moved by Las Casas’ admonitions, Charles V had decreed that all new expeditions would cease until their legitimacy could be established.**

The Jesuit José de Acosta had attempted to stake out a sort of middle ground between the Las Casas and Sepulveda positions, arguing in his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) that the indigenous civilizations of Mexico and Peru showed a high degree of rational ability, sometimes even surpassing the great civilizations of classical antiquity. Like Las Casas, he insisted on the primacy of personal experience if one was to write authoritatively on the New World. He himself had lived among the Indians in both Mexico and Peru, where he had helped to found the first Jesuit reduction at Juli on Lake Titicaca.*> Thus, like Las Casas and unlike Sepulveda, Acosta had many years of experience working with the Indian communities

in America and had traveled widely enough to be able to make generalizations based on personal exposure to a variety of Amerindian cultures. Even so, the differences between Acosta’s writings on the American Indians and those of Las Casas were considerable. First of all, Acosta

avoided the inflammatory rhetorical style of his predecessor. Las Casas had experienced the genocide of the Indians of the Antilles

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 103 firsthand, as well as the ignorance and misinformation that were rampant among the authorities in Spain during the first decades of the discovery and conquest. His works were always at the service of the

campaign to bring the plight of the Indians to the attention of the Crown and to move the political apparatus to legislate in their favor. Las Casas was a committed man confronting an increasingly desperate situation, who envisioned his writings as a tool in the struggle to bring about radical changes in the way the conquest was carried out. Acosta, on the other hand, had come to America when the process of colonization was well underway and the bloody wars of conquest were

for the most part over. He saw his works as tools in the process of evangelization intended, as he states in his prologue, for the use of missionaries who would need to understand Amerindian culture in order to carry out their evangelical efforts as productively as possible. Acosta wrote for his colleagues and his purpose was to inform them

about things which had a direct bearing on their personal and professional experience. Las Casas wrote for his superiors, many of whom were ignorant and uninterested, and for whom the problems of America must have seemed extremely remote from their personal circumstances and professional ambitions. The fundamental questions that separate Acosta and Las Casas are not so much rhetorical as ideological, however. On religious matters Acosta’s position was closer to Septlveda’s than to that of Las Casas. In “De procuranda indorum salute,” a treatise he wrote in Lima in 1577 and published in Seville in 1588, Acosta presents the theoretical underpinnings of his arguments in the Historza. Like Las Casas, Acosta

disagreed with the theory of natural slavery. He believed that all human beings, no matter where they might be on the intellectual ladder, were capable of achieving full rationality with time. But, his opinion of the state of the Indian mind at the time of the arrival of the

Spaniards was much lower than that of Las Casas. In spite of the praise he expressed for certain aspects of Inca and Mexica culture, his opinions of their moral and intellectual development were ultimately inseparable. Pagden has shown that Acosta’s ideas on the nature of the Amerindian mind owe much to traditional Aristotelian psychology, which maintained that the human intellect was conditioned by the patterns of social expectations impressed by the community on the growing child.°° The basic acts ofreasoning were governed by natural congenital ability, but most behavior depended on the force of custom. ‘Thus, while the American Indians were ultimately as capable as Europeans

104 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

of full rationality, their moral and intellectual environment was so inferior that it doomed them to leading the lowest of lives. Only intervention from those who were fully developed intellectually and morally could demonstrate to the Indians the folly of their ways and begin to lead them away from their barbarous customs. In the sixteenth century religion was viewed as an integral part of

any social activity. Every value judgment made by a European regarding the indigenous cultures was bound to be tied to an evaluation of their religious practices. ‘Neither in war nor in peace,” wrote

Acosta,”’ nor in rest nor at labour, neither in the public nor in the private life, nothing are [the Indians] capable of doing unless it 1s first preceded by the superstitious cult of their idols.’*’ We have already seen the high esteem in which Las Casas held Inca theology. His views on Amerindian religions are perhaps the most liberal of any Christian

writer of the period. Certainly the tolerance of his views on human sacrifice was unequaled in his century or later. Acosta, however, considered every form of paganism to be inspired by the devil. He acknowledged that within idolatry there were different levels of sophistication, the worship of natural phenomena, the worship of animals, and the worship of anthropomorphic idols, but he considered the more developed forms to be an even greater affront to the true Christian God. Acosta’s definition of idolatry is based on the Christian conception

of the relationship between God and Satan. The Bible explains Satan’s fall as the result of his envy of God and his attempt to usurp His position. For Acosta idolatry was the historical manifestation in the world of Satan’s relentless antagonism toward God. Pagan

forms of worship and ideas about the creator were the result of the devil’s tricking the idolater into worshiping him instead of God. {dolatrous forms of worship therefore reflected the foul nature of

he who had inspired them: “porque siendo el maestro de toda la infidelidad el principe de las tinieblas, no es cosa nueva hallar en los infieles crueldades, inmundicias, disparates y locuras propias de tal ensenanza y escuela...” [for the Prince of darkness being the master of

all infidelity, it is nothing new to find among infidels such cruelties, filthiness, nonsense and follies as befit his teaching and example. ]** The specific observations Acosta makes about Amerindian religions based on the theory of the satanical origins of idolatry were extremely damaging. First of all, they confirmed, in well-documented and rationalized fashion, the views Sepulveda had presented some-

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 105 what hysterically a few decades earlier. Acosta concluded in the Historia, for example, that the Indians had “some knowledge”’ of God, but his qualifications devalued the concept to the point of rendering it worthless in Christian eyes. The Indians, he argued, did not even have

a word which meant “God.” While all the peoples of classical antiquity and even the Arabs had such a name, neither Quechua nor Nahuatl had such a term. Based on this linguistic evidence, he concluded, “‘De donde se ve cuan corta y flaca noticia tenian de Dios, pues

aun nombrarle no saben sino por nuestro vocablo.”’ [“‘One can see how limited and feeble their knowledge of God must have been, since they do not even know how to name Him without using our [Spanish]

word.’9] The vision of Amerindian religions presented in the Astoria was ultimately more dangerous than Sepulveda’s had been, for it relates all forms of paganism to the greatest evil a Christian could conceive of — the devil. Acosta attributed even those aspects of indigenous religious practices which had been lauded for their similarity to Christian rites to Satan’s envy, which moved him to mimick forms of

worship reserved for the true God.*° Acosta’s ideas on idolatry affected all of the social activities of

the Amerindian communities. In the prologue to the second part of the Historra he qualified his praise for the American civilizations with the following observation, “bien que en el valor y saber natural excedieron mucho los antiguous gentiles a estos del Nuevo Orbe, aunque también se toparon en éstos, cosas dignas de memoria; pero en fin, lo mas es como de gentes barbaras que fuera de la luz sobrenatural, les falté también la flosofta y doctrina natural” (my emphasis) [although the

ancient gentiles far surpassed these of the New World in valor and natural knowlege, nevertheless we have discovered among the latter many things worthy of remembrance: but ultimately, they are for the most part barbaric people who, having been deprived of supernatural light, have also lacked philosophy and natural knowledge. |*' In this passage Acosta

establishes a link between the pagans’ ignorance in supernatural matters and their intellectual limitations in general. The source for this idea is clearly Saint Augustine’s conception of the dependency of reason on Faith in the quest for truth. Reason, Augustine had argued; left to itselfis blind. It owes its light to faith.4? ‘Thus, the image of the barbarian that arises from the Histortais ofa morally and intellectually inferior being who 1s potentially the equal of the Christian European, but who must be helped and guided to overcome his wretched views and customs. For Acosta idolatry is not just a theological error, but a

106 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

perverted way of life: ““Ilaman paz vivir en tantos y tan graves males, como es sacrificar sus propios hijos, o hacer otros sacrificios 0 cultos, o velar toda la noche haciendo cosas de locos; y asi ni guardan limpieza en su vida nl en sus matrimonios, sino que éste de invidia, quita al otro la vida, este otro le quita la mujer, y él, contento, y todo anda revuelto; sangre, muerte, hurtos, enganos, corrupcion, infidelidad, alborotos,

perjuicios, motines, olvido de Dios, contaminar las almas, trocar el sexo y nacimiento, mudar los matrimonios, desorden de adulterios y suciedades, porque toda la tdolatria es un abismo de todos los males’ (my

emphasis) [They call it peace to hive among such great evils, such as sacrificing their own children, or performing other forms of worship or sacrifices, or keeping watch an entire night while doing foolish acts; and so they observe no cleanliness in their life, nor in their marriages; instead, one through envy takes away the life of another, someone else

takes another man’s wife and it matters to him not, and so all is confusion, blood, murder, theft, deceit, corruption, infidelity, uproar, damage, mutiny, God is forgotten, souls corrupted, sexes and birth mistaken, marriages broken, and there is a confusion of adultery and foul acts, because idolatry ts the abyss of all evil.|*

Acosta applies the term “barbarian” to the Indians of the New World in both the religious sense outlined by Las Casas (barbarians simply by virtue of infidelity) and the natural sense, differing from the Aristotelian definition subscribed to by Sepulveda only in his insistence on the full rational potentzal of the Indians. But we are constantly

reminded that that potential was far from being realized. It is clear

from the evangelical purpose of the work that Acosta was most concerned with the manifestation of this barbarism in the spiritual domain, because it was precisely from their “impious worship”’ that all other cruelties, follies and filthy behavior followed. Garcilaso’s familiarity with Las Casas’ ideas is well-documented. We know, for instance, that he met Las Casas in 1562. Moreover, there are two lengthy references to the friar, one in the Comentarios reales and the other in the Historia general del Perti, which indicate that he was acquainted with his works.** We also know that Garcilaso

had at one point owned a copy of the Las Casas treatises, as a note made by a subsequent owner in the margin of the book testifies. Although there is no explicit textual or bibliographical evidence to substantiate Garcilaso’s familiarity with Septlveda’s work, his interest in the Las Casas texts guarantees at least a secondhand knowledge of Sepulveda’s arguments.

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 107 Acosta’s Historia, on the other hand, 1s present on many pages of the

Comentarwos reales..Garcilaso cites it frequently as a corroborative

source. It 1s, however, a problematic case which deserves to be carefully examined. The Historia was a work the Inca could not have ignored, because of its general popularity, its prestige in Jesuit intellectual circles, and finally because its scope and purpose coincided with his own interests. At the end of the sixteenth century, Acosta’s history was the most widely read book on the New World. By 1604 — only fourteen years after its appearance — it had already gone through

several editions in Latin and Spanish and had been translated into Italian, German, Dutch, French, and English. It is not difficult to imagine that it must have been a favorite topic of conversation among Garcilaso’s Jesuit friends in Cérdoba, who were undoubtedly aware that he himself was in the process of writing two histories dealing with America, La florida and the Comentarios reales de los incas. It is clear, both from the textual evidence and Garcilaso’s personal and intellectual circumstances, that he had the Mistoria constantly on his mind while he was writing the Comentarios reales. Yet on examina-

tion one finds that the pattern of citations and references actually distorts Acosta’s work almost to the point of unrecognizability. This is for the most part due to the fact that all the explicit references to the Mstoria are presented as supporting evidence for Garcilaso’s praises of

Inca culture. Taken out of their original context, they create the illusion that Acosta’s work actually presented a highly favorable vision of the Amerindian. They are so carefully selected to coincide

with Garcilaso’s own views that, were we to judge solely on the evidence of these citations, we would be obliged to conclude that the Comentarios reales was an epigonic work that offered no new perspectives on the nature of the Amerindian beyond providing more details to corroborate Acosta’s supposed vision of indigenous history and

culture. This impression is further heightened by the reverential posture the narrative voice assumes with respect to the figure of Acosta, who is repeatedly referred to as ‘‘father and master.’ Yet the Fistoria, as we have seen, presented an often negative image of the American Indian; indeed was especially critical of Inca and Mexica religious practices. How can we explain, then, the apparent contradictions between Garcilaso’s intentions in the Comentarios reales and the

uniquely prominent position Acosta’s work assumes in the text?*

The answer to this and other problems of intertextuality lies in looking at the presence of any given text in the host text both as a

108 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

matter of content and of rhetorical function. ‘The apparently contradictory presence of the Historia in the Comentarios reales 1s a good starting point to begin to understand the complexity and acuteness of Garcilaso’s intertextual strategies. Let us consider first the acolytic treatment given the figure of Acosta as a rhetorical element with a specific textual function, as well as an expression of the author’s ideas

or opinions. As a general rule, competing works are cited in the Comentarios reales as corroborative sources. Direct criticism is avoided

in favor of an implicit critical or corrective dimension that is actualized dialogically. This strategy dictates that an intertext’s authoritative value is generally to be preferred over confronting it critically. It is

directed at an educated audience who would be familiar with the contexts of the argument, and presented with impeccable discursive modesty and politeness. ‘The Comentarios reales is a work rhetorically designed to persuade and convince, and every effort is made to avoid offending or antagonizing the reader. Thus, the presence of Acosta’s

text appears contradictory only because of the lack of a critical dimension on the textual surface. Looked at from a dialogical perspective, one finds that there is a unique interaction between the intertext’s explicit corroborative role and its function within the implicit corrective dimension of Garcilaso’s discourse.

IV

The discussion on the nature of the American Indians and the historico-juridical implications of the conquest had well-defined co-

ordinates by the end of the sixteenth century, but there had been no real resolution of the irreconcilable positions represented by _ Septlveda and Las Casas. In theory the Crown seemed to favor the Las Casas position. It had repressed the publication of Sepulveda’s Democrates secundus and suppressd Sarmiento de Gamboa’s defamatory

history of the Incas which, though completed in 1572, was not published until 1906. In practice, however, a combination of juridical

indecisiveness, an inability to enforce well-intentioned legislation, and benign neglect prevailed. The Crown’s tepid response to Toledo’s unjustifiable execution of Tupac Amaru, the last legitimate heir to the Inca throne, was perhaps the most dramatic in a long series of crimes committed against the vanquished rulers of Tahuantinsuyu typical of

the inconsistencies between Spanish imperial theory and practice throughout the sixteenth century. Although it has been suggested that

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 109 Garcilaso’s entrance into this polemic was somewhat tardy, it was scarcely untimely. When Garcilaso began to write his account of Inca

history and culture in the waning years of that century the vital questions which had given rise to the Las Casas/Sepulveda confrontation had yet to be answered. ‘The fundamental oppositions — Indian/

European, pagan/Christian, New World/Old World — that resulted from that debate awaited reconciliation.

In order to understand the essentially critical posture that the Comentarios reales assumes with respect to the body of discourse on the

nature of the American Indians we must look first of all at the way in which the pivotal concept of “barbarian” is treated by Garcilaso. Like Aristotle, Sepulveda had argued that barbarians were born naturally and irremediably inferior. ‘The idea of natural slavery as presented in the Politics and echoed in the Democrates implied an inherent deficiency

in a substantial portion of the human population. Aristotle had explained this deficiency as the result of an imbalance, as it were, in the constitution of the afflicted individual that tipped the scales in favor of the physical or “inferior” component of human nature to the detriment of the spiritual or intellective component. In the natural slave the physical aspect predominated while in the “superior” 1ndividual or master of slaves the intellective spirit was ascendant. Las Casas counter-argued that tocontend thatasignificant portion | of humanity was deficient, inferior, and incapable of leading a fully human existence was to suggest an essential flaw in God’s perfect universe. The term “barbarian,”’ he proposed, in its definition as a morally and intellectually inferior human being was applicable only to a very small number of “handicapped” individuals who, moreover, could just as easily be Europeans as Indians. In any case, Las Casas argued, they were the exception and not the rule within a given group. Acosta staked out a middle ground in his definition of the barbarian. He agreed with the view that barbarians were morally and intellectually deficient, but he refused to see them as a separate class of human being. Both he and Las Casas subscribed to a Christian universalist view of the human race in which every person was considered equal in

the eyes of God and was endowed with the same natural ability to achieve salvation. Acosta argued, however, that each group was not necessarily at the same stage on the ladder to Christian perfection. The barbarian, although zn potentia the equal of the European, was in actuality at an inferior stage of intellectual and moral development. Moreover, all barbarians were not at the same stage of development.

110 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

Even from superficial observation it was obvious that the Inca and Mexica cultures were considerably more advanced than, say, the Arawaks of the Antilles. The Historia provided two essential tools for Garcilaso’s own inter-

pretation of Inca history and culture: the idea that barbarism was a relative category, that by examining their political institutions, religious practices, and linguistic abilities cultures could be graded for their degree of barbarism or civility and, that any pronouncement about the nature of the American Indians must be rooted in hard evidence, preferably from firsthand experience. In these areas the Fistorra broke new ground and provided an essential context for Garcilaso’s work. Acosta’s hypothesis that the Indians were descend_ed from Asiatic peoples who had migrated to America across what is now the Bering Strait provided a universal historical framework for the Amerindian past to complement the theoretical Christian universalist explanation of their nature. The New World, Garcilaso argued, was ““‘new’”’ only in the relative sense that the Europeans had recently

discovered its existence. But in fact America was, and always had been, an integral part of human history. Within this universalist framework Garcilaso situates the Incas ona

graduated scale which privileges their position with respect to the other indigenous cultures, but his concept of the barbarian 1s tied to a providentialist view of human history in which the divine will is the agent of all significant historical change or, in Augustine’s phrase, an operatio Dei in time. Hence, the degree of civility or barbarism of any given group 1s explained by divine intervention. The privileged po-

sition of certain groups in the intellectual and moral development toward salvation is conceived of as a palpable act of grace. The specific form this view of Amerindian development assumes in the Comentarios reales is the historically precise demarcation of two distinct periods in the pre-Hispanic history of Peru. The First Age is characterized by extreme forms of moral and intellectual barbarism,

the Incan Second Age by the flourishing of natural reason. This bipartite division of Amerindian history in Peru is indispensable to Garcilaso’s corrective reinterpretation of Inca culture, for it allows him to argue that the inability to distinguish between the customs of the primitive pre-Incan period and those of the Incas was at the root of

many of the interpretative errors committed by the Spaniards’. As a result, his descriptions of the pre-Incan tribes in the opening chapters of the Comentarios reales echo the litany of charges leveled by

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS II! Sepulveda against the Indians. Garcilaso, however, not only repeats but transforms Sepulveda’s text. Pagden’s acute observation that the Democrates was explicitly a work of literature, an exercise in the art of eloquence or verbal persuasion, seems to be borne out by Garcilaso’s use of it in the Comentarios reales*® His treatment of the Sepulveda model is not so much conceptual as it is rhetorical in nature. Through the rhetorical device of amplification*’ he develops the semantic possibilities in the Democrates’ skeletal catalog of iniquities, bringing to

life for the reader, through a baroque proliferation, the barbaric customs of the Indians of the First Age: Conforme a la vileza y bajeza de sus dioses eran también la crueldad y barbaridad de los sacrificios de aquella antigua idolatria, pues sin las demas cosas comunes, como animales y mieses, sacrificaban hombres y mujeres de todas edades, de los que cautivaban en las guerras que unos a otros se hacian. Y en algunas naciones fue tan inhumana esta crueldad, que exedié a la de las fieras, porque lleg6 a no contentarse con sacrificar los enemigos cautivos, sino sus propios hijos en tales o tales necesidades. La manera de este sacrificio de

hombres y mujeres, muchachos y nifos, era que vivos les abrian por los pechos y sacaban el corazon con los pulmones, y con la sangre de ellos, antes que se enfriase, rociaban el idolo que tal sacrificio mandaba hacer, y luego, en | los mismos pulmones y corazon, miraban sus agiieros para ver si el sacrificio habia sido aceptado o no, y, que lo hubiese sido o no, quemaban, en ofrenda para el idolo, el coraz6n y los pulmones hasta consumirlos, y comian al indio sacrificado con grandisimo gusto y sabor y no menos fiesta y regocijo, aunque

fuese su propio hijo. (Bk 1, ch. 11) [The cruelty and barbarity of the sacrifices of that ancient idolatry were of a piece with the vileness and crudity of its gods. For in addition to ordinary things such as animals and the fruits of the earth, they sacrificed men and women of all ages taken captive in the wars they waged on one another. Among some tribes their inhuman cruelty exceeded that of wild beasts. Not satisfied with sacrificing their captured foes, in case of need they offered up their own children. They performed these sacrifices of men and women, lads and children by opening their breasts while they were still alive and plucking out their hearts and lungs. The idol that had bidden the sacrifice was then sprinkled with the still-warm blood, after which the same heart and lungs were examined for omens to show if the sacrifice had been acceptable or not. In either case the heart and lungs were burnt as an offering before the idol until they were consumed, and the victim of the sacrifice was eaten with the greatest pleasure and relish, and not the less merrymaking and rejoicing,

even though it might have been their own child.] (Livermore, 1, p. 33)

This passage on the religious rites of the tribes of the First Age amplifies the Septlveda syntagma which condemned the “impia religion y nefandos sacrificios” of the Indians. But Sepulveda’s accusations pale in comparison to the graphic descriptions of the carnage of

112 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

the human sacrifices presented in the Comentarios reales. Garcilaso intensifies the horror by providing a wealth of detail aimed at soliciting a strong subjective response from the reader. Even the grammatical construction of the sentences in this passage reflect the rhetorical process of multiplication and amplification which Garcilaso employs in his depiction of the barbarian tribes of the First Age. The key nouns,

or what one could call the dramatic focal points of the passage, are invariably expressed in pairs — vileza y bajeza, crueldad y barbaridad, animales y mieses, hombres y mujeres, muchachos y nifios, pulmones y corazon, gusto y sabor, fiesta y regocijo, etc., serving to intensify the reader’s sense of horror and revulsion. The multiplication of subordi-

nate clauses which serves to amplify the semantic kernel of each sentence also contributes to overwhelming the reader with a baroque proliferation of variants on a constant theme which rises in a crescendo of iniquities and peaks in a lusty feast of cannibalism, whose horrific effect is intensified by the suggestion of an occasional infanticide. The relation between Garcilaso’s description of the barbarians of the First Age and Sepulveda’s depiction is not limited to amplifying

the model, however. Ultimately the critical transformation performed on the Democrates syntagma is one of neutralization, and significantly is achieved by introducing the philological element that invariably spearheads the rhetorical strategy in the Comentarios reales. It is as if Garcilaso had taken the greatest possible relish in inflating

Sepulveda’s balloon in order that it might pop all the more loudly when he stuck his philological pin into it. Of course, he admits, it is

true that at one time the Indians of Peru had practiced terrible iniquities but the Spaniards had made a fundamental chronological error in their accounts of indigenous history. Because they did not

understand the language of the Indians, they had confounded the pre-Incan and Incan periods, attributing to the Incas the vile practices which they had in fact eradicated. Thus, what undermines Sepulveda’s accusations in the Democrates is grammatical imprecision —

the use of the present instead of the past tense in his description of indigenous barbarism. With one philological stroke Garcilaso neutralizes Sepulveda’s charges concerning the barbaric religious practices of the Indians, at least with respect to the Incas. The historically precise demarcation of two distinct periods in the pre-Hispanic history of Peru — a barbarous First Age and a civilized Incan Second Age characterized by the flourishing ofnatural reason —

is a sine gua non to Garcilaso’s reinterpretation of Inca history and

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 113 culture. This demarcation of two distinct periods in Peruvian history also sets the stage for the dramatic introduction of Inca civilization in the Comentarios reales. After devoting seven chapters to a minute

elaboration of the deficiencies of the pre-Incans in every area of human endeavor, with particular attention to the iniquitous and anarchic character of their social and religious practices, Garcilaso’s

abrupt presentation of the arrival of the first Inca Manco Capac makes a striking contrast: Viviendo y muriendo aquellas gentes de la manera que hemos visto, permiti6

Dios Nuestro Senor que dellos mismos saliesse un luzero del alva que en aquellas escurissimas tinieblas les diesse alguna noticia de la ley natural y de la urbanidad y respetos que los hombres devian tenerse unos a otros, y que los descendientes de aquél, procediendo de bien en mejor, cultivassen aquellas

cualquiera dotrina... (I, 15) fieras y las convirtiessen en hombres, haziéndoles capaces de razon y de

[While these people were living or dying in the manner we have seen, it pleased our Lord God that from their midst there should appear a morning star to give them in the dense darkness in which they dwelt some glimmerings ofnatural law, of civilization, and of the respect men owe to one another. The descendants of this leader should thus tame those savages and convert them

into men, made capable of reason and of receiving good doctrine. ] (Livermore, I, p. 40)

The strong messianic overtones of this passage would have been readily evident to his intended audience. The use of traditional Christian symbolism associated with the advent of Christ dramatizes the radical break with the barbaric past represented by the ascendan-

cy of the Incas. ““Luzero del alva,” morning star, clearly refers to Manco who, according to Garcilaso, was sent by God to the Indians to bring them out of the darkness of irrationality into the light of natural

reason. Thus Garcilaso attributes to Inca civilization a privileged position in Peruvian history which, and this is of central importance, was divinely ordained. The significance of Manco Capac’s civilizing influence on the inhabitants of Peru in preparation for their eventual Christianization by the Spaniards is underscored in the continuation of the passage cited above: ... para que cuando esse mismo Dios, sol de justicia, tuviesse por bien enbiar la luz de sus divinos rayos a aquellos idélatras, los hallasse, no tan salvajes, sino mas dociles para recebir la fe catélica y la ensefianza y dotrina de nuestra

Sancta Madre Iglesia Romana . . . que por esperiencia muy clara se ha notado cuanto mas promptos y agiles estavan para recebir el Evangelio los indios que los Reyes Incas sujetaron, governaron y ensefiaron, que no las demas naciones comarcanas, donde aun no havia Ilegado la ensefianza de los

114 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

Incas, muchas de las cuales estan hoy tan barbaras y brutas como antes estavan, con haver setenta anos que los espafiolesentraronenel Pera. (1, 15) [...so that when God, whois the sun of justice, saw fit to send forth the light of His divine rays upon those idolaters, it might find them no longer in their first

savagery, but rendered more docile to receive the Catholic faith and the teaching and doctrine of our Holy Mother the Roman church... It has been observed by clear experience how much prompter and quicker to receive the

gospel were the Indians subdued, governed, and taught by the Inca kings than the other neighboring peoples unreached by the Incas’ teachings, many of which are still today as savage and brutish as before, despite the fact that the Spaniards have been in Peru seventy years. | (Livermore, I, p. 40)

The messianic role that Garcilaso attributes to Manco Capac and to his descendants confirms Septlveda’s contentions about the barbarianism of the Indians, but offers an important emendation: only those who were not touched by the civilizing rule of the Incas could be

considered barbarous. This providentialist interpretation of Inca

history posits Tahuantinsuyu in the divinely ordained role of praeparatio evangelica.*® The importance of Inca civilization to the eventual evangelization of Peru is further underlined by the difficulties encountered by the Spanish missionaries when they attempted to promulgate the Christian faith in territories outside the limits of the

Inca Empire. The tribes which had not been touched by the Incan light of natural reason still remained barbarous and resistant to Christian doctrine even seventy years after the Spaniards entered Peru. Conversely, because of the near perfection of Inca institutions in the natural domain the Indians who lived under Inca rule were better prepared for and more easily accepted the Christian faith. His observations concerning the general language spoken by the Indians and imposed by the Incas are a case in point. He praises Quechua first for

its linguistic excellence, and then as an indispensable tool in the process of evangelization: Otras muchas cosas tiene aquella lengua diferentissimas de la castellana, italiana y latina; las cuales notaran los mestizos y criollos curiosos, pues son de su lenguaje, que yo harto hago en senalarles desde Espafia los principios de su lengua para que la sustenten en su pureza, que cierto es lastima que se pierda

o corrompa, siendo una lengua tan galana, en la cual han trabajado mucho, los Padres de la Sancta Compania de Jesus (como las demas religiones) para saberla bien hablar y con su buen ejemplo (que es lo que mas importa) han aprovechado mucho en la doctrina de los indios. (“‘Acerca de la lengua general del Peru’’) [In many other respects the language differs from Castilian, Italian, and Latin. These points will be noted by learned mestizos and creoles, since the

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 115 language is their own. For my part, it is sufficient to point out for them from Spain the principles of their language, so that they may maintain its purity, for it is certainly a great pity that so elegant a language should be lost or spoilt, especially as the fathers of the Holy Society of Jesus, as well as those of other orders, have worked a great deal at it so as to speak it well, and have greatly benefited the instruction of the Indians by their good example, which is what

matters most. | (Livermore, I, p. 6) Las Casas too ascribed to the Incas a privileged position in the

history of Peru, but his attack on the Sepulveda position was based on

a rejection of the idea that an entire people could be naturally deficient because it implied an imperfection or flaw in the divine plan. In the Afologética, therefore, Inca civilization is presented as a counterexample to Sepulveda’s accusations, serving to undermine the generalized premise of the Democrates’ argument — that the Indians of the

New World were all natural slaves according to the Aristotelian definition. The Inca example was for Las Casas a particularly felicitous case of the natural capacity with which all of the Indians of the New World had been endowed. Garcilaso’s interpretation of Inca history in the Comentarios reales follows the model provided by the Apologética, but offers a number of significant alterations. As we have seen, Las Casas also postulated two periods in the history of pre-Hispanic Peru. Consistent with his basic

premise that an entire people could not be inferior or deficient, however, he described the difference between these two epochs as one of degree of sophistication. The peoples of both periods lived according to the laws of natural reason, but the Incas had become particularly successful at it thanks to the auspicious reign of Pachacuti Inca Yupanquli. According to an essentially medieval historical model, the

exemplary Pachacuti was responsible for consolidating the Empire and instituting a series of benevolent reforms. This uniformitarian view of indigenous history forced Las Casas either to overlook or deny much of the testimony presented by the Spanish chroniclers regarding

the practices of bestiality, cannibalism, pantheism, sodomy, human

sacrifice, and the like, in the New World, or to construct bold apologetic arguments (as in his justification of human sacrifices) which could not but scandalize the majority of his readers. This perspective also contributed to the idealized vision of the Indians found throughout Las Casas’ works, a view which tended to undermine his credibility.

In the Comentarios reales Garcilaso keys in on the rhetorical weaknesses of Las Casas’ interpretation and transforms the model by

116 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

introducing the element of divine will as the agent of historical change. Thus Garcilaso 1s able to make of Inca civilization an integral part in the providentialist march of all peoples toward salvation. His

interpretation of the significance of the Spanish conquest in the Historia general del Pert is also consistent with this model, allowing him

to integrate Christian history and the history of the New World intoa coherent historical continuum. This is certainly one of Garcilaso’s major discursive achievements — the Comentarios reales succeeds in repairing a rift in the fabric of history through the reconciliation of the

Christian European and pagan American past. Garcilaso was acutely aware that religion was the fundamental issue in any discussion on the nature of the American Indians. It was

above all their paganism that had been used to justify the wars of conquest, and the destruction of their cultural institutions and architectural monuments. Acosta’s assertion that idolatry permeated every aspect of Amerindian society was a perception commonly held by most of the colonists and missionaries of the period and undoubtedly shared by Garcilaso. However, the Comentarios reales parts ways with the Historia on the question of why idolaters behaved as they did. Like Las Casas and Acosta, he rejected natural slavery as an explanation of

Amerindian religious thought and practice, but he found Acosta’s idea of satanical inspiration an equally repulsive explanation. If one accepted that all paganism was satanism then there could be no relative degrees of it. All idolaters were equally in error, involved in the worship of the greatest evil a Christian could conceive of. Acosta had argued that any similarities between the Indian cults and Christianity were products of the devil’s envious desire to rob God of what was rightfully due Him and therefore all the more perverted because of it. Garcilaso undoubtedly perceived this as a weakness in the Historia. There is a basic contradiction in the argument that there

were degrees of barbarism or civility and the implication that all paganism was in error; even more absurdly in the premise that the more sophisticated forms of idolatry were more perverted than the primitive ones. Garcilaso’s providentialist explanation of the Inca role in universal history as a preparatory stage for the arrival of Christian-

ity had a significant advantage over Acosta’s explanation ~ it was consistent. The Incas’ privileged position with respect to other Peruvian tribes in the natural realm was complemented by a similar privi-

lege in the supernatural domain. God had blessed them with the

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 117 ability and the opportunity to prepare themselves and their vassals both morally and intellectually to receive Christianity. The philologic exegesis of religious terminology in the Comentarios reales is specifically if not explicitly directed at subverting Acosta’s interpretations. If we look closely at Garcilaso’s choices of terms we find that each case corresponds to a linguistic error in the Historia: the commentaries on Apachitas, guaca, Pachacamac, Pachayachachic, Viracocha, Tangatanga, etc. are structured to serve as responses to the way they are used by Acosta. Each of these terms appears in the Mistorta as

supportive evidence of his definition of idolatry as devil worship. Apachitas, according to Acosta, were idols in the form of mountaintops,

one type of a multitude of natural phenomena worshiped by the Incas, guaca were very ugly idols through which the devil spoke, Pachacamac and Pachayachachic were appellatives of the supreme Inca

deity whose proper name was Viracocha. According to Acosta they signified “‘creator of the earth and sky.’**? Yangatanga was an idol which resembled the Christian Trinity, Acosta explains, because the devil was always imitating God’s truths in order to fashion lies and falsehoods. Let us quote this passage in its entirety in order to facilitate

the comparison with Garcilaso’s commentary of the term: “Acuérdome que estando en Chuquisaca, me mostro un sacerdote honrado una informacion, que yo la tuve harto tiempo en mi poder, en que

habia averiguado de cierta guaca o adoratorio donde los indios profesaban adorar a Tangatanga, que era un idolo que decian que en uno era tres, y en tres uno. Y admirandose aquel sacerdote de ésto, creo que le dije que el demonio todo cuanto podia hurtar de la verdad para sus mentiras y engafios, lo hacia con aquella infernal y porfiada soberbia con que siempre apetece ser como Dios.” (p. 268) [I remem-

ber that, being in Chuquisaca, an honorable priest showed me a document, which I had in my possession for a long time, and which

was an inquiry into a certain fAuaca or shrine where the Indians worshiped an idol called Tangatanga, which they said was one in three, and three in one. Seeing that the priest was full of wonder over

this, I told him that the devil in his infernal and obstinate pride (whereby he always desires to be like God) would steal from the truth all that he could, to employ it in his lies and deceits. | ‘The corresponding passage in the Comentarios reales reads as follows: El idolo Tangatanga, que un autor dize que adoravan en Chuquisaca y que los indios decian que en uno eran tres y en tres uno, yo no tuve noticia de tal

118 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

idolo, ni en aquel general lenguaje del Pert hay tal diccién. Quiga es del particular lenguaje de aquella provincia, la cual esta ciento y ochenta leguas

del Cozco. Sospecho que el nombre esta corrupto porque los espanoles corrompen todos los mas que toman en la boca, y que ha de dezir Acatanca: quiere dezir escaravajo, nombre con mucha propriedad compuesto de este

nombre aca, que es estiércol, y deste verbo tanca (pronunciada la ultima silaba en lo interior dela garganta), que es empuxar. Acatanca quiere dezir el

que empuyja el estiércol. (Bk 2, ch. 5) [The idol Tangatanga, which one author says was worshipped at Chuquisaca and was one in three and three in one, I have never heard of, nor does the word exist in the general language of Peru. It may be a word in the speech of that province, which is 180 leagues from Cuzco, but I suspect the word is corrupt, because the Spaniards corrupt all other languages they try to speak, and the word should be acatanca, which means a “‘scarab”’ or “beetle.” It is composed of the noun aca, ““dung,”’ and the verb tanca (the last syllable

pronounced in the throat), “to push”; so acatanca is the ‘“dung-

pusher. ”’ | (Livermore, I, p. 80) If we look carefully at word choice and phrasing in this passage from the Comentarios reales there can be little doubt that Garcilaso’s ambiguous “‘un autor” refers to none other than Acosta. Remedial linguistic

exegesis completed, the passage continues, confronting the specific

questions of when they worshiped this idol and why the Indians explained it in trinitarian terms. Que en Chuquisaca, en aquella primera edad y antigua gentilidad, antes del Imperio de los Reyes Incas, lo adorassen por dios, no me espantaria, porque, como queda dicho, entonces adoravan otras cosas tan viles; mas no después de los Incas, que las prohtbieron todas. Que digan los indios que en uno eran tres y en

tres uno, es invencion nueva dellos, que la han hecho después que han oido la

Trinidad y unidad del verdadero Dios Nuestro Sefior, para adular a los espanoles con dezirles que también ellos tienen algunas cosas semejantes a las de nuestra sancta religi6n, como ésta y la Trinidad que el mismo autor dize

que davan al Sol y al rayo, y que tenian confessores y que confessavan sus pecados como los cristianos. Todo lo cual es inventado por los indios con pretensién de gue siguiera por semejanga se les haga alguna coriesta. Esto afirmo yo como indio,

que conozco la natural condicién de los indios. (my emphasis) [It would not surprise me that it should have been worshipped as a god in Chuquisaca in the first age of ancient heathendom before the Inca empire, for as we have seen they worshipped other things as vile in those days, but not after the coming of the Incas, who prohibited 1t. That they should say that the god was three in one and one in three is a new invention of the Indians, made after hearing of the Trinity and of the unity of our Lord God, to win favor

with the Spaniards by pretending that they had some things similar to our holy religion, like this trinity, and the trinity which the same author says they

imputed to the Sun and to lightning, and the statement that they had confessors and confessed their sins like Christians. All this is invented by the

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 119 Indians with the object of gaining some benefit from the resemblance. I can affirm this as an Indian who knows the nature of the Indians. ] (Livermore, I, p. 80)

Garcilaso’s emendation of Acosta in this passage moves from the linguistic to the hermeneutic, as is typical ofall his philologic commen-

taries. Once the correct form of the Quechua term has been established, he proceeds to assert that the erroneous interpretation is the result of historical imprecision, and that the trinitarian explanation had its source in the Indians’ desire to flatter the Spaniards through the feigned imitation of theological concepts central to Christian belief. Thus, the intertextual transformation of the Acosta passage centers on the concept of imitation, upon which Acosta had based his interpretation of the nature of idolatry. But the intertext is subverted in the Comentarios reales by substituting the supernatural subject and object of the verb with natural ones. The devil’s arrogant imitation of

God is transformed into the Indians’ obsequious imitation of the

Spaniards. Juxtaposing these two passages demonstrates that Garcilaso rejected the interpretation of Inca paganism as satanism. But, by substituting the grandiose terms of Acosta’s arguments with the pathetic parallel of the adulation of the conquerors by the conquered, he seems to be suggesting a more radical reorientation of the terms of the discussion — that the real perversion of eternal truths had come about by the very circumstances of the conquest, which denied

the Indians the recognition of the value of their institutions and beliefs, forcing them to feign and falsify in the attempt to elicit even a

token of praise and acceptance. Garcilaso is once again treading ground broken by Las Casas in affirming the essential monotheism of Inca culture. In the Apologética

Las Casas had explained how the Inca Pachacuti, upon taking the throne, set out to study the religious practices of the provinces of his

empire. He found that each region worshiped local gods, many of which were unworthy of veneration. Showing great tolerance and wisdom, however, Pachacuti informed his subjects that they could keep their local huacas if they so desired, but that they must worship and revere the Sun above all the rest. Las Casas maintained that the solar deity was actually considered by the Incas to be the principal servant of an invisible creator deity called Condici Viracocha, which meant “Hacedor del Mundo” (Maker of the World). Thus Las Casas seemed to suggest an essential monotheism among the Incas centered on the Sun as the principal servant and messenger of a supreme deity

120 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY called Viracocha. In the Comentarios reales the Apologética’s theological

model is transformed into a fundamental component of the providentialist interpretation of Inca history and culture. For Garcilaso the idea of a monotheistic Inca theology is tied to his presentation of Tahuantinsuyu in the role of preparatio evangelica, which guaranteed Inca civilization a legitimate and privileged place within Christian history. Garcilaso was acutely aware that his discus-

sion of Inca religion was critical to the rhetorical success of his corrective reinterpretation. If we read this discussion as a response to the Septlveda argument, which maintained that indigenous barbarianism was manifested particularly in the lowliness and multiplicity of their gods, and as a transformation of the monotheistic model presented by Las Casas we will be better able to understand Garcilaso’s choices as well as his denials and omissions. V One of the most striking and daring statements in the Comentarios reales,

because of its heretical overtones, is the afhirmation that the Incas had

arrived at a knowledge of the true Christian God: Demas de adorar al Sol por Dios visible, a quien ofrecieron sacrificios e hicieron grandes fiestas . . . los Reyes Incas y sus amautas, que eran los fildsofos, rastrearon con lumbre natural al verdadero Sumo Dios y Sefior

Nuestro, que crio el cielo y la tierra, como adelante veremos en los argumentos y sentencias que algunos de ellos dijeron de la Divina Majestad,

al cual llamaron Pachacamac.. . (II, 2) [In addition to worshipping the Sun as a visible god, to whom they offered sacrifices and dedicated great festivals . . . the Inca kings and their amautas, who were the philosophers, perceived by the light of nature the true supreme

God our Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, as we shall see from the arguments and phrases some of them applied to the Divine Majesty, whom

they called Pachacamac. | (Livermore, 1, p. 80) In his discussion of solar worship Las Casas had argued that the Indians demonstrated a high degree of natural prudence in selecting a thing which was so beneficial to mankind as their supreme object of worship. Garcilaso respects this idea in the Comentarios reales and is quick to point out, in words that echo Las Casas’ vituperations against

the iniquities committed by the civilizations of classical antiquity, particularly the Roman cults of Bacchus and Priapus, that the Incas had been extremely selective in their objects of worship: “‘no adoraron los deleites ni los vicios, como los de la antigua gentilidad del mundo

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 121 viejo, que adoraban a los que confesaban por adulteros, homicidas, borrachos, y sobre todo al Priapo, con ser gente que presumia tanto de sus letras y saber’’ (11, 5) [they never adored pleasures and vices like the

olden gentiles of antiquity who paid worship to admitted adulterers, murderers, drunkards, and especially priapism, this in spite of their pretensions to literature and knowledge.] (Livermore, 1, p. 80). But while he confirms Las Casas’ suggestion of an essential Inca monotheism centered on an abstract, invisible creator deity his philological exegesis of the term Pachacamac offers an important emendation which at first seems extremely puzzling. Garcilaso explicitly rejects the claim that Viracocha was the supreme Inca deity. The following passage, taken from the same chapter where we find the commentary on Pachacamac, 1s categorical: Los indios no saben de suyo o no osan dar la relacion destas cosas con la propia significacion y declaracion de los vocablos, viendo que los espanoles las abominan todas por cosas del demonio, y los espanoles tampoco advierten en pedir noticias dellas con Hlaneza, antes las confirman por cosas diabdlicas como las imaginan. Y también lo causa el no saber de fundamento la lengua general de los Incas para ver y entender la deduccion y composicién propia de las semejantes dicciones. Y por esto en sus historias dan otro nombre a Dios, que es Tici Viracocha, que no sé qué significa niellostampoco. (II, 2) | The Indians do not understand or dare not tell these things with the true

interpretation and meaning of the words. They see that the Christian Spaniards abominate them all as works of the Devil, and the Spaniards do not trouble to ask for clear information about them, but rather dismiss them as diabolical, as they imagine. This effect is also produced by the fact that they do not know properly the general language of the Incas by which they might

understand the derivation, composition, and true meaning of such words. Consequently the Spaniards in their histories give another word for God, Tie Viracocha, whose meaning neither they nor I can give.| (Livermore, I, pp. 71-72)

This passage opens like many of the philologic commentaries in the

Comentarios reales, with a reflection on the reasons for a Spanish interpretative error and, as usual, the conclusion is that it is a result of prejudice coupled with a lack of linguistic competence. But just when

we expect a philologic exegesis of the term in question Garcilaso pleads linguistic ignorance (‘que no sé qué significa’). The reader 1s left to presume that the term Vzracocha was so adulterated, or such a

neologism that 1t was impossible to decipher. Yet it surprises us because it is the only instance in the Comentarios reales where Garcilaso seems to be at a loss linguistically. Moreover, this is not the only time the term V2rococha comes up in the text. In fact, 1t appears on several

122 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

occasions, as the name of one of the Inca rulers as well as the name the Indians had given to the Spaniards, Garcilaso even presents a couple of legends involving an apparition called Viracocha, after whom the Inca Viracocha was supposedly named.*° Thus one realizes that what he actually refuses to do in this passage is to recognize Viracocha as the supreme creator deity and to perform an exegesis of the name which would corroborate his claim. As we have seen, according to Garcilaso

that honor belonged only to Pachacamac, something which. he had

demonstrated through a philologic commentary of the term. Yet

keeping in mind the considerable knowledge of Quechua that Garcilaso exhibits in the Comentarios reales and his usual determination

to clarify linguistic ambiguities and correct errors, his admitted ignorance with respect to the meaning of the term and the cavalier manner in which he dismisses the case of Viracocha cannot help but strike the reader as inconsistent with the philologic rigor so characteristic of the Comentarios reales.

A review of the modern anthropological literature on the subject of Inca theology and the figure of Viracocha in particular reflects the

varied and sometimes contradictory picture found in the sources. What follows, therefore, does not pretend to be an exhaustive summary of the history and nature of the god Viracocha as it 1s presented

in state of the art anthropological studies, but rather a selection of those aspects which seem useful in understanding the peculiar discursive treatment this term receives in the Comentarios reales. Gontradic-

tory interpretations will be acknowledged in the notes.

Modern anthropological studies confirm the prominent place

held by Viracocha in the Andean hierarchy of deities. Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco calls him the most conspicuous god of the Andes region, most of whose sanctuaries were found in the area

around the Incan capital of Cuzco.°! The specific attributes of Viracocha are a source of ongoing debate, however. Because of the regional or local nature of Andean religious thought the few surviving Quechua and Spanish texts present varied information that at times seems even contradictory. Spanish accounts present the additional problems of linguistic incompetence and the desire to find Andean equivalents of European theological concepts for evangelical convenience. Both of these circumstances contributed to the deformation of indigenous religious thought, making it difficult to reconstruct an accurate picture of Andean theology. Nevertheless, some important

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 123 conclusions can be drawn from the available materials which can shed light on Garcilaso’s remarks in the Comentarios reales. According to John Rowe, Viracocha was actually a group or class of supernatural beings that were related to the local origin myths of the © early Incas.°? Ticci Viracocha was the name of the greatest member of

this class.°* In its final form, the myth presented this Viracocha as Pachayachach, “creator of the world.”” Among his most important functions were those of creating and ordering. He was represented as having human form, but the Incas could not say where he lived. Thus, he seems to have been a ubiquitous deity rather than one who was tied to a specific locality as was the case with most of the Andean gods. He was believed to be compassionate and affectionate, although Urbano points out the seemingly contradictory aspects of his nature as both

a beneficent and destructive force in the world.°* Viracocha was usually petitioned for general favor, for peace and safety, for prosperity and the increase of the people, for longevity and for victory. The Inca government made regular sacrifices to this deity for the welfare of

the entire empire.

It appears-that the cult of Viracocha was related to that of the Sun.°> Rostworowski de Diez Canseco has pointed out that there is an

apparent counterpoint between the worship of the solar deity and

Viracocha among the Incas. At certain times in the history of Tahuantinsuyu the adoration of one or the other seems to have prevailed. An image of Viracocha resided in the Coricancha, the main temple of the Sun at Cuzco. While local myths of Viracocha have been found throughout the Andean region, worship of the Sun seems to be

associated primarily with the Inca _ nobility. According to Rostworowski the ascendancy of the Sun over Viracocha can be traced to the reign of the Inca Pachacuti, which leads her to speculate on the possibility that Viracocha was a more ancient deity associated perhaps with a group or faction displaced by Pachacuti’s accession to the throne.*® The few surviving Quechua accounts of Andean reli-

gious practices, although striking in their diversity, all attribute a prominent position to Viracocha.*’ Of particular interest are the Inca prayers reproduced in Quechua by Pachacuti Yamqui in his Relacién de Antigiiedades deste Reyno del Peru (1613), in which Viracocha is

addressed as the supreme creator deity.°? The body of testimony available to us, much of which we know Garcilaso read, points overwhelmingly to the prominence of Viracocha in Andean religious

124 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

thought and his particularly close ties to the Inca cult at Cuzco.°? Both

Spanish and Quechua texts confirm this. And, although modern anthropology may be undecided about the precise history and nature of this deity, there is little question about Viracocha’s eminent posi-

tion within the Inca pantheon of gods. In light of this evidence, how can Garcilaso’s categorical rejection of

Viracocha and his even more puzzling evasion of any probatory exegesis be explained? The answer probably lies.in the potential results of such an exegesis. Like many Quechua words Viracocha is a composite term composed of vira, which means animal fat or grease and cocha, which means ocean or great lake. 7icci is an appellative.

Gonzalez Holguin translates it as origin, beginning, foundation, or cause.*° A literal translation of Ticci Viracocha would be something like ‘fundamental or original ocean of fat.’’ Las Casas’ translation of the term as ‘“‘Maker of the World” reflects one of the main attributes of

this deity but it is not linguistically precise. His rendition of the appellative as ‘““Condici” is also inaccurate. It represents a phonetic corruption of the Quechua term Tice: (or Tici) with the prefix Con, the name of an ancient northern deity who was also associated with the creative or generative function. Acosta’s translation of the term does not differ substantially from Las Casas’. An interpretation of the term Vzracocha requires some additional information. Animal fat represented vital energy or life force in its

material manifestation to the Indians of Peru. It was utilized in ceremonies and religious rites as a sacrificial offering. If we were to

turn our linguistic exegesis of the term into a hermeneutics, as Garcilaso invariably does, we could interpret Viracocha as a material manifestation or incarnation of the life force that animates the universe.®' Surprisingly, our interpretation based on an exegesis of the term is quite similar, even complementary, to Garcilaso’s interpretation of Pachacamac as the animator and sustainer of the Universe. Why then was he so committed to obliterating the deity Viracocha in favor of Pachacamac, to the point where he would feign linguistic

ignorance in order to avoid an undesired interpretation? The situation becomes even more puzzling if we explore the anthro-

pological literature on Pachacamac. All of the evidence points to an origin for this deity on the coast, not in the Inca highlands. The great religious center of Pachacamac, originally known as Ichma, was erected in the valley of the lower Rimac river in the central coast

area of Peru. With the Inca conquest of this region under Tupac

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 125 Yupanqul1, the center was incorporated into Tahuantinsuyu and its name changed to Pachacamac. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco tells us that according to legend the Inca Tupac had cried in his mother’s womb causing her to have a revelation that the Maker of the World was to be found among the Yunga people in the Izma valley. After Tupac Yupanqui’s conquest of the area it became an important Inca religious center, known for its great oracle. Pachacamac, therefore, is a Quechua name ascribed to a Yunga deity adopted by the Incas

after their conquest of the valley. Despite his oracular prestige, Pachacamac did not replace or even eclipse solar worship. In fact, one of the first things Tupac Yupanqui did after the conquest was to erect

an imposing temple to the sun within the religious complex which towered over the original one dedicated to Ichma-Pachacamac. If we consider Pachacamac’s attributes, it only increases our perplexity at Garcilaso’s selection of an alien deity as opposed to a local Incan one

to represent the zenith of Inca theological thought. The myths pertaining to Pachacamac present him as an often cruel and violent God, whose acts of creation were associated with murder and dismemberment. His anger frequently manifested itself in the form of earthquakes, whose intensity was always in proportion to Pachacamac’s wrath.®?

However, if we consider Garcilaso’s choice of Pachacamac over Viracocha as the supreme creator deity of an essentially monotheistic Tahuantinsuyu from an intertextual perspective it becomes perfectly consistent with Garcilaso’s transformation of Las Casas’ model in the Apologética and indispensable to the rhetorical efficacy of his corrective

reinterpretation. To Las Casas’ anti-Septlveda argument that the Indians were indeed rational human beings who showed a high degree of natural wisdom, Garcilaso responds with a providentialist model of history in which the Incas play an essential historical role in the march toward salvation. The Comentarios reales presents an indigenous civilization which 1s not only fully rational but indispensable to Christian evangelical goals, whose existence 1s sanctioned by nothing less than the intervention of the divine will in history. It was through

divine authority that Manco Capac and his successors exercised jurisdiction over the natives of Peru, Garcilaso argues. And the reason God had looked upon the Incas with favor was that he intended them to prepare the Indians for the arrival of the Gospel. What better way

to prove this than to show his Christian readers that Inca religious thought had laid the groundwork for the assimilation of Christian

126 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

concepts, that Inca theology contained the latent seed of Christian dogma. Garcilaso’s rejection of Viracocha is fully understandable if we realize that it is based primarily on linguistic considerations. As we have seen, historical truth in the Comentarios reales is guaranteed by a theory of language which afhrms the perfect complementariness of signifier and signified. Through a philological exegesis of the orig-

inal word, the ideas which constitute the essence of the object are revealed, thus providing an unquestionable source for interpretation. Garcilaso’s correction of the Sepulveda model depends on the semantic content of Quechua terminology for its authority. The interpretation of Inca history as praeparatio evangelica is founded on an exegesis of

religious vocabulary which had been adulterated and misinterpreted in the Spanish chronicles and histories. The difficulties that Veracocha presented can only be understood from a philologic hermeneutical

perspective. Had Garcilaso acknowledged the importance of this deity and performed an exegesis of the term he would have been obliged to work with “ocean of fat” as an element in his interpretation of Inca theology. Strictly aesthetic considerations — keeping in mind that his intended audience was composed of Christian Europeans —

would have compelled him to choose Pachacamac “animator and sustainer of the Universe” over Viracocha, a deity which was no more — linguistically speaking — than an “ocean of fat.”’

But from the crucial hermeneutical perspective Viracocha also presented insurmountable difficulties. First, an exegesis of the term would have forced Garcilaso to alter his exclusively philologic method

of interpretation with extra-philologic explanations of the cultural significance of fat or grease. And yet, even if he had done this, how could he explain the lack of similitude between the divine referent and the prosaic semantic content of the name? The most serious difficulties would arise, however, when Garcilaso attempted to take the step from exegesis to hermeneutics.

Both indigenous myths and philologic analysis confirm that Viracocha represented life force or vital energy in its material form. According to Andean myth, the god Viracocha had assumed human form and wandered throughout the countryside performing miracles as he went. Finally, he had walked out on the waters of the Pacific and

disappeared over the ocean. As we have seen, the hermeneutical intent behind Garcilaso’s exegesis of Quechua terminology is not simply to show the sophistication of Inca religious thought, but to

CONTEXTS AND INTERTEXTS 127 demonstrate that within it lay the seed of Christianity, which divine grace would activate through the intervention of God’s instruments — the Spaniards. The exegesis of Pachacamac lent itself easily to a comparative interpretation, enabling Garcilaso to establish the conceptu-

al similarities between the Christian and Incan concepts of the supreme deity. This comparison of Inca religion and Christianity had a precedent in popular legend. Many of the Spanish colonizers and not a few of the colonized believed that the coincidences between Christian and indig-

enous religious concepts proved that Christ and the Apostles had preached in America, probably during the three days between Jesus’ death and resurrection. Had Garcilaso attempted an interpretation of Viracocha consistent with his comparative hermeneutical goals, as represented in the exegesis of Pachacamac, he would probably have been forced to conclude that “‘ocean of fat’ was a reincarnation of

Jesus Christ in the Andes, a claim which undoubtedly would have landed poor Garcilaso in the fires of the Inquisition.®? Thus, when in

chapter 21 of Book v Garcilaso finally corrects the translation and interpretation of Viracocha given by the Spanish historians, he gives the

literal translation of the term as “‘sea of fat,’’ which he had avoided earlier, but refuses to interpret the term. Instead he tells the reader

that it is not a composite noun but the proper name of the ghost Viracocha; that is, a proper noun which has a referent and a denotation but no connotations and therefore no interpretable significance. What we see in this passage, then, is an act of simple translation. Garcilaso deliberately stops short of the hermeneutical exegesis that

typifies his translations of Quechua terminology throughout the Comentarios reales. Apparently, he could not resist the opportunity to

correct once again Spanish linguistic error, but was unwilling to undertake an intellectually delicate and potentially risky interpretation. His translation of Leén Hebreo’s Neoplatonic dialogues had already exposed him to the disfavor of the Inquisition, which had placed the book on the Index of forbidden titles, and Garcilaso must have been acutely aware of his vulnerability. Philologic discourse in the Comentarios reales thus can best be under-

stood in its intertextual, dialogical dimension. For while it is true that philologic exegesis is directed at the correction of the linguistic errors - committed by the Spanish chroniclers and historians, it is ultimately a hermeneutical strategy aimed at closing once and for all the debate on the nature of the Peruvian Indians. Beyond the visible marks left on

128 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

the textual surface by his corrective translation of Quechua terminology, there is an implicit intertextual dialogue in the Comentarios reales with the Sepulveda, Las Casas, and Acosta interpretative models of indigenous history. While the Septlveda position was obviously antagonistic toward the Indians, Las Casas’ more favorable interpret-

ation was vulnerable because it overlooked or simply denied a powerful body of evidence. Moreover, like the Sepulveda model, it failed to integrate indigenous history with Christian history. By its idealization of Indian cultures it rendered them historically inert,

marginal and passive elements in Christian historical evolution. Acosta’s model was equally unacceptable because there was a funda-

mental inconsistency in its evaluation of Inca sophistication in the natural domain and its affirmation of the satanical origins of Inca

religious thought and practice. Garcilaso’s subversion of the Septlveda and Acosta positions and his correction and transformation of the Las Casas model was intended to repair a rift in the fabric of history. By presenting Tahuantinsuyu as a divine instrument and indispensable component in the process of Christianization, he was able to attribute to Incas and Spaniards analogous roles in the march of all peoples toward Salvation, thus finally uniting the history of the

New World with that of the Old.

6 ‘“Nowhere”’ is somewhere:

the Comentarios reales and the Utopian model

The translation of culture

The suggestion that there is an affinity between the Comentarios reales

and Thomas More’s Utopia threatens to become a critical commonplace. Menéndez y Pelayo’s pronouncement that the Comentarios reales

was not a historical text but a utopian novel like More’s insured that the topic would receive further attention. Practically all studies of the Inca’s work have taken up the theme of the novelesque or fictional qualities of the Comentarios reales implicit in the Spanish critic’s comparison. Zum Felde, Arocena, Cox, Manuel, Duran Luzio, and others

have seen a direct if veiled influence of the Utopia on Garcilaso’s representation of Tahuantinsuyu.' But the accuracy and the implica-

tions of the claims made by the influential Menéndez y Pelayo regarding the generic characteristics of the Comentarios reales have gone

unchallenged and, for the most part, unstudied. The suggestion that Garcilaso’s history of the Inca empire belonged to the realm of fiction and not historiography gave rise instead to an emotional polemic concerning his reliability and integrity as a narrator of the indigenous

past.2, He was accused by his detractors of being a liar and a plagiarizer, which in turn solicited a chorus of defenders whose panegyric echoes can still be heard today.? Yet the important critical implications of Menéndez y Pelayo’s assertion were generally ignored. Garcilaso was vindicated of the charge of plagiarism and his reliability as a historian bolstered, but the fundamental questions regarding the undeniable similarities between the Comentarios reales and the Utopia were never even raised.* Zum Felde attributed Garcilaso’s utopian conception of the Inca sociopolitical system to the fact that most of his information was gleaned from the nostalgic stories that as a child he had heard from his Indian relatives and to the general influence that

the ideals of Renaissance humanism had on his thought. Arocena 129

130 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

followed suit, examining in more detail the ideological affinities between the Inca’s political and moral vision and humanist utopian thought. Cox used Menéndez y Pelayo’s suggestion as a pretext to study Garcilaso’s interpretation of the Inca economy, but his study touches on the utopian question only briefly and only insofar as it

relates to his economic thesis. Manuel’s passing reference to the influence of the Utopia on the Inca’s vision of Tahuantinsuyu is significant only because it appears in an influential volume of essays

devoted to the study of utopias. Yet the fundamental questions suggested by Menéndez y Pelayo’s comparison were never formulated

clearly nor were they explicitly addressed. Juan Duran Luzio’s meticulous comparative reading of the Utopia and the Comentarios reales demonstrated that the similarities of content in these two works are numerous and unmistakable. Duran Luzio did not, however, address the question of why Garcilaso’s text resembles

the Utopia or how that resemblance functions in the text. Are there indeed concrete correspondences between the Comentarios reales and the Utopia beyond the obvious superficial similarities, and ifso, what is the nature of this intertextual relation and what are its consequences

for an understanding of Garcilaso’s text? His study approached the question from a descriptive rather than a rhetorical and ideological perspective, and while it established beyond reasonable doubt the affinity between these two classics of Renaissance humanism, it did not analyze that correspondence as an essential and intentional component of Garcilaso’s discourse. Although there is no bibliographical evidence to guarantee it, there is an abundance of historical and textual evidence to support strongly Utopia’s presence in the Comentarios reales.’ By the end of the sixteenth

century the Utopian model was already a classic of Renaissance humanism. Between December of 1516, when the first edition appeared in Louvain, and 1519 seven Latin editions of Utopia were available, including ones printed in Basel, Paris, and Florence. By the time Garcilaso began to write the Comentarios reales there were eleven

editions in circulation. And although there were no Spanish trans-

_ lations of the text in the sixteenth century Gerénimo Antonio de Medinilla’s Castilian edition (Cordoba, 1637) indicates a sustained interest in Utopza on the Iberian peninsula. Given the wide dissemination of the text and its popularity among a learned readership it is difficult to believe that Garcilaso would not have been familiar with

‘“NOWHERE ’ IS SOMEWHERE 131 More’s Utopia, particularly since, by his own admission, he read everything he could find that dealt with the New World. Garcilaso’s interest in Utopia must have gone far beyond the mere

curiosity of a humanist interested in American topics, however. More’s ideal republic was situated in America, “somewhere south of

the Equator’ but, more significantly, the Utopian sociopolitical model was the only one available at the end of the sixteenth century that presented a contemporary pagan civilization in a favorable light.

There were a number of more or less positive descriptions of the Indians in the narratives of the period of discovery and conquest. Columbus, de Angleria, Las Casas, Acosta, and Cieza de Leon, all had

praised the achievements of the indigenous peoples of America in a rhetoric often reminiscent of the legends of the Golden Age of classical

antiquity. But only Thomas More in the Utopia had developed an elaborate sociopolitical model of an imaginary native American civilization. The Utopian model set an important precedent by rendering

a pagan New World culture both intelligible to a European readership and acceptable, even praiseworthy, within the context of Christian humanist ideology. As Bataillon has demonstrated, the Utopian model was influential in shaping not only the conception of American civilizations held by armchair humanists in the Old World, but also that held by the missionaries who worked with the Indians and who attempted to give faithful firsthand descriptions of the native civilizations. When in the middle of the sixteenth century Vasco de Quiroga established his evangelical towns for the Indians of Michoacan and Mexico he utilized the Utopian sociopolitical model as the foundation of his Indo-Christian communities. Garcilaso’s use of the Utopian model responds to what we have already seen were his two great rhetorical concerns in the Comentarios

reales — intelligibility and corrective or critical authority. Utopian discourse 1s an essential component of his hermeneutical strategy in the Comentarios as he strives to render a complex and alien culture intelligible and acceptable to a Christian European audience. Utopia is also the authoritative model for the critical dimension of Garcilaso’s discourse. These two features, the hermeneutical and the critical, are

in fact inseparable in the text; they frequently inhabit the same discursive moment. They will be discussed in different sections in this chapter only for the sake of clarity and convenience of presentation. We have already seen that Garcilaso defines his hermeneutical role

132 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY in the Comentarios reales as an act of translation. In the Proem he accuses the Spanish histories of rhetorical inadequacy — ““Verdad es que tocan

muchas cosas de las muy grandes que aquella republica tuvo, pero escribenlas tan cortamente que aun las muy notorias para mi (de la manera que las dizen) las entiendo mal,”’ [It is true that these have dealt with many of the very remarkable achievements of that empire, but they have set them down so briefly that, owing to the manner in

which they are told, I am scarcely able to understand even such matters as are well known to me], and he proposes to remedy the confusion through a reinterpretation — “‘Que mi intencién no es de contradezirles sino de servirles de comento y glosa y de intérprete en muchos vocablos indios que, como extranjeros en aquella lengua interpretaron fuera de la propriedad della,” [For my purpose is not to gainsay them, but to furnish a commentary and gloss, and to interpret many Indian expressions which they, as strangers to that tongue, have

rendered inappropriately] (Livermore, ‘“‘Preface’’), defined in philologic terms as the accurate translation of the original Quechua terminology. Undoubtedly his unique perspective as a bilingual and bicultural interpreter allowed Garcilaso to perceive that the tragic clash between Tahuantinsuyu and Spain, which resulted in the eventual destruction of Inca civilization, stemmed from the inability of either culture to render itself intelligible to the other; from the failure to find adequate linguistic and conceptual models to mediate the act of translation necessary to establish communication. It should not be surprising then that the firt contact between a native and the Spaniards is depicted in the Comentarios reales as a failed attempt at commu-

nication resulting from the inaccessibility of a common linguistic

denominator. And, symbolically, the name Peru is the bastard offspring of this initial encounter (1,4). But perhaps most significant is the fact that Garcilaso explains the antagonism between the Hispanic

and Incaic cultures ultimately to be the result of a bad translation. As noted in chapter 5, the conquistadores were required to read a document known as the requerimiento to the Indians at each first meeting. ‘The reguerimiento set forth the basic tenets of the Christian faith, in Spanish (or Latin), and requested vassalage from the natives in the name of the Spanish Crown as representative of the Pope and

the Catholic Church, explaining in the process the jurisdiction that the king had over their persons and territory. By consulting the Inca quipu and comparing this account of Atahuallpa’s meeting with Pizarro at Cajamarca to the Spanish versions, Garcilaso concluded

‘““NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 133 that the initial violence and subsequent imprisonment of the Inca which culminated in his execution were precipitated by the linguistic incompetence of Felipillo, the Indian translator whom the Spaniards

had brought along for the meeting. By comparing the text of the requerimiento as understood by Atahuallpa and recorded in the guzpu | and the Spanish text reproduced by Blas Valera, Garcilaso was able to

reconstruct the mistranslation performed by Felipillo. Garcilaso’s disparaging description of the unfortunate interpreter underscores the young Indian’s linguistic incompetence even while it reveals some of the author’s own social and ethnic prejudices. Felipillo, Garcilaso assures the reader, had minimal ability in both Quechua and Spanish

since he was not a native of Cuzco. Moreover, his humble social background had severely limited his access to the elevated forms of the lengua general of Cuzco and Spanish appropriate to the importance of

the occasion." The tragic encounter of the Inca and Pizarro at Cajamarca, during the course of which Atahuallpa disdainfully threw to the ground a Bible given to him by the expedition’s priest, becomes a symbol of the

inability of either side to render itself intelligible to the other. Atahuallpa’s reaction 1s depicted by Garcilaso as a misinterpretation

prompted by Felipillo’s bad translation. Had the Inca understood what the Bible represented he would have embraced both it and the Spaniards, he seems to suggest. Likewise, if the Europeans had been able to understand the significance of Inca civilization, Garcilaso implicitly argues throughout the Comentarios reales, they would have respected and preserved its many excellent laws, customs, and institutions instead of destroying them. Ultimately, the failure to translate effectively, the inability to find a model to mediate the act of communication between two such disparate cultural systems, is at the root of the destruction of the Inca Empire as well as the inaccurate interpretations of the Spanish chroniclers and historians. Garcilaso’s sardonic appraisal of Felipillo’s linguistic abilities in the Historia General could

easily be applied to all subsequent interpreters of Inca history and culture who failed to command the original language adequately. His own interpretative role as defined in the Proem is in fact the exact inversion of Felipillo’s at Cajamarca. Whereas the first contact between Incas and Spaniards resulted in a tragic rupture precipitated by a mistranslation by an incompetent interpreter, Garcilaso proposes

to repair that historical rift by correcting Felipillo’s fatal error. Garcilaso’s narrative posture in the Comentarios reales is that of an anti-

134 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

Felipillo who performs a new and correct translation that will permit a reconciliation. Garcilaso’s earliest literary endeavor as translator of the Dialoghi d@ amore acquires a transcendental significance in light of the Comentarios reales. La traduccion del indio de los tres Didlogos de amor de Leén Hebreo

provides ample proof that Garcilaso was not only familiar with

the problems and techniques of the art of translation, but his acclaimed interpretation of Hebreo’s difficult Neoplatonic text is testimony to the fact that he had also mastered them. We have already seen that translation figures prominently at the linguistic level in the Comentarios reales as a tool for correcting and reinterpreting specific terminology. Earlier we examined how Garcilaso’s self-proclaimed

role of privileged interpreter assumes philologic form in the Comentarios reales through the revival of Quechua and the restoration of the original text of Inca history and culture. Let us turn once again to the deceptively simple phrase ‘“‘Quiere decir” with which Garcilaso introduces each individual act of translation, for it reveals an extremely complex notion of the interpretative act. For Garcilaso, interpreting what something means implies an intricate hermeneusis that takes

into account not only linguistic meaning but the significances produced by the complex relationships of signs within Inca culture. Roman Jakobson has identified three different types of translation: intralingual translation, based on the principles of synonymy and circumlocution within the same language; interlingual translation (or translation proper), the interpretation of verbal signs by means of equivalent verbal signs in another language; and intersemiotic translation or transmutation, the interpretation of signs by means of a different sign system.'! The most simple cases of this latter type of translation involve primary sign systems such as verbal and nonverbal languages (1.e., Morse code, body language, smoke signals, etc.). But

we can also conceive of an intersemiosis which involves complex semiotic systems, or “‘systems of systems”’ of signification. Such is the case of culture, defined by Eco asa “global semiotic system,” that is, as

a complex system of signification made up of the totality of primary systems of significative relationships recognized by a given society."” A cultural translation is precisely what Garcilaso ultimately sets out to accomplish in the Comentarios reales. ‘The metaphor of the suckling child that he uses to describe his native-speaker command of Quechua

(“que mamé en la leche’’) reveals a concept of language which transcends the strictly linguistic acceptation in order to include the

‘"NOWHERE IS SOMEWHERE 135 essential values of the community, transmitted to children primarily by their mothers during early childhood. For Garcilaso, the interpre-

tative privilege that a command of the original language allowsisnot limited to the interlingual translation of certain Quechua terms; he also utilizes that privilege as the initial step of a corrective reinterpre-

tation that embraces the totality of the Inca cultural system. He is

above all interested in rendering intelligible to a European and Christian audience a pagan New World culture; in explaining a civilization which, as we saw in the previous chapter, he considered to

have reached the highest expression of natural wisdom of any in history. And finally Garcilaso also sought to inscribe and preserve in written form a system of values and a way of life that would perish with the death of those few who preserved it in memory. For the Comentarios

gration of a culture. | reales records not just the demise of a political entity, but the disinteBut let us return to our discussion of the mechanisms of translation operating in the Comentarios reales. Intersemiotic translation, as defined by Jakobson, consists of the transmutation of a given text of one semiotic system into the equivalent signs of another. Mounin reminds

us, however, in his classic study of translation, that each language segments the world differently, and as a result it is often the case that there are no exactly equivalent terms to express the same idea from one linguistic system to another.'* Indeed, in recent years sociolinguistics has gone a step further and questioned the very possibility of translation on the grounds that different cultures in fact

constitute widely divergent linguistic “worlds.” Every act of translation necessarily depends on the general principle of equivalence. But there is a range of acceptable variation within which the translation is still functional. The absence of equivalence can be resolved to some extent through qualification. Hence, if there 1s no exact equivalent of the term X in the language of the translation it may be possible to approximate X through a process of definition or comparison accompanied by suitable modifiers. Mounin illustrates by citing Nida’s example of the difficulty in translating the word ““mountain” into the Mayan language of the Indians of the Yucatan Peninsula, where the point of highest elevation is 30 meters above sea level. It is possible, however, to translate ‘““mountain”’ into Mayan as a great hill 3,000 meters high. ‘Thus translation can also be achieved through

analogy, where two nonequivalent terms are equated based on a significant resemblance rather than a total identity. Translation by

136 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

analogy requires the existence of a common denominator, a term to

mediate the act of translation. In the example cited above, the common denominator 1s the concept of an elevated portion of terrain, which exists both in Mayan and English, and the qualifier is, of course, height in number of meters. The common term “‘hill” 1s modified by increasing the elevation from 30 meters to 3,000. The resulting anal-

ogy does not render the concept “mountain” exactly, but it is an adequate approximation. A similar principle operates in the Comentarios reales, where Garcilaso undertakes an interpretation not only of Quechua terminol-

ogy but of Inca civilization. If translation at the interlingual level requires mediation in cases where exact equivalence between terms

does not exist, it becomes essential in the act of intersemiotic translation, where both the particular code and entire sign systems are

changing. It is no longer possible to rely on simple one-to-one equivalences ofsigns in an act of intersemiosis; instead one must search for similarities or homologies in the relationships between the sighs of __

one system and the other. Benjamin argues that in fact simple equivalences do not exist in any type of translation, that only the original’s systems of relationships can be expressed 1n the new version:

“Translation thus ultimately serves the purpose of expressing the central reciprocal relationships between languages.’’!> In his reinterpretation of Tahuantinsuyu Garcilaso was confronted with the task of finding a sociopolitical model which comprised semiotic relationships similar to those of the Inca cultural system and which was also familiar to his intended audience to mediate the act of interpretation. More’s

Utopia provided him with a pagan and New World model, which moreover was compatible with Christian humanist ideology. In what follows I examine how Utopia functions in the Comentarios reales as the

mediating term of Garcilaso’s cultural hermeneutics. Imitation and transformation

Any discussion of the relationship between the Utopia and the Comentarios reales must begin by reminding the reader that More’s work is divided into two books. The first book, which serves as an introduction to the second, consists of a conversation in which the character More, Peter Giles, and Raphael Hythlodaeus examine the

state of the English commonwealth. Hythlodaeus has recently returned to Europe from a trip to the New World, to which he traveled

*“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 137 as a companion of Amerigo Vespucci and where he subsequently lived for several years.

Spurred by his recent experiences in America, Hythlodaeus presents one of the sharpest critiques of sixteenth-century Europe ever to appear in print. He speaks of the increase of theft in England caused by the staggering unemployment that resulted from the conversion of

agricultural lands to grazing pastures, of the exploitation of their subjects by greedy monarchs, of the rise in imperialistic wars owing to the pride and avarice of the powerful, and the like. At the end of Book 1 Hythlodaeus casually mentions how different things are on the island of Utopia and More promptly begs him to tell of his experiences

in the New World. Raphael’s narrative opens Book 2, which 1s dedicated in its entirety to a description of Utopian civilization. Hythlodaeus’ presentation in the second book is offered as a direct comparison to the state of affairs in the Old World. The Utopian sociopolitical organization described

by Raphael is meant to serve as an example to the Europeans. This

comparative, corrective intent is made explicit by the two-book structure of the text. Utopia, as described by Hythlodaeus, is a crescent-shaped island located to the south of the equatorial line, in the recently discovered New World. While the directions he provides are extremely vague we

are told that one must travel through vast sunscorched territories where the inhabitants are no less savage than wild beasts. Eventually,

the air becomes temperate, the countryside more pleasant, and the traveler arrives at cities and towns inhabited by sociable and civilized

peoples. Of these the most advanced are the Utopians, and it is the history of their civilization that Hythlodaeus recounts in Book 2. Utopia is a nation characterized by stability, democracy, and a devotion to peace. It practices parliamentary government, a cooperative economy, and religious toleration. It advocates work and relaxation, family and social unity, and the cultivation of learning and morality. It has learned, moreover, how to eliminate crime, poverty, and capital punishment. It declares war only in self-defense or in defense of allies or those who cannot defend themselves. Its conquests are peaceful and always by invitation of the ““conquered”’ who are attracted by the wisdom and justice of Utopian life. In short, Utopia is a civilization guided by the laws of natural reason where, as Chambers has observed, the four Cardinal virtues — Wisdom, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice ~ reign supreme.'®

138 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

Two fundamental aspects of Utopia must have captured Garcilaso’s imagination as he prepared to write about Tahuantinsuyu: the

conceptual model that allowed More to postulate an exemplary pagan civilization contemporary with European Christianity, and the critical usefulness of the contrapuntal two-book structure of More’s text. The exaltation of the non-Christian civilizations of classical antiquity was commonplace in the Middle Ages and particularly in the Renaissance, but it was always subordinated to the moral superiority of Christendom. The cardinal virtues of Wisdom, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice attainable through the exercise of natural reason by themselves were considered insufficient for salvation without the three Christian virtues ~ Faith, Hope, Charity — attainable only through the Grace of Christ. Thus, Augustine’s response to the secular state represented by Roman civilization is the City of God,

comprising the Church and the body of Christians. Augustine’s model argues for the insufficiency of temporal well-being — order, security, and material welfare provided by earthly institutions — in favor of a supernatural welfare accessible only through Christian

Grace. In order to understand the uniqueness of More’s model of Utopian civilization it will be helpful to keep Augustine’s emphasis on

Christian Faith in mind.'? Utopia is an acknowledgment of the importance of natural reason, and of the complementariness of reason

and revelation in the achievement of a truly Christian civilization. Utopia presents an exemplary civilization developed through the exercise of reason alone. Utopian society represents the natural ideal accessible to all human communities even without the benefit of Christian revelation. It is this rational community, which has eliminated the principal sources of human suffering and provides its citizens with an ordered, peaceful, and ethical life, that More offers to Europe

as an example and a corrective. Utopia did not have the benefit of Christian revelation, but still managed to arrive at a monotheistic religion, at a social structure which placed the well-being of the community above the desires of the individual, and at a political structure

which provided justice for its citizens and peace to its neighbors. More’s message to Europe has been aptly summarized by Chambers: “With nothing save Reason to guide them, the Utopians do this; and

yet we Christian Englishmen, we Christian Europeans .. .!’'® His position is more Thomistic than Augustinian in its acknowledgment of the fundamental importance of natural reason to Christianity. Signifi-

cantly, when Hythlodaeus and his companions introduce the Utopians to Christian concepts they are prepared to embrace them, as

‘““NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 139 Raphael tells us, “‘Either through the inspiration of God, or because Christianity is very much like the religion already prevailing among them.” The basic argument that runs through both books of the Utopia is that reason is the necessary foundation of Faith, that ethical norms bolster religious truths, and that in a community in which natural laws are flagrantly violated Christian virtues cannot thrive. The guiding principle in Utopia, imposed by Utopus, its founder, from which all virtuous action proceeds is community of property. Simply stated, Hythlodaeus’ argument is that private property en-

courages greed and the hoarding of goods, as well as that most monstrous of sins Pride, which leads people to measure their self-worth

by what others lack. These vices in turn produce shortages of the necessities for the majority of the population. Existence soon becomes the superfluous consumption of luxuries for the few, and overwork and underconsumption for the many, who must satisfy the ever-increasing demands of the idle rich. Beyond the obvious injustice of the inequalities inherent in this situation, private property also gives rise to other correlative ills, ranging from the extremes of theft and violence to the social ills brought about by the lack of free time for the populace to

indulge in cultural activities, study, worship, and leisure. One need go no further than the early Christian writings to find the source of Utopia’s guiding principle. ‘The first things the Apostles were

asked to leave behind in order to follow Jesus were precisely their homes and other private belongings; everything was to be held communally by Christ and his followers. The monastic orders, of which More was a staunch supporter and admirer, also structured their communities on this example. And, of course, Plato’s ideal Republic was also founded on the principle of communal property. Ina society where all is shared, Hythlodaeus argues, there is no want. For not only are goods held in common but so is the labor of production shared and divided equally. And when all are working for the common good more than enough of the necessities and even the conveniences of life are

produced. The amount of time required for labor 1s also reduced, freeing up hours in the day for study, contemplation, and constructive

recreation. Moreover, both the vices which result from over-consumption and those caused by want, are eradicated because they lack the circumstances which produce them. Virtue in Utopia, then, seems to emanate from the principle of community of property arrived at through the exercise of reason. Temperance, Justice, Fortitude and Wisdom are natural consequences ofa state of affairs where vice has no reason to exist.!9

140 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

In his defense of the merits of Inca civilization, Garcilaso also argues

for the essential virtue of Tahuantinsuyu. Like More, he presents community of property as an important element of the sociopolitical organization established by the Incas. However, the concept assumes

a substantially different role in the text of the Comentarios reales. Initially Garcilaso makes almost identical claims for the benefits derived from communalism in Incan Peru. In Tahuantinsuyu, like Utopia, there 1s no want since the fruits of labor are held in common and each person may take what 1s necessary from the public storehouses. And because there 1s no want all the vices which are associated

with material deprivation do not exist. As in Utopia, gold has no economic value, nor do precious gems. They are appreciated aesthetically and used for decoration, particularly gold since it resembles the solar deity. Hence, because there is no benefit to be gained from the hoarding of goods, greed, selfishness, and pride are also absent. | Community of property is a deceptive concept in the Comentarios reales, however, because everything ultimately belongs to the Inca. And it 1s from his benevolence, from his inherent goodness that virtue springs and the community thrives. In chapter 4 we saw how, through a philologic exegesis of the names of the Inca rulers, Garcilaso brings

to the textual surface all of the excellent qualities which each ruler _ embodied. Indeed, virtue in the Comentarios reales is not the result of adherence to certain principles which are inherently good, but rather

seems to emanate from the Inca himself as the source of goodness. Although it is true that everything was produced for the benefit of the community, the land and the fruits of labor were divided three ways. One third was for the Sun, another third for the Inca, and finally a third of the land and its products was divided among the people, who tilled not only the lots which were assigned for their personal use but also those of the widows and orphans, the Sun’s and the emperor’s. As in Utopia, the citizens are cultivators and not owners of the soil, but unlike More’s imaginary commonwealth where property 1s held communally, in Peru the land and all of its fruits belong to the Inca. He may choose to divide it generously among his people and establish the laws and methods which will yield the greatest benefits to the community. In the Comentarios reales the Inca is the State and without him there is neither order nor reason, only the chaos of pre-Incan Peru.

Let us now examine two passages. In both Utopia and the Comentarios reales an initial state of barbarism is eradicated by an individual who establishes a civilization ruled by reason and natural

““NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 14! wisdom. In Utopia the arrival of Utopus 1s described as follows: ““But Utopus, who conquered the country and gave it his name (it had been

previously called Abraxa), brought its rude and uncouth inhabitants to such a high level of culture and humanity that they now excel in that regard almost every other people.’’° In the Comentarios reales it 1s

Manco Capac, the first Inca, who brings reason to a land where, according to Garcilaso, the inhabitants had lived little better than beasts: ““Viviendo o muriendo aquellas gentes de la manera que hemos visto, permitid Dios nuestro Senor que dellos mismos saliesse un luzero del alva que en aquellas escurissimas tinieblas les diesse alguna noticia de la ley natural y de la urbanidad.”’ (1, 15) [while these people were living or dying in the manner we have seen, it pleased our Lord God that from their midst there should appear a morning star to give them in the dense darkness in which they dwelt some glimmerings of natural law, and of civilization.] (Livermore, 1, p. 40) The situation presented by Garcilaso, reduced to its basic components, is identical to the one in

Utopia. Like Utopus, Manco Capac appears amid a people living a totally barbarian existence and teaches them to live according to the laws of natural reason. In both texts their arrival marks the passage from barbarism to civilization. But in the Comentarios reales the Utopi-

an model is altered. The elements that Garcilaso reads into the Utopian fragment are revealing, for they point not only to the presence of Utopia in the text, but most importantly, lay bare the model’s function in the Comentarios reales, the end that it serves in the process of

interpretation. The description of Manco’s arrival is strategically situated immediately following a lengthy description of the dire state of affairs in preIncan Peru. In Utopia, as we have seen, a simple statement 1s made

about the savage and uncultivated condition of the Abraxans. Garcilaso, however, devotes no fewer than six chapters to an elaborate presentation of the horrors of life before the advent of the Incas. The barbarous practices of the pre-Incan tribes, including their religious rites, which included human sacrifices (Garcilaso will later insist that

the Incas prohibited this practice in particular), are presented in graphic detail. Manco Capac is introduced immediately following

these chapters, staged perfectly to create the strongest dramatic impact. Further, Manco does not simply appear, as did Utopus, but rather erupts messianically onto the unhappy scene. Through an act of Divine intervention, Manco Capac is chosen to bring the light of reason to a world engulfed in the darkness of unreason. In the secular

142 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

sense light has a long tradition as a symbol of knowledge and wisdom.

But in Christian symbolism it also represents Christ. Moreover, the reference to Manco as a morning star (“‘luzero del alva”’) immediately

brings to mind for a Christian reader the Star of Bethlehem as a symbol of Christ’s redemptory role of lighting the way to eternal salvation for a humanity lost in the darkness of original sin. Garcilaso’s use of the Utopian model in the Comentarios reales is first

of all one of imitation, in which structural parallels are clearly established between the settings — Abraxa and pre-Incan Peru, the functions of the protagonists, the civilizers Utopus and Manco Capac, and their actions, the eradication of barbarism through the establishment of a civilization ruled by the laws of reason. However, Garcilaso’s

reading of the model ultimately implies a transformation. The Comentarios reales actualizes a structural imitation of Utopia but hermeneutically it performs a permutation of the model. Menéndez y Pelayo and others have suggested that the Comentarios reales is predominantly a fictional discourse, like More’s Utopia. But while it is accurate to say that it has some of the look and feel of fiction,

because it utilizes a fictional model to mediate the interpretation of

Inca civilization, the single most important transformation that Garcilaso performs on the model is to historicize it. He turns fiction into history by making ““Nowhere’”’ into somewhere. Contrary to the view that the Comentarios reales 1s a fictionalized or novelesque account

of Tahuantinsuyu, Garcilaso’s use of the Utopian model can only be understood as an attempt to reconstruct Utopia as a concrete historical entity, a localizable point in time and space. The strong messianic

overtones that Garcilaso reads into the Utopian fragment are an

essential part of this process since it allows him to inscribe Tahuantinsuyu into a providentialist historical schema. Indeed, he repeatedly states in the Comentarios reales, and later in the Mistoria general del Peru, that Tahuantinsuyu played an essential part in the preparation of the inhabitants of Peru for the eventual reception of the Christian faith. The passage quoted above continues as follows: “*,.. y que los descendientes de aquél (Manco Capac), procediendo de

bien en mejor, cultivassen aquellas fieras y las convirtiessen en hombres, haziéndoles capaces de razon y de cualquiera buena doctrina, para que cuando esse mismo Dios, sol de Justicia, tuviesse por bien de embiar la luz de sus divinos rayos a aquellos iddlatras, los hallasse, no tan salvajes, sino mas dociles para recebir la fe catélica y la ensenanza y doctrina de nuestra Sancta Madre Iglesia Romana, como después

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 143 aca lo han recebido, segiun se vera lo uno y lo otro en el discurso desta

historia...’ (1, 15) [The descendants of this leader should thus tame those savages and convert them into men, made capable of reason and of receiving good doctrine, so that when God, whois the sun of justice, saw fit to send forth the light of His divine rays upon those idolaters, it might find them no longer in their first savagery, but rendered more

docile to receive the Catholic faith and the teaching and doctrine of our Holy Mother the Roman Church, as indeed they have received it — all of which will be seen in the course of this history.] (Livermore, 1, Pp. 40)

The light motif continues to play a central role in this passage. But if Manco Capac brought a ray of reason to the Indians, it was only a star in relative magnitude compared to the Light of Faith with which God, sun of Justice, would eventually enlighten them through His servants the Spaniards. Nonetheless, Manco’s civilizing influence 1s an essen-

tial preliminary to Christianization. Garcilaso clearly states that without reason men are little better than beasts, as his description of _ pre-Incan Peru so graphically demonstrated. Moreover, Mankind had to be led to reason through an act of Divine intervention because, although all peoples were inherently capable of rationality, they must learn the way to reason, just as they are all capable of faith but had to be shown the way by Christ and His ministers. Thus Garcilaso posits once again a Tahuantinsuyu in the role of praeparatio evangelica, established by Divine Will in order to eradicate the evils and barbarism of __.

the primitive tribes of the First Age in preparation for their eventual Christianization. Garcilaso’s messianic interpretation of the Utopian model argues for the privileged historical role of the Inca and his descendants as the chosen of God. It is they who embody Reason and Virtue and impart them to the other inhabitants of Peru through the excellent laws and institutions of Tahuantinsuyu and through personal example. ‘The messianic elements that Garcilaso reads into the Utopian model are responsible for the fact that in the Comentarios reales community of property is just one of the manifestations of the goodness and wisdom of the ruling Inca as the chosen of God, whereas in Utopia itis the principle of community of property which generates goodness

by removing the principal cause of the sins of greed and pride. On this point Garcilaso differs radically from Las Casas, who rejected the possibility ofirrationality in human beings except in a few isolated cases which he classified as “‘freaks of nature.’’ And in fact, Garcilaso’s argument coincides with the essential Aristotelian premise

144 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

of Septlveda’s anti-Indian position, which maintained that there are varying degrees of rationality among the peoples of the world. But while Sepulveda maintained that this condition was permanent and that all of the members of a particular race would exhibit the same deficiency, Garcilaso utilizes the model provided by More’s Utopia to

argue that reason is within reach of any race, and that in the providentialist march of all peoples toward salvation there is a stage in their development where God allows the spark of reason to be ignited. The argument that the Comentarios reales ultimately makes for Inca civilization is for its privileged position in a providentialist historical

scheme. The importance of the doctrinal role of Tahuantinsuyu in preparing the natives of Peru for receiving the Faith is underscored in the closing lines of the passage cited above: “. . . que por esperiencia

muy clara se ha notado cuanto mas promptos y agiles estavan para

recebir el Evangelio los indios que los Reyes Incas sujetaron, governaron, y ensenaron, que no las demas naciones comarcanas, donde aun no havia llegado la ensenanza de los Incas, muchas de las cuales estan hoy tan barbaras y brutas como antes estavan, con haver setenta anos que los espanoles entraron en el Pert.” (1, 15) [It has been

observed by clear experience how much prompter and quicker to receive the Gospel were the Indians subdued, governed, and taught by the Inca kings than the other neighboring peoples unreached by the Incas’ teachings, many of which are still today as savage and brutish as before, despite the fact that the Spaniards have been in Peru seventy years.] (Livermore, 1, p. 40) Garcilaso repeatedly reminds the reader in the Historta general that as a result of the disintegration of the empire many tribes are falling back into their barbarous ways. And he is particularly concerned about the rapid linguistic deterioration that has taken place, where the Quechua tongue imposed by the Incas as

the official and unifying language has given way to a plurality of regional dialects, making the task of evangelization all the more difficult for the Spanish missionaries.

The Utopian model argues for the achievement of virtue in the natural realm through the exercise of reason as a prerequisite and a necessary foundation for the flowering of the Christian Faith. The cure that More proposes for the ills of Christendom 1s a reformation of

the secular domain ~— a return to an ethics of reason. The warm reception which the Utopians give to Christianity is attributed to the similarities and affinities that exist between the teachings of Christ and

, their own moral values:

““NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 145 But after they had heard from us the name of Christ, and learned of his | teachings, his life, his miracles, and the no less marvelous devotion of the many martyrs who shed their blood to draw nations from far and near into the Christian fellowship, you would not believe how they were impressed. Either through the mysterious inspiration of God, or because Christianity 1s very like the religion already prevailing among them, they were well disposed

toward it from the start. But I think they were also much influenced by the fact that Christ had encouraged his disciples to practice community of goods,

prevails. (P- 79)

and that among the truest groups of Christians, the practice still More’s description of the conceptual framework of Utopian religion points clearly to strong ideological affinities with the tenets of Chris-

tianity. In the passage just cited the coincidence of the guiding principle of community of property, upon which the Utopian commonwealth is founded, and the communalism of early Christianity is suggested as a common denominator encouraging the Utopians to

embrace the Faith. But the specific claim made by Hythlodaeus concerning the similarity between the Utopian and European religions

— “Christianity is very like the religion already prevailing among them” — is the key to the closing chapter of Utopia. The aspect that most interests More is the essential monotheism of Utopian theology.

Although there are numerous religious sects (in the ideal commonwealth religious tolerance is the order of the day), most Utopians are staunchly monotheistic: Most Utopians . . . believe in a single power, unknown, eternal, infinite, inexplicable, and diffused throughout the universe, not physically but in influence. Him they call father, and to him alone they attribute the origin, increase, progress, change, and end of all visible things; they do not offer divine honors to any other. ‘Though the various sects of the Utopians differ from the main group in various particular doctrines, they all agree in this main head, that there is one supreme power, the maker and ruler of the Universe, whom they call in their

native language Mithra. (p. 78) The similarities between the supreme deity worshiped by the Utopians and the Hebraeo-Christian concept of God are striking. More’s claim is safely within the bounds of orthodoxy, however. As we saw in the previous chapter, the Thomistic interpretation of Man, based on the natural—supernatural dichotomy, maintained that the exercise of reason eventually leads all human beings to knowledge of God, and those who are particularly wise, as Las Casas argued, even closer to the apprehension of His true nature. Only revelation could elevate Mankind to the supernatural realm and salvation, but reason

146 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

was sufficient to save even the heathen from everlasting damnation. Although a much fuller faith was demanded of Christians (who of course could also await the greatest rewards), it was enough for the pagan to believe “‘that God is, and that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him.” These are, argued Nicholas de Lyra, “two points such as every man may attain by natural reason, holpen forth with such grace

as God keepeth from no man.’”! Idolatrous theology is also a central concern in the Comentarios reales.

As we saw in chapter 4, much of the corrective philology in the text is

performed on religious terminology, specifically on terms that had been interpreted by the Spaniards with damaging conclusions. When one considers the amount of exegesis and commentary devoted to such

words as huaca, Pachacamac, and apachecta it becomes clear that Garcilaso thought it of the utmost importance to invalidate Spanish claims of rampant polytheism among the Incas. The defense of the essential monotheism of Inca theology is a vital link in the argument in support ofa privileged and divinely instituted role for Tahuantinsuyu

in the march toward salvation. The resemblance between Utopian theology and the Inca concept of God presented by Garcilaso in the Comentarios reales is unmistakable.

Both texts offer a clearly monotheistic interpretation of the ‘“‘wisest”’

pagan theology; beyond that they also coincide in the descriptive elements of that conceptualization as well as in the manner in which they explain the role of the supreme deity in what is an apparently polytheistic context. With the exception of Las Casas there is no other precedent in the literature of the period of the discovery of America which argues explicitly in support of the monotheism of any of the indigenous civilizations. Even Las Casas’ presentation of Inca theology in the Apologética, as we saw in the previous chapter, suggests much more than it asserts. In fact, Garcilaso 1s particularly outspoken in his criticism of the Spanish accounts on this point. His exegesis and commentary of the term Pachacamac is most immediately intended as a

correction of the Spanish interpretations of Inca theology which, without exception, had failed to understand the meaning of the term and its transcendental significance in the march of pre-Hispanic Peru toward eventual salvation. Among the mistaken chroniclers he cites the names of some of his favorite authorities, including Cieza de Leén,

Agustin de Zarate, and Fray Gerénimo Roman. All of them, Garcilaso laments, confused Pachacamac with the Devil because of their linguistic incompetence: “‘por no saber la propia significaci6n del

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 147 vocablo se lo atribuyeron al demonio,” and later, **Y en dezir que él (el demonio) era el Pachacamac minti6, porque la intencion de los indios nunca fue dar este nombre al demonio, que no lo llamaron sino Cupay, que quiere dezir diablo, y para nombrarle escupian primero en senal de maldicion y abominacién...”’ (11, 2) [not knowing the true sense of the word, they apply the name to the Devil (.. .) But the devil was quite wrong in saying he was the Pachacamac, for the Indians never intended this name for the Devil, whom they call Gupay, meaning “‘devil,’”’ and on naming him, they first spat as a sign of malediction

and abomination.] (Livermore, I, p. 71) Like the Utopians, the Incas worshiped the heavenly bodies and considered the ruling Inca to be a god, a direct descendant of the Sun. But both More and Garcilaso transform what clearly appears to be a polytheistic religious system into an essentially monotheistic one by arguing that the plurality of gods was but a superficial manifestation

which was ultimately founded on the worship ofonesupremedeity.In Utopia most of the inhabitants believe in an unknown, abstract, and omnipotent god to whom they attribute the origin and sustenance of all things. In the Comentarios reales Garcilaso makes a strong case for the

claim that the Incas acknowledged but one, supreme deity through the commentary and exegesis of the term Pachacamac. As we have seen, the chapter entitled, “‘Rastrearon los Incas al verdadero Dios Nuestro Sefor”’ (II, 2), argues in support of the supremacy of Pachacamac over

the Sun in the theological hierarchy of Tahuantinsuyu: ““Tuvieron al Pachacamac en mayor veneracion interior que el sol, que, como he dicho, no osavan tomar su nombre en la boca, y al sol le nombran a cada passo. Preguntando quién era el Pachacamac, dezian que era el que dava vida al universo y le sustentava, pero que no le conocian porque no le havian visto, y que por esto no le hazian templos ni le ofrescian sacrificios, mas que le adoravan en su corazon (esto es mentalmente) y le tenian por Dios no conoscido.”’ (u, 2) [Inwardly they regarded the Pachacamac with much greater veneration than the Sun, for, as I have mentioned, they did not dare utter his name and

the Sun they alluded to on every occasion. If asked who was the Pachacamac, they would say “‘he who gave life to the universe and

sustained it,” but they did not make temples to him or offer him sacrifices, but adored him in their hearts — that is mentally — and held

him to be the unknown god.]| (Livermore, I, p. 70)

There is a striking resemblance between the description of Pachacamac, “‘el que haze con el mundo universo lo que el alma con el

148 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

cuerpo que es darle ser, vida, aumento y sustento...”’ (u, 2) [he who does to the world universe what the soul does to the body, to give it being, life, growth, and sustenance], and the description of Mithra in Utopia: “Him they call father, and to him alone they attribute the origin, increase, progress, change and end ofall visible things” (p. 78). But it is the following claim, actually made by Garcilaso, though implicit in More’s presentation, that argues most strongly for the _ presence of Utopia as a model in the Comentarios reales: ‘‘Demas de adorar al Sol por Dios visible, a quien ofrecieron sacrificios e hicieron grandes fiestas (como en otro lugar diremos), los Reyes Incas y sus

amautas, que eran los fildsofos, rastrearon con lumbre natural al verdadero Sumo Dios y Senior Nuestro, que crié el cielo y la tierra,” (11, 2) [In addition to worshipping the Sun as a visible god to whom they offered sacrifices and dedicated great festivals, which we shall _ describe, the Inca kings and their amautas, who were the philosophers,

perceived by light of nature the true supreme God our Lord, the maker of heaven and earth] (Livermore, 1, p. 70). In Utopia reason and

revelation meet and complement one another perfectly precisely at that moment in mankind’s development when the natural intellect is at the limit of its range, at the very threshold of the supernatural. Utopus took the Abraxans out ofa state of barbarism and put them on the road of reason. The Utopian commonwealth is the natural consequence oflaws and institutions established on a set of principles guided

by natural wisdom. But Utopia is not simply a celebration of the achievements ofa pagan civilization; it is a statement in support of the

complementary nature of the natural and supernatural realms, of reason and revelation. For More ultimately argues that virtue must first be achieved in the realm of reason in order to provide a hospitable

and fertile environment for the inception of the Faith and for the Christian virtues to continue to flourish. Thus, Hythlodaeus’ account ends fittingly with the introduction of Christianity to Utopia and an analysis of the reasons for the warm reception given to the teachings of

Christ by the Utopian people. It is interesting to note that More’s conception of the process of evangelization of the natives of the New World consists of religious tolerance and the peaceful attraction of nonbelievers by example and persuasion. As Hythlodaeus relates in the Utopia, the worshipers of Mithra welcomed Christianity: “Verily, howsoever it came to pass, many of them consented to accept our religion, and were washed in the holy water of baptism. But because among us four (for no more of

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 149 our company were left alive, two of our company being dead) there

was no priest, which I am sorry for, they, though initiated and instructed in all other points of our religion, lack those sacraments which here none but priests administer.” In keeping with More’s

argument that reason played an essential part in the Utopians’ conversion to Christianity, the ready acceptance of Christian dogma

by the Utopians springs from its similarity to the beliefs already prevalent among them. As Hythlodaeus points out, they were particu-

larly attracted to and convinced by the principle of community of property espoused by Jesus and his disciples.

The success of peaceful evangelism among civilized peoples presents a striking contrast to the religious zealotry typical of the medieval crusades and the Renaissance incursions into Africa, Asia, and the New World. In Utopia radical religious proselytism is consid-ered disruptive to the welfare of the community and punishable by exile or slavery: ““They also who do not argue to Christ’s religion frighten no man from it, nor speak against any man who has received it, save one of our company who in my presence was sharply punished. He, assoon as he was baptized, began against our wills, with more zeal than wisdom, to reason on Christ’s religion; and began to wax so hot on his subject that he not only praised our religion above all others,

but also utterly despised and condemned all others, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish and children of

everlasting damnation. When he had thus long discoursed on the subject, they laid hold of him, accused him and condemned him to exile, not as a despiser of religion but as a seditious person and an inciter of dissension among the people. For this is one of the most ancient laws among them, that no man shall be blamed for reasoning in the support of his own religion.”’ In the Hispanic world Las Casas was the most outspoken supporter of peaceful evangelization and he argued repeatedly in favor of the rational foundations of New World theologies. Let us recall his bold defense of human sacrifice on rational grounds. But it is Garcilaso’s Incas who are the historical mirror of the Utopian model in their theology, in their practice of religious toler-

ance and persuasive evangelization, in striking contrast to More’s zealot and to the prevalent Hispanic practices of the day. And it is the

Europeans who are implicitly chastized, as More did explicitly, for their intolerance and disrespect.

The Utopian model can be summarized, then, as an equation where reason plus revelation yield the true Christian state. Without

150 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

reason mankind is not prepared to receive Christ, and without faith humanity cannot attain salvation. In his interpretation of Tahuantinsuyu Garcilaso makes the same argument. The Comentarios reales is the description of a civilization which has achieved wisdom and virtue in the natural realm. But as I have tried to show throughout this study, the descriptive aspects of the

text are a function of the larger hermeneutical intent. Inca civilization, Garcilaso maintains, played an essential role in preparing the way for the eventual Christianization of Peru. Like Utopus, Manco Capac introduced the barbarous tribes of the pre-Incaic period to the rational principles and taught them to live virtuously, laying the necessary foundation upon which the Spaniards could construct the edifice of Christianity. In the reason-cum-revelation model of Utopia both elements are equally essential to the constitution of the true Christian state, and ultimately, this is the very point the Comentarios reales makes about Inca civilization. Like Utopia, Tahuantinsuyu is a necessary step in mankind’s march toward salvation. Rather than an

evil and a hindrance to the Faith that must be eradicated, Inca civilization becomes an essential component of God’s divine plan. What the Comentarios reales adds to the Utopian model is the super-

natural dimension — the irruption of the divine will into human history. And in this sense the Comentarios reales conforms closely to the

historical providentialism which guided Spain’s imperial enterprise from its beginnings. Garcilaso simply makes the role of Providence operative in the natural realm as well as in the supernatural, arguing that Tahuantinsuyu, like Spain, must be recognized as an integral part of God’s plan for the eventual communion of all peoples in the Christian faith and the attainment of the possibility of salvation. The Comentarios reales historicizes the Utopian model by integrating Tahuantinsuyu into a providentialist scheme of human history. Mounin argues that Renaissance theory of translation was founded on the idea that the human experience was universal and therefore

ultimately translatable: “‘whether it be Cicero, St. Jerome or du Bellay, all those who deal with the difficulties of translation are persuaded that they can express the meaning of a text . . . One postulate underlies all the reasoning of the Ancients on translation: the postulate of the unity of human experience, the identity of the human spirit, the universality of the forms of knowledge.’”?? And it is

such a belief in the essential unity of the human spirit, and in the consequent translatability of Tahuantinsuyu into European dis-

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 151 course, that motivates Garcilaso’s corrective reinterpretation. It is a concept at odds with the linguistic solipsism that prevails in our own times; nonetheless it is crucial to understand if we are to make sense of the preeminent role that translation plays in the Comentarios reales. If on the narrative surface translation manifests itself as the corrective commentary of the original language, it 1s also a strategy in the deep structure of the text where the conceptual model provided by More’s Utopia mediates the act of intersemiosis. Garcilaso’s self-imposed task

of interpretation ultimately consists of a translation, not just of the signs themselves, but of the relationships that constitute the global semiotic system known as Tahuantinsuyu. Mounin explains this essential duality of the act of translation by arguing that while it is possible to translate the signifier of any given sign without interpreting the signified, a complete translation must execute both operations. Not coincidentally, it 1s philology, as the science which reconstructs the texts of the past, that Mounin cites as a method that integrates both aspects of translation: “*... philology has demonstrated that understanding a text signifies both these separable and sometimes separate things. ‘To understand the signifiers without understanding the signifieds, is to understand all that one is permitted to understand by the formal relationships that constitute the linguistic system of a language, its structure — lexicological, morphological,

syntactical — all that which can be done without arriving at the signifieds. Comprehension of the signifieds 1s (when added to the preceding operation) accessible by another operation: the knowledge of the arbitrary relationships (through the course of time, this time) between the same signs and their successively different signifieds.’’?° It

is in this sense that Garcilaso understands the reinterpretation of Inca civilization. Beyond the specific method of philologic exegesis with which he avails himself for a restoration of the original Quechua text,

Garcilaso’s philology constitutes a hermeneutical strategy for the verbal reconstruction of Inca civilization and its inscription into a European discourse through an intersemiotic translation mediated by the Utopian model. The critical intention

Up to this point we have discussed the function of the Utopian model as descriptive discourse in the Comentartos reales, and the mediative role

that Utopia plays in the process of interpretation by which Garcilaso

152 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

attempts to render a non-Christian New World culture intelligible to

a Christian European readership. But there is also an important critical dimension to the Utopia. More’s text is not simply descriptive;

it is also a comparative model through which a European Christian state is examined in counterpoint to the fictional construct of Utopia. The two-book structure of the Utopia, in which the first is devoted to an analysis of the evils of English society and the second to the description

of Utopian civilization, imparts a comparative, critical intent to the whole. Not only does More invite comparison by alluding to similar-

ities between Britain and the island of Utopia (see the opening description of Utopia in Book 2), he is explicit about his intentions in several passages: “But as he remarked upon many poor and foolish laws in those new found lands, so he related many acts and constitutions, where from our cities, nations, and countries may take example

to amend their faults, enormities, and errors .. .”> While More maintains a healthy skepticism about certain of the Utopian institutions, particularly concerning their religious practices and their mercenary army, the use of irony marks the limits of the skeptic’s posture

and keeps it in check. When More, the character, questions the principle of community of property, More, the author, makes certain to undermine it by equating the attitude to ““common opinion,” and cannot resist taking a final jab at those “who are afraid lest they seem

not wise enough, unless they can find some fault in other men’s inventions.’ ’24

: While irony plays an important part in More’s discourse, 1t is most frequently directed at European practices and institutions. The radical idealism of the Utopian model obliges the suspicious reader to turn every stone in search of the contradictions and inconsistencies which are often the markers of irony, to perform a hypercritical reading of the text. Kinney has described this as an intentional characteristic of More’s discourse, which invites the reader to provide the “missing third view,” to evaluate, to be an active participant in the processes of the text.?° This interpretation is consistent with the critical intent of the work as a whole. As Marin argues, Utopia 1s a fictional site upon which to resolve a historical contradiction — the evils and injustices ofa

European civilization which claims at the same time to represent the teachings of Christ. The function of the Utopian model, according to Marin, is to inform or guide political policy, but its very fictional,

theoretical nature precludes the possibility that through political action it could be recreated historically.” Thus Utopia is an example, a

model to evaluate action, not a pragmatic or prescriptive work.

‘“*“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 153 The Comentarios reales, however, is not intended to be a fictional

construct. While Garcilaso utilizes a fictional model to render his interpretation intelligible and persuasive, he grounds it historically in space and time. Tahuantinsuyu 1s a historical fact. The comparative element in the text, which pits Inca laws, customs, and institutions

against its European, and specifically Hispanic, counterparts 1s masked on the discursive surface — all comparison is odious, declares

Garcilaso. But the very compositional elements in his statement of aversion to comparison are themselves a stimulus for the reader to read comparatively: “todo lo que desta Republica, antes destruida

que conocida dijere, sera contando llanamente lo que en su antiguedad tuvo de su idolatria, ritos, sacrificios, y ceremonias, y en su

gobierno, leyes y costumbres, en paz y en guerra, sin comparar cosa

alguna destas a otras semejantes que en las historias divinas y humanas se hallan, ni al gobierno de nuestros tiempos, porque toda comparasion es odiosa.”’ (1, 19) [in all that I shall have to say about a state that was destroyed before it had been known, I shall plainly tell everything concerning its idolatry, rites, sacrifices, and ceremonies in ancient times, and its government, laws, and customs in peace and in war, and make no comparisons with other histories divine or human, nor with the government of our times, for all comparisons are odious. ] (Livermore, I, p. 51}

Garcilaso’s expressed distaste for comparisons may have been motivated by a genuine antipathy, or simply by a desire to sidestep a confrontation with the Crown and its censors, but regardless of its motivation itis blatantly untrue. From the opening pages of the Proem where Cuzco is compared to Rome (“‘que fue otra Roma en aquel imperio’’) Garcilaso inscribes his discourse in the comparative mode. Like Las Casas’ Afologética, the Comentarios reales continually establishes

points of contact between Inca civilization and the cultures of classical antiquity. And again like the Apologétzca, the Incas more often than not

come out most favorably. The clause that is most pertinent to our

discussion, however, is the one that pertains to contemporary civilization — “ni al gobierno de nuestros tiempos.” Duran Luzio has seen a probable allusion to Utopiain this passage and I agree.”’ Butitisa . clause that the reader must interpret ironically, along with the rest of the passage into which it is set. A literal interpretation is irreconcilable with the work it pretends to describe, leading the literal reader into a

flawed interpretation that inevitably encounters contradiction upon contradiction. This clause is not a thinly veiled criticism of More’s Utopia, as Duran Luzio implies. If we understand it as an allusion to

154 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

More’s text, then we must perform a grammatical inversion on the passage that transforms a negative affirmation into a positive one in order to render it consistent with its context. An ironic reading of this passage yields the following transformation: “. .. comparing some of these things [‘‘algunas destas cosas’’| to other similar ones which are found in divine and human histories, and to, the government of our times, since some comparisons may be odious, but others are fruitful.” The resolution of the contradictions between this passage in its original negative form and its context, the rest of the Comentarios reales, by performing an ironic inversion shows us that instead of an apparent

attempt to dissuade the reader from performing a comparative reading, itisin fact an invitation to the perceptive reader to dojust that. Irony here serves a strategic function, shielding the text from official

displeasure and the routine reading which would probably be performed by bureaucratic censors, yet tipping off the careful reader, well-versed in the humanist ironies of an Erasmus or a More, to the comparative intent of Garcilaso’s text. The Comentarios reales is full of explicit and implicit comparisons to the “government of our times”’ (Garcilaso uses gebierno in this passage, not in the narrow meaning of political state, but in 1ts broadest sense to

include all of the laws, customs, and institutions by which a given society governs itself). Among the most obvious and daring compari-

sons are those which establish parallels between Inca theology and Christianity, as we have already seen. But, like Utopia, the Comentartos reales is set in the comparative mode from beginning to end. The first

person narrative voice of a mestizo writing in Europe about the New World immediately imposes a comparative focus whose lens is the Indian consciousness so persistently proclaimed by Garcilaso’s narrative persona. Moreover, his claim to an interpreter’s role clearly establishes the comparative function of the narrative voice whose task it will be to mediate between Christian European and non-Christian indigenous cultures. Each act of translation in the text implies a comparison. Structurally the Comentarios reales also assumes a comparative format since Garcilaso continually alternates his narrative between

the “viejo Imperio” of the Incas, and the “nuevo Imperio”’ of the Spaniards, between the flora and fauna of Peru and those of Europe. Descriptive passages like the following would be meaningless without the comparative dimension: La fruta que los espanoles laman peras, por parecerse a la de Espafia en el color verde y en el talle, Ilaman los indios palta; porque son de una provincia

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 155 de este nombre que se comunico a las demas. Son dos y tres veces mayores que

las peras grandes de Espana; tiene una vaina tierna y delgada; debajo de ella

tiene la médula, que sera de un dedo de grueso; dentro de ella se cria un cuesco, o hueso, como quieren los muy mirlados; es de la misma forma de la

pera, y tan grueso como una de las peras comunes de aca... _— (VIII, 2) [The fruit the Spaniards call pears, because they resemble Spanish pears by their green color and shape, are called palta by the Indians, since they spread from a province of this name to the rest of Peru. They are twice or three times the size oflarge Spanish pears. They have a thin and tender rind under which

is the pulp, about a finger in thickness. In the middle there is a stone, or kernel, as sticklers for accuracy will prefer to call it. It is pear-shaped and as

big as a common Spanish pear. | (Livermore, I, p. 170)

In this act ofinterlingual translation both terms of the comparison, the indigenous and the European (falta and pear), are explicitly present in the passage. For the purpose of our discussion let us name this type of descriptive comparison, explicit and self-contained, an innocent or

simple comparison. These abound in both the Utopia and the Comentarios reales and are essential to the intelligibility of both texts.

But there is another type of comparison, implicit and intentional, which invests the discourse with an essentially critical dimension. In the first book of the Utopia the critical function is actualized by

the character Raphael Hythlodaeus. In casual conversation with More and Giles, Raphael is reminded ofa visit he had once made to England and of the stupid comment a guest had made during a dinner party at Cardinal Morton’s. The unfortunate man had praised the rigor of English justice which punished theft by death, but wondered why, in spite of such a harsh sentence, there were still so many thieves.

Raphael sharply responds that the law that metes out capital punishment for the taking of another’s property 1s essentially unjust since it 1s

out of proportion to the crime. Furthermore, it will not eradicate the source of the crime, the extreme poverty of the lower classes. ‘This opens his critique of the English commonwealth in Book 1. Book 2 is separated from the first in time, space, subject matter, and form. Chronologically Hythlodaeus’ critique 1s separated from the description of Utopian civilization by a break in the action, while More, Giles, and their companion supposedly eat supper. The subject matter and focus of Book 2 is exclusively Utopian; the few references to

Europe are from the Utopians’ perspective. More the character’s closing statement is separated typographically and chronologically from the Utopian narrative (the writer’s present is removed from Raphael’s narration by an indeterminate amount of time, probably

156 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

several months). The rhetorical form of Book 1 1s also different from that of Book 2. The former is a disputation, the latter an encomium. This radical schism between the two parts of the Utopia undoubtedly reflects the fact that they were written at different times; the Utopian encomium was actually written first, the introductory critique added at a later date. But beyond the extratextual circumstances of composition, this dichotomy marks the boundary between two different types

of readings. The reader’s role in Book 1, Hythlodaeus’ critique of England, is that of an observer. The Utopian discourse, however, obliges the reader to become an active participant. The Utopian encomium, distinguished as it is from the disputation, is no less critical

a discourse, but the critical function is performed not by a character

but by the reader of the text. Because of its relation to Book 1, Raphael’s presentation of Utopian civilization forces the reader to make constant comparisons and judgments. But since one of the terms of the comparison (Europe) is absent from the narrative, it becomes the reader’s responsibility to fill in the blanks and perform the critical

function. The comparative and critical elements in Book 2 are im-

plicit, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are potentially present, awaiting realization only in the act of reading. In the Comentarios reales there is also an implicit or potential critical

dimension to the discourse, inscribed into the text in the form of a comparison, where one of the terms (again, Europe) 1s absent. Unlike Utopia, the Comentarios reales does not have an overtly critical “Book 1”

in order to prepare the reader, as it were, for the critical function (the efficacy of this preparatory exercise.for the reader was presumably perceived by More after he wrote the description of Utopia, leading him to add the introductory disputation). But 1t does have something that the Utopian encomium by itselfdid not — an inherently comparative structure. The philological form of the discourse in the Comentarios is in essence comparative. Texts, words, objects, concepts, are continually set against one another in the process of correction and interpret-

ation. But alongside the explicit comparisons, whose function 1s primarily interpretative (e.g., the comparisons between Inca and Christian theology, the flora and fauna of Peru and Europe, the arming of a Spanish cavalier and the Incan Auaracu puberty rituals, etc.), there are implicit comparisons which constitute a critical discourse in potential. Despite Garcilaso’s protestations to the contrary, the Comentarios reales constantly invites the reader to compare Inca civilization with classical Antiquity, with the barbarian tribes of the pre-Incan period, with Christendom, and finally with Spain itself. “EI

‘““NOWHERE’ IS SOMEWHERE 157 que leyere [las leyes y costumbres] podra cotejarlas a su gusto, que muchas hallara semejantes a las antiguas, asi de la santa escritura, como de las profanas y fabulas de gentilidad antigua: muchas leyes y costumbres vera que se parecen a las de nuestro siglo, otras muchas oira en todo contrarias.”’ (Bk 1, ch. 19) [The reader can make his own comparisons, for he will find many points of similarity in ancient history, both in Holy Writ and in the profane histories and fables of pagan antiquity. He will observe many laws and customs that compare with those of our own age, and hear many others quite contrary

to them.] (Livermore, 1, p. 51) This passage reveals that while Garcilaso as narrator pretends to shun comparisons, he simultaneously urges the reader to compare by the very act of reading. As in the second book of the Utopia this critical dimension must be realized in the reading process, by a participant—reader who should be able to detect ironies, allusions, contradictions, pregnant silences, all of them invitations to exercise critical judgment. Of course, as we have seen, Garcilaso 1s careful to establish the ideological parameters for that judgment: reason/unreason, civilization/barbarism. Encoded in this comparative discourse is a devastating indictment of the Spanish conquest as an imperial enterprise. Just as in More’s

work the reader is invited to see contrasts between the state of the English commonwealth and Utopia, the Comentarios reales invites con-

stant comparison between Tahuantinsuyu and Hispanic Peru, between what Garcilaso refers to as the old and new empires. One of the most heatedly debated issues of the conquest, about which much was written, (including Vitoria’s famous De indis, Las Casas’ ““De unico

vocationem modo .. .’’, his inflammatory Brevisstma relacién de la destruccién de las Indias, and Sepulveda’s Democrates secundus), was whether the military nature of the Spanish conquest was a legal and

just means of implanting Christianity in America. We have already discussed how that answer was approached from the perspective of the

nature of the American Indians, and we have seen that Garcilaso confronts the theory of Indian inferiority openly in the Comentarios _ reales, as he had done earlier in La Florida. But the concrete historical reality of the wars of conquest and the destruction of Inca civilization is an issue that Garcilaso approached with great caution. The reasons

for this apprehension are easy to imagine. While discussions of a theoretical issue could be handled without accusations and confronta-

tions, the evaluation of specific historical actions and their consequences could not. Aware of his own vulnerability, and consequently that of his work, Garcilaso shifts to the reader the responsibility for the

158 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

critical function. The technique is not exclusive to the history of the Incas either. In La Flortda he ambiguously and suggestively asks the reader to become an active participant in the narrative: ““Lo que yo no

acertare a decir quede para la consideracion de los discretos que suplan con ella lo que la pluma no acierte a escribir.” (La Florida del Inca, Bk m, ch. 14) [But you must... leave that which I do not happen to tell to the imagination of the wise who may supply with their minds what my pen fails to indite.] (Varner, p. 315) Later in the same book Garcilaso will again urge the reader to use his or her imagination to

become an active participant in the process of reading: “. . . tengo necesidad de remitirme en lo que este capitulo resta a la consideracion de los que lo leyeren para que, con imaginarlo, suplan lo que yo en este lugar no puedo decir cumplidamente .. .”’ (Bk m1, ch. 29) [... I now must submit my account to the consideration of those who may read it that they may supply with their own imaginations what I am not able to tell here...] (Varner, p. 374) Just as More finally leaves it up to his readers to evaluate Hythlodaeus’ account of Utopia, so Garcilaso lets his European audience judge Spanish actions in the New World. But while in the Utopia there is an overtly critical posture followed by the presentation of the model, in the Comentarios the critical dimension

with respect to Europe is almost totally covert. Garcilaso implies it through allusions, ironies, omissions — the text 1s full of markers — but

ultimately it is the reader who must perform the critical act. It is not coincidental that in his account of Inca history and culture Garcilaso chose to highlight Tahuantinsuyu’s imperialistic expansion into what became a vast empire. The interpretation of Inca civilization as a divinely ordained praeparatio evangelica serves not only to justify it in the eyes of Christendom, it also places Tahuantinsuyu in a situation historically analogous to that of Spain. The Incas were the apostles of reason in Peru, Garcilaso argues, the Spaniards the apostles of the faith. In both cases, then, conquest 1s presented as an apostolic mission fulfilling the divine will. In the final analysis, the Comentarios reales is an account of how the Incas performed their divinely ordained historical role. Most of his readers would already be acquainted with

how the Spaniards had performed theirs. While official historiography had recorded the martial accomplishments of the conquistadores, testimony of Spanish greed, cruelty, devastation, and religious hypocrisy was well represented in the writings of Las Casas, Cieza de Leon, Acosta, and others, even if sometimes unwittingly. Garcilaso’s account of the Inca conquests is a dominant feature of the narrative in the Comentarios reales. ‘The territorial acquisitions of

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 159 each Inca are presented with as much detail as the oral form of the original Quechua accounts permitted. But there is a formulaic nature to their presentation that immediately strikes the reader. Garcilaso 1s not simply relating the facts of a particular historical event, he is also

presenting a model of conquest. The Inca imperial enterprise is characterized in the Comentarios reales by its beneficent nature. In keeping with the essentially tutorial, paternal nature of the relationship between the Inca and his subjects, emissaries are dispatched to various territories to present peacefully to the local curacas (chiefs) all

of the benefits that their people would enjoy under Inca rule. Frequently this initial gesture is sufficient to convince the subjects-to-be of

the excellence and beneficence of Inca laws and institutions. On occasion force is required to obtain fealty from the group in question because, Garcilaso explains, its leaders were reluctant to give up their power and their ancient customs. Incan force in these situations is kept to a minimum, however. The Inca invariably shows great restraint, refraining from direct attack, using nonviolent military strategies such

as blockades, the disruption of supplies, and constant diplomatic persuasion in order to avoid bloodshed.”* In the rare cases where the

enemy insisted on a direct military confrontation, the Inca never failed to show his clemency and compassion by forgiving the guilty

curacas and restoring them to positions of authority within their tribes.?9

The model of conquest that Garcilaso offers is based on the selfevident goodness and excellence of the laws of natural reason, and on peaceful persuasion as the best tool for the conversion of non-believers. Violence is justified only as a last resort, when all other means have been exhausted, and only ifitis followed by tolerance, forgiveness, and the restoration of power and authority to the defeated within the new order. Conquest in the Comentarios reales, like in the Utopia, is charac-

terized by restraint and tolerance.2° The Incas impose their laws, institutions, and religious beliefs, but permit the conquered to keep those aspects of their culture which do not violate the laws of reason, including the worship of local gods as long as the Sun Is recognized as the supreme deity. The model of peaceful and clement conquest that Garcilaso offers in the Comentarios reales 1s not so much a blueprint for benevolent political

imperialism as a model of a tutelary relationship between a divinely

appointed Inca-teacher and his subjects as students in the art of rational living. In keeping with his conception of Tahuantinsuyu in the role of praeparatio evangelica, Garcilaso transforms Incan imperial-

160 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

ism into a rigorous pedagogy, whose divine purpose will be fully revealed with the arrival of the Word on the lips of the Spaniards. This

model and the subsequent tutelary relationship between the Inca conquerors and their subjects forms a striking contrast to the Spanish imperial enterprise as it actually happened. The Inca model can be seen as a point-by-point response to the methods and means of the Spanish conquest and its divinely ordained mission of implanting the Word of God on Peruvian soil. ‘To the Spanish propensity for violence Garcilaso offers the self-restraint of the Incas, to the Spanish eagerness to punish he offers Inca clemency, to Spanish greed and usurpation of

property and authority he offers Inca generosity, to the Christian intolerance of indigenous customs and practices he offers the example of Inca tolerance. Finally, to the Spanish neglect of their evangelical duty of bringing the light of faith to the Indians (as manifested in the linguistic incompetence of the Spaniards, their permitting the decay

of Quechua which would have been such an excellent vehicle for transmitting the precepts of the Christian religion, the lack of compe-

tent teachers to instruct the Indians in European culture and the mysteries of the faith, etc.) Garcilaso offers the great didactic achieve-

ments of the Incas in bringing the light of reason to the barbarous tribes of Peru. This implicit comparison of the Spanish and Incan imperialist enterprises 1s accompanied by a series of markers in the text that interrupt a linear reading. These indicators or cues are characterized by the contradictory or incongruous relationship between particular fragments of the text and the context in which they are set. They are akin to small semantic scandals (“petits scandales semantiques’’) that

provoke a critical reaction on the part of the reader attempting to resolve the incongruity.*! The following passage, which marks the transition between the Inca ruler’s inspection of the progress of territories already under his tutelage and his return to the enterprise of conquest, exhibits several incongruities and contradictions with respect to.its context: Acabada la visita, volvid el 4nimo al principal blason que aquellos Incas tuvieron, que fue llamar y traer gente barbara a su vana religion, y con el titulo de su idolatria encubrian su ambicion y codicia de ensanchar su reino. Ora sea por lo uno o por lo otro o por ambas cosas, que todo cabe en los

poderosos, mando levantar gente... (Ill, 1) [The visit over, he turned his mind to the chief glory of the Incas, the

conversion of barbarians to their false religion, since they used their idolatry as a cover for their ambition and desire to extend their realms. For either of

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 161 these objects, or both (for the motives of the powerful are complex), he

ordered an army to be raised . . .] (Livermore, 1, p. 137) To begin with, the derogatory modifier vana (vain), which Garcilaso uses in this passage (and repeatedly throughout the Comentarios reales) to reter to Inca religion, contrasts sharply with his portrayal of Inca theology as such a close approximation to Christian concepts and as an indispensable preliminary to the reception of the Word of Christ by the natives of Peru. The adjective “‘vain”’ becomes more of an ironic epithet in Garcilaso’s vocabulary than a derogatory modifier, a sarcastic echo of a European habit of speech. It 1s perhaps also a paying of lip service to official attitudes, but one which intentionally subverts itself as a result of the anomalous relationship it bears

to its context. The critical reader cannot help but ask how Inca religion can be vain ifit is at the same time an indispensable component of the march toward salvation. The incongruity of this passage becomes increasingly more evident as we continue reading: “‘y con el titulo de su idolatria encubrian su ambicion y codicia de ensanchar su

reino ...” We find this fragment disturbing for two reasons — it blatantly contradicts first, Garcilaso’s presentation of Inca conquests

as motivated by the charity and benevolence of the Inca ruler as Huacchacuyac, “lover of the poor,” and Capac, “‘great, not in riches but

in virtues,” and second, the historical nature of the conquests presented by Garcilaso as acts consistent with the Inca’s virtues and good intentions. Without exception, each conquest is depicted as a peaceful tutelary mission, typified by the tolerance and clemency of the Inca. Moreover, by the end of the sixteenth century the terms codicia and

ambicién had become passwords of Spanish conquest. Ercilla’s Araucana, the epic of the attempted conquest of Chile by the Span-

iards, repeatedly attributes Hispanic martial fervor to greed and ambition. In Las Casas’ works codicia and ambicién are so frequently referred to as motivators of the rapaciousness of the conquistadores

that they practically assume the status of characters. In Diaz del Castillo, in Cieza de Leon, and in most of the narratives of the period

of discovery and conquest (except perhaps for the unremittingly panegyric) greed and ambition are presented as the quintessential characteristics of the Spanish conquerors. For a reader familiar with the sixteenth-century literature on the New World these words would evoke Hispanic attitudes and actions, , intensifying even further their incongruency in reference to the Incas. The passage continues with a speculation on the motives behind the

162 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

Inca’s martial preparations: “Ora sea por lo uno 0 por lo otro o par ambas cosas, que todo cabe en los poderosos, mando levantar gente ... Aliteral reading of the passage attributes to the Inca enterprise motives that are typically Hispanic — missionary zeal, greed, and ambition, but which are in direct contradiction to the weight of the evidence provided by Garcilaso’s narrative of the actual conquests and by his corroborative philologic exegesis of Quechua terminology. In short, in order to resolve the semantic incongruencies created by this passage and so many others in the Comentarios reales it is necessary

to perform an ironic rather than a literal reading.*? If we read this passage as a veiled reference to the Spaniards instead of the Incas, the contradiction is resolved. ‘The antagonism between the fragment and its context is neutralized by an ironic reading. But, more importantly, a comparative critical reading becomes possible: “‘y con el titulo de su idolatria [read — religion] encubrian su ambicion y codicia.’’ Once we have substituted the Incas as subject of this passage with the Spaniards we must also substitute all terms associated with the Incas, which if

allowed to remain would obviate a consistent reading. Thus, for idolatria we might substitute religién cristiana. An ironic reading yields

the following transformation: “‘and with the legal pretext of their Christian religion they disguised their greed and the ambition to expand their empire.” The word é¢tulo in the original Spanish means both legal right or title, and pretext. Garcilaso uses it in both senses. It

is an obvious allusion to the papal bulls that granted Spain its American territories and to the body of juridical treatises generated by the Spanish Crown’s anxieties over the licitness of the conquest. An ironic interpretation of this passage leads us to a critical reading of the text: the Spanish imperial enterprise uses the Christian religion as a legal title and pretext to justify a territorial expansion motivated by

greed and ambition. The following passage presents a typical objection which might be made against any imperialist overture by the potential victims: Otros dijeron que no tenian necesidad de Rey ni de nuevas leyes, que las que se tenian eran muy buenas, pues las habian guardado sus antepasados, y que les bastaban sus dioses sin tomar nueva religién y nuevas costumbres, y lo que

peor les parecia era sujetarse a la voluntad de un hombre que estaba predicando religion y santidades y que mafiana, cuando los tuviese sujetos, les pondria las leyes que quisiese, que todas serian en provecho suyo y dafio de

los vasallos .. . (IM, 15)

[Others said they had no need of a king or new laws: those they had were good, since their ancestors had observed them, and their own gods were sufficient without their taking up a new religion and new customs. It seemed

‘“NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 163 even worse that they would have to submit to the will of a man who came preaching religion and holiness, but who tomorrow when he had them as his subjects, might set up whatever laws he wished, to his own advantage and the

detriment of his vassals. ] (Livermore, 1, pp. 169-170) But Garcilaso’s description of the ensuing Inca conquest fulfills the promises of the Inca to the letter. ‘The accusation of hypocrisy, then, is

not directed at the Incas but is in fact an ironic allusion to the Spaniards who “‘came preaching religion and holiness” to Peru and ended up destroying Inca civilization. Once again the comparative critical intent is implicit. [ts actualization depends on the reader’s recognition of a contradiction, on a vocabulary which suggests or marks the possibility of another, ironic reading (in this case, religzén _y santidades), and on the reader’s familiarity with the set of extratextual

circumstances to which the author is alluding. Irony in the Comentarios reales uncovers the comparative intentions of the author and leads the reader to perform the critical function. The ironic decoding of certain passages located amidst the descriptions of the Inca conquests juxtaposes the Hispanic style of conquest — violent, destructive, preoccupied with the extraction of wealth and the exploitation of the Indians, remiss 1n its apostolic mission — with the Incaic

tutelary model of peaceful pedagogical imperialism. The parallel positions of Incas and Spaniards in the providentialist historical scheme into which Garcilaso inscribes the history of Peru further encourage comparison. Like More’s Utopia, however, it is ultimately the reader’s responsibility to consummate the comparison and exercise the critical prerogative. The critical dimension of the discourse 1n the Comentarios reales must

be understood as an integral part of Garcilaso’s Christian universalist ideology. The criticism of the Spaniards that irony invites — indeed

demands — in the text is not directed at the entire enterprise of conquest and colonization, but only at those aspects of it which

contributed to the decay and destruction of Inca civilization. Garcilaso staunchly defends Spanish dominion in the New World on

religious grounds. It is interesting to note that he was not unique among indigenous writers on this point. Guaman Poma de Ayala, whose criticism of Spanish colonial practices is often scathing, supports Spain’s evangelical mission in his Nueva corénica_y buen gobierno.

But like More in the Utopia (and Guaman Poma), Garcilaso condemns those Christian actions and attitudes which go against Christian precepts. For More, it is the practice of private property which in sixteenth-

164 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

century England was evolving into an unbridled and corrosive cap-

italism. In the Utopia the arguments against private property and

in favor of communalism are made on Christian grounds. As Hythlodaeus points out, it was the early Christian practice of community of property, exemplified by Christ and his apostles, that drew the Utopians to the Christian religion. In the Comentarios reales it is the destruction of Tahuantinsuyu’s culture that Garcilaso condemns on

the grounds that it served a divinely ordained role as the rational foundations upon which to erect Christianity in Peru. Garcilaso’s ideal blueprint for the future of Peru is that of a Christian Utopia in

which the Incas and the Spaniards each contribute an essential element. Like More, Garcilaso argues that neither reason nor faith alone can create the ideal community. The truly Christian state is a product of the harmonious integration of the dictates ofnatural reason

and Christian revelation.

The curious story of the shipwrecked Pedro Serrano, which Garcilaso places rather whimsically at the end of the eighth chapter of Book 1 (“‘porque-este capitulo no sea tan corto’’) [in order that this chapter not be so short], can be read as an extended metaphor of his conception of human history. Pedro Serrano, shipwrecked alone on a small desert island in the Caribbean, is soon reduced to nakedness by

the elements, struggling against nature to provide himself with the minimum of food and shelter necessary for survival. He learns to kill sea turtles for food and to use their shells to collect rain water for drinking. He manages to build a fire and finally to keep it burning with dry seaweed and driftwood, the remains of wrecked European galleons, and a turtle shell covering to protect it against winds and rains. Suddenly one day another shipwrecked man appears on Pedro’s island, drawn by the light of the fire and the promise of company and food. But when he sees Pedro Serrano, whose skin has turned brown from the sun and rough from exposure to the elements, whose hair and beard have grown long and unkempt for lack of comb and scissors, he flees from him in horror. Serrano, too, is horrified at the sight ofa man on his island, thinking that it must be the devil who has appeared to him in human form in order to tempt him. As he flees in the opposite direction from where the stranger had run he screams, “‘Jesus, Jesus, deliver me, oh Lord, from the devil!” The stranger, upon hearing the name of Christ recognizes the unkempt Serrano as a brother and goes running after him shouting out the Creed. Finally recognizing in each other their shared humanity and their common lot, they embrace and

return to the business of survival together.

‘““NOWHERE’’ IS SOMEWHERE 165 This intercalated narrative, which is not as irrelevant to his main story as it might at first seem, contains some serious and instructive ironies. Pedro Serrano, a Spaniard, is transformed by the circumstances of the shipwreck into the image of the Indians held by many Europeans. Separated from European civilization by the storm, heisa forgotten man on a deserted island forced to employ primitive survival techniques and to struggle against the natural elements. When one of his own kind arrives on the island he does not recognize Serrano for a fellow human being, seeing instead the alien and terrifying figure of the Other, of one who is radically different from himself: Serrano, as

seen by the stranger, is the barbarian, the dark-skinned, rugged, unkempt savage which many Europeans thought the Indians to be. But there is more; the ironies multiply because Serrano-turned-savage

flees from the Spaniard, seeing instead the figure of the devil. The

Pedro Serrano story is in fact a powerful ironic allegory of the encounter between the Old World and the New. Finally, its apparently arbitrary position at the end of the eighth chapter becomes significant if we consider the fact that it is situated immediately preceding the beginning of Garcilaso’s description of the

indigenous peoples of Peru. The story of Pedro Serrano functions rhetorically to entice the European reader to sympathize and identify with the unlucky Serrano only to find that Pedro becomes the embodi-

ment of the very image Europe had shunned. The irony intensifies when another shipwrecked European appears on the island and the Serrano-turned-savage sees the devil in the image of the Spaniard which was once his own. But the hermeneutical key to this story and its significance in the context of the Comentarios reales lies in what enables

Serrano and the stranger finally to recognize their shared humanity and embrace one another — their common faith in Christ.2? The ideology that underlies Garcilaso’s corrective reinterpretation of Inca civilization is a Christian universalism set into a providentialist historical structure. The Comentarios reales ultimately argues for a view of human history in which both reason, represented by Inca civilization,

and revelation, represented by Christian Spain, are seen as essential elements in the march of all peoples toward eternal salvation.

y

Epilogue

The question of whether the Old and New Worlds constituted a whole

or were distinct cosmographical entities was already antiquated by

the end of the sixteenth century: The notion of multiple worlds propounded by Plato, Aristotle, and other writers of classical antiquity had been rejected as heretical by the Fathers of the Church. Throughout the Middle Ages there were differences of opinion as to the exact distribution of land to water on the globe, but there was unanimity among Christian writers on the unity of the habitable world, in keeping with biblical teaching that God had given mankind all the earth to inhabit. The discovery of America and the subsequent realization that it was a previously unknown, distinct, and inhabited part of the world gave rise to doubts about its nature and that of its

peoples. But by the end of the sixteenth century it was clear to Christian Europe that the American Indians were human beings, descendants of Adam and Eve like themselves, and that mankind’s domain was not restricted to Europe, Africa, and Asia, as previously

thought.' The explanations of how people had come to inhabit America were varied, but Acosta’s conjecture that the indigenes must have migrated across an as yet undiscovered connection between Asia and North America is indicative of the acceptance that the idea of the unity of the New World with the rest of the world had gained among European thinkers.

: For Garcilaso the need to affirm the essential unity of the world was not only still pertinent, but the very vehemence with which he expresses 1t indicates that he considered it an as yet unresolved, even

pressing issue — “‘no hay mas que un mundo, y aunque Ilamamos Mundo Viejo y Mundo Nuevo, es por haberse descubierto aquél nuevamente para nosotros, y no porque sean dos, sino todo uno. Y los

que todavia imaginaren que hay muchos mundos, no hay para qué responderles, sino que se estén en sus heréticas imaginaciones hasta 166

EPILOGUE 167 que en el infierno se desengafien de ellas.”’ (Bk 1, ch. 1) [there 1s only one world, and although we speak of the Old World and the New, this is because the latter was lately discovered by us, and not because there

are two. And to those who still imagine there are many, there is no answer except that they may remain in their heretical imaginings till they are undeceived in hell.| (Livermore, 1, p. 9) Some scholars have seen a certain archaism in passages like this one. It suggests a writer out of touch with his times, preoccupied with intellectual problems that were no longer considered germane. On closer examination, however, we see that this passage does not refer to a cosmographical question so much as to a historical and ideological problem. The reason we call one Old and the other New World, Garcilaso explains,

is because the one was newly discovered by the Europeans, not because of any inherent novelty. ‘Thus, Garcilaso situates the question of the unity of the world in a historical rather than a geographical or — cosmographical context. Further, he introduces into the discussion the element of perspective. The “‘newness’’ of America becomes, then,

a matter of point of view. The relativism that underlies Garcilaso’s argument of the essential unity of the world is related to both the Pedro Serrano story and to another passage that is sometimes cited as evidence of his intellectual archaism, the discussion on the existence of antipodes. “‘Antipodes”’ was the name Plato had used to designate the supposed inhabitants of that part of the world diametrically opposite his own. The question of their existence was tied to a conception of the Earth as spherical and, therefore, to the controversy of the world’s shape and position in the Universe, which raged through late antiquity into the Middle Ages. For early Christian thinkers, the notion of the existence of peoples in an unknown and unreachable part of the Earth was heretical, and the antipodes became a target for the derision of writers like Lactantius, who ridiculed the idea that there could be people who lived in a world where everything hung upside down.*? The image of a person whose feet were where the head ought to be became a powerful symbol in the

European imagination for the strangeness and inferiority of the inhabitants of the newly discovered lands, which were, in fact, situated in the Southern hemisphere, just where the ancients had envisioned the antipodes. Garcilaso responds affirmatively to the question, explaining that since the world is round, of course there are antipodes. What is more difficult to discern, however, is which provinces are antipodes of which — “‘cuales provincias sean antipodas de cuales.”

168 LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND INDIGENOUS HISTORY

(Bk 1, ch. 2) Thus he reminds his readers, not without a bit of irony, that in around world the concept of antipodes is a relative one. We are all, alas, antipodes from someone else’s point of view. These three passages appear somewhat anomalous to their context. In a first reading they seem to have little to do with the narration of the history of Inca civilization. Yet each one underscores the fundamental relativism Garcilaso perceives in the relations between Europe and America, and serves the important rhetorical purpose of compelling

the reader to look at things from antipodal perspectives. Thus, Garcilaso disrupts the eurocentrism which characterized sixteenthcentury discourse on America and, by situating the passages in the very opening chapters of the work, paves the way for a reinterpretation of Inca history and culture which renders Tahuantinsuyu an indispensable, indeed central, component of Christian history. This discursive de-marginalization of the indigenous world is undoubtedly Garcilaso’s most original and enduring contribution to Western culture. He was not the first native narrator to write about Inca history in a European language, that distinction belongs to Titu Cusi Yupanqui (‘‘Relacion de la conquista del Pert,” 1570). Nor was his vision of the Amerindian world the most authentically Andean. But Garcilaso’s interpretation of Tahuantinsuyu, unlike those of other native writers, proved to be intellectually accessible and rhetorically convincing to its intended audience. The Comentarios reales effectively

closed the debate on the nature of the American Indian with a resounding affirmation of their full rational and moral capacity. It

integrated the Amerindian and Christian worlds into one providentialist historical continuum. And, finally, it has endured above all others because Garcilaso successfully conjugated the discourses of sixteenth-century European culture to restore, reinterpret, and finally vindicate Tahuantinsuyu. Culler has noted that a text’s

| strength is derived from its strategic positioning in the discourses of a culture? It was precisely Garcilaso’s ability to position his text so adroitly within the Western discursive tradition that has made it one of the few authoritative and enduring voices in the advocacy for the full participation of America’s indigenous peoples in the post-conquest Western world.

Notes

1 Introduction

1 The most extensive, coherent, and detailed biography of Garcilaso is John Grier Varner, El Inca: the Life and Times of Garcilaso de la Vega (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968). See also Aurelio Mir6é Quesada, El Inca Garctlaso y otros estudtos

garcilasistas (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1971). Shorter biographical sketches appear in Donald G. Castanien, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (New York:

Twayne Publishers, 1969), pp. 17-50; and in the introduction to the English translation of the Comentarios reales by Harold Livermore, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, vol. 1 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966),

pp. xv-xxxl. Julia Fitzmaurice-Kelly’s The Inca Garcilaso (Oxford University

Press, 1921) may also be of interest, although much new information on Garcilaso’s life has come to hght since its publication. 2 The letter to Juan Fernandez Franco, dated December 31, 1592, is reproduced in Raul Porras Barrenechea, Fl Inca Garcilaso en Montilla (Lima: Editorial San Marcos, 1955), pp. 265-266. My translation. 3 Thecomplete inventory of Garcilaso’s library has been published by José Durand, “La biblioteca del Inca,” Nueva revista de filologia hispdnica, u, no. 3 (1948), pp. 239-264. 4 The name Leén Hebreo seems to date from the period when Judah was employed in Spain as personal physician to Fernando and Isabel, the Catholic monarchs. See Suzanne Damiens, Amour et intellect chez Léon ? Hébreu (Toulouse: Edouard

Privat Editeur, 1971), especially pp. 15-20. 5 Aselection of the Comeniarios reales was translated into English as early as 1625. | The first complete English translation appeared in 1688. The first French transla-

tion was printed in 1633. ,

6 I use the term “rhetorical” to mean the manipulation by a writer of the semantic and formal elements of expression toward a desired effect. 7 See Susana Jakfalvi-Leiva, Traduccién, escritura, y violencia colonizadora: un estudio de la obra del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and

Public Affairs, 1984), pp. 69-93. Also Silvio Zavala, “Sobre la politica lingtistica del Imperio Espanol en América,” Cuadernos Americanos, 30, 1-3 (1946), 159-166. 8 Hayden White, Metahistory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973),

p. 24. See also Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, : 1978). Recently, philosophers and historians like White, Mink, Munz, Porter, and others have become interested in exploring the nature of historical narrative utilizing concepts and techniques from the field of literary criticism. Dale Porter’s The Emergence of the Past: A Theory of Historical Explanation (University of Chicago

Press, 1981) is a particularly provocative study of the dual nature of historical explanation and argumentation.

169

170 NOTES TO PAGES 5-8 g Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Origenes de la novela, vol.1 (Madrid: Bailly-Bailliere

e hijos, 1905), p. 392. The use of the term “novel” in this context is, of course, anachronistic as well as inaccurate. During the Renaissance the term was employed in the sense of the original Italian novella, to mean a short fictional narrative of local interest (e.g. Cervantes’ Novelas eyemplares, 1613). 10 William Robertson, The History of America (2 vols., Edinburgh: W. Strahan and

J. Balfour, 1777). 11 William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru (2 vols., New York: Harper and

Brothers, 1847). 12 See Manuel Gonzalez de la Rosa, “‘Las obras del padre Valera y Garcilaso,”’ Revista Histérica, 4 (Lima, 1912), 301-311. José de la Riva Aguero defended Garcilaso’s authority as a historian in both La historia en el Peri (Lima: Impresa Nacional de F. Barrionuevo, 1910) and “‘Elogio del Inca Garcilaso,” Revista Universitarta 11,1, (1916), 335-412. Later in his career, however, he questioned the idealization of Inca civilization in the Comentarios reales. See La civilizacién peruana. Epoca prehispanica (Lima: Editorial Lumen, 1937). 13 Luis Alberto Sanchez, La literatura peruana, vol. 1 (Buenos Aires: Guarania, 1950);

Raul Porras Barrenechea, Mito, tradicién e historia del Peri (Lima, 1969); Miro Quesada, El Inca Gareilaso. 14 According to Sanchez, the work is “‘un simbolo de lo criollo, un paradigma de la simbiosis del espiritu espanol con el peruano, y de la penetracion de lo indigena en lo hispanico.”’ See La literatura peruana, vol. 11, p. 91.

15 Enrique Pupo-Walker, “‘Los comentarios reales y la historicidad de lo imaginario,” Revista [beroamericana, 104-105 (July-December 1978), 385-407. See also La vocacién literaria del pensamiento histérico en América. Desarrollo de la prosa

ficcién: Siglos XVI, XVI, XVI y XIX (Madrid: Gredos, 1982), and Historia, creacién y profecta en los textos del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (Madrid: José Porria

Turanzas, 1982). By José Durand see “El Inca Garcilaso, historiador apasionado”’ in Ei Inca Garcilaso, cldsico de América. (México: Sep Setentas, 1976)

pp. 11-31. , 16 See E. C. Riley, Cervantes’ Theory of the Novel (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962), especially ch. v. 17 Aristotle, Poetics, ch. 9. 18 Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 225. Gilbert offers a clear and concise introduction to humanist historiography. See chapters 5-7, in particular. Recently Eric Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (University of Chicago Press, 1981), has treated the topic in greater breadth and detail. He describes the emergence of humanist historiography from the medieval chronicle tradition, its development, and finally its demise. An especially useful aspect of Cochrane’s study is its analysis of the relationship of historiography to other parallel humanist disciplines. 19 Literary critics typically have approached Spanish American colonial narrative from this perspective. A provocative study, which underscores the limitations of the history/fiction model while exploring the influence of other types of discourse ~ on colonial historical narrative, is Rolena Adorno’s Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986). Adorno focuses

on the impact of missionary literature on the indigenous writer Guaman Poma de Ayala. 20 Nathan Wachtel, “‘Pensamiento salvaje y aculturacion: el espacio y el tiempo en Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala y el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega”’ in Sociedad e

NOTES TO PAGES 8-23 171 wdeologia: ensayos de historia y antropologta andinas (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1973). 21 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), p. 40. 2 Language and history: Renaissance humanism and the philologic tradition

1 Nancy Struever, The Language of History in the Renaissance (Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 46.

2 The concept of elocuentia and its importance in the Renaissance is discussed in Hanna H. Gray’s classic essay, ““Renaissance Humanism: The Pursuit of Eloquence,’ in P. O. Kristeller and P. P. Weiner (eds.), Renaissance Essays (New York: | Harper Torchbooks, 1968). 3 Quoted by Struever, p. 61. 4 The material for the preceding outline is drawn from Charles Faulhaber, Latin Rhetorical Tradition in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Castile (Berkeley: University

of California Publications in Modern Philology, 1972), vol. 103. 5 Quoted by Gray, “Renaissance Humanism’, p. 204. 6 Struever, p. 143. 7 See Jean Delumeau’s classic study, La civilisation de la Renaissance (Paris: B. Arthand, 1967), for more information on the revival of antiquity during the Renaissance. 8 Jerry H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renais-

sance (Princeton University Press, 1983) p. 15. g Bentley, p. 30. 10 Frank Kerntode, The Classic (London: Faber & Faber, 1975), p. 40. Nicola Abbagnano, in an astute analogy, states that historical perspective was a discovery of humanism, just as Renaissance painting discovered optic perspective. Nicola Abbagnano, ““Humanism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vols. 3-4. (New

York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1967), p. 71. 11 Lorenzo Valla, The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine, Christo-

pher Coleman, trans. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922), pp. 85-87. 12 The Collatio novi testamenti were never published in Valla’s lifetime. They survive in

two redactions (1442-3 & 1453-7), the second of which was discovered by Erasmus in 1505 and published under the new title Adnotationes in Novum Testaments. See Bentley, pp. 34-35. 13 Bentley, p. 68. 14 Quoted by B. Hall, ““Erasmus: Biblical Scholar and Reformer” in T. A. Dorey (ed.), Erasmus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 85. 15 Bentley, pp. 174-176. 16 Quoted by Catherine A. L. Jarrott, ““Erasmus’ annotations and Colet’s commentaries on Paul: a comparison of some theological themes.” in Richard J. DeMolen (ed.), Essays on the Works of Erasmus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), p. 127.

17 It is important to bear in mind that humanist philology was indeed a limited science if compared to modern philological analysis. Since the sixteenth century new materials have come to light, and new techniques and methods have been developed for evaluating, restoring, and interpreting texts from the past more accurately than was possible for the humanist philologist. Nevertheless, humanist philology dominated European intellectual life for almost a century and changed the face of textual scholarship in the West. Not the least ofits contributions was the

172 NOTES TO PAGES 23~36 understanding that ancient texts represented an autonomous experience of the world, different from that of the present, that must be studied on its own terms. 18 Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo» Espafia (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econémica, 1949). 19 The text of the Apologia is reproduced in F. Olmedo (Madrid: Editorial Nacional, 1942), pp. 116-127. All subsequent citations of the Apologia are from this edition. All English translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. 20 The Council of Trent met intermittently from 1543 to 1565. 21 The documents from the process, including the original accusations, the testimony of witnesses, and Fray Luis’ defense have been collected and edited by Miguel Salva and Pedro Sainz de Barada. They appear as volume x of the Coleccién de documentos inéditos para la historia de Espafia (Madrid, 1847).

22 Roman Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” in Reuben A. Brower (ed.), On Translation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 232-239. In this brief but incisive article Jakobson defines intersemiotic translation as “‘an interpretation of verbal signs by means of nonverbal sign systems.” If one extends this definition to include any interpretation which bridges different sign systems, as Jakobson seems to have intended, then the discussion of translation can encompass both linguistic and nonlinguistic codes. Fray Luis’ interpretation of the love affair between Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter as that of a shepherd and shepherdess 1s clearly an act of translation of the intersemiotic type. Because of the unacceptability ofa literal translation of the language of the Song of Songs to a sixteenth-century Christian audience, the Cantar

is interpreted within the context of a literary subcode — the pastoral. 23 Diana Gibson, in “La poesia religiosa de Fray Luis de Leén: génesis y desarrollo”’ (Dissertation, Yale University, 1980), observes that the recasting of the Cantar into the pastoral code has the effect of “europeanizing”’ the text: “El Cantar en efecto ya parece haber sido ‘domesticado’ 0 ‘europeizado’; es decir, parece haber sido transformado de un poema oriental, un poema extrafio y ex6tico, escrito siglos antes del nacimiento de Cristo, en una obra mas bien propia a la poesia occidental del Renacimiento’’, p. 53. What Gibson does not point out, however, is that the insertion of the Cantar into a sixteenth-century Western literary code is in fact an

act of intersemiotic translation that renders the text accessible to its intended audience. 24 Fray Luis de Leon, “Prélogo al Cantar de los Cantares,”’ Obras Completas (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1944), p. 27. All future references to Fray Luis’

works are from this edition and will be indicated by page number only. 25 Fora detailed description of Fray Luis’ method of exegesis see Gibson, pp. 39-55. The importance of the commentary to the success of Fray Luis’ translation was first recognized by Gibson. 26 Aubrey F. G. Bell, Luss de Leén: un estudio del renacimiento espafiol (Barcelona: Editorial Araluce, 1923). 27 *“Testimonio librado por Pedro Pérez de Ullivarri, notario publico, apostdlico y

del Secreto del Oficio de la Santa InquisiciOn de los obispados de Cuenca y Siguenza, de haberse hecho proceso contra algunos ascendientes de Fray Luis por judaizantes.” Coleccién de documentos inéditos para la historia de Espafia, vol. x, pp. 146-174. 28 Coleccién de documentos inéditos, p. 134.

29 A few years later Cervantes, in Don Quijote, would echo the same disillusionment with the efficacy of translation, affirming the superiority of the original language

text: “que, por mucho cuidado que pongan y habilidad que muestren [los traductores] jamas llegaran al punto que ellos [los textos originales] tienen en su primer nacimiento”’ (Part1, ch. 6) [for, in spite of how careful the translators may

NOTES TO PAGES 38~—42 173 be and how much skill they may show, they will never reach the point that the original texts have at the moment of their birth]. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quiyote de la Mancha, Obras completas (Madrid: Aguilar, 1967). My translation. 30 Ramon Pané, Relacién acerca de las antigtiedades de los indios, José J. Arrom, ed. (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980). ““Y como no tienen letras ni escritura, no saben contar bien tales fabulas, ni yo puedo escribirlas bien. Por lo cual creo que pongo primero lo que debiera ser ultimo y lo Ultimo primero. Pero todo lo que escribo asi lo narran ellos, como lo escribo, y asi lo pongo como lo he entendido de los del pais.” p. 26. [And since they do not have letters nor writing, they cannot relate those fables well, nor can I write them well. ‘Thus I believe I put what should be first last and what should be last first. But everything I write is thus narrated by them, as I write it, and thus I put down what I have heard from the natives.| My translation. 31 Valera’s work survives only in the fragments cited by Garcilaso in the Comentarios reales.

3 Language and history in the Comentarios reales 1 Viktor Frankl, El‘ Antyovio’ de Gonzalo Fiménez de Quesada y las concepciones de realidad

y verdad en la época de la contrarreforma y del manterismo (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura

Hispanica, 1963). 2 Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590), Edmundo O’Gorman, ed. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econémica, 1962), Bk. 1, Chs. 7-9.

3 A good example would be Herodotus, J. Enoch Powell, trans. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949), pp. 143-153. 4 Quoted by Ramon Iglesia, Cronistas e historiadores de la conquista de México (Mexico:

Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1942). Translated by Lesley Bird Simpson as Columbus, Cortés, and other Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969),

p. 216.

5 Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, “‘José Arrom, autor de la Relacion de las antiguedades de los indios (picaresca e historia)” in Relecturas (Garacas: Monte Avila Editores, 1976) pp. 17~—36.

6 Fora discussion of the relationship between experience and historical truth in the historiography of the Indies see Walter D. Mignolo, “El metatexto historiografico

y la historiografia indiana,” Modern Language Notes, vol. 96, no. 2 (1981) Pp. 358-402. 7 Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espaitta (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1968), p- 606.

8 Garcilaso’s use of corroborative sources in La Florida is discussed at length in a provocative study by Hugo Rodriguez Vecchini, “Don Quijote y la Florida del

Inca,” Revista [beroamericana, 48 (1982), 587-620. , :

g For more information on the caballero in Spanish Renaissance society see Helen Nader, The Mendoza Famly in the Spanish Renaissance 1350 to 1550 (New Brunswick,

NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1979). 10 Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, La Florida del Inca, Obras Compleias (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Espanioles, 1963), p. 5. All future references to La Florida will be from this edition. Translated by John Grier Varner and Jeannette Johnson Varner, 7 he Florida of the Inca (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), p. xxxvili. 11 Although the Indian as Hero figure had a precedent in Ercilla’s Araucana (1569-

89) the prevailing view concerning the natives of the New World was that they were barbarians, intellectually and morally inferior to the Christian Europeans. For a discussion of this point see chapter 5. In Ercilla’s epic the Indians are praised

174 NOTES TO PAGES 43-48 primarily for their physical strength and martial courage, not for their moral qualities, an essential component of the concept of caballero. 12 Garcilaso’s use of historical sources is examined from a historiographical perspective by David Henige, ““The context, content, and credibility of La Florida del Ynca,” The Americas, 43 (1986-7), 1-23. 13 Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, Comentarios reales de los incas (Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1943). All future references to the Comentarios are from this edition. Translated by Harold V. Livermore, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, vol.1, p. 41.

14 Garcilaso was not alone in recognizing that the Indians had an autochthonous historiographic “‘discipline.”” Moreover, the parallel between written historiography and the oral narratives of the indigenous historians was also not unique to Garcilaso as the following passage from Fernandez de Oviedo’s Historia natural y general de las Indias indicates: “*Por todas las vias que he podido, después que a estas

Indias passé, he procurado con mucha atencion, asi en estas islas como en la Tierra-Firme, de saber por qué manera 0 forma los indios se acuerdan de las cosas de su principio e antecesores, e si tienen libros, o por cuales vestigios e sefiales no se les olvida lo passado. Y en esta isla, a lo que he podido entender, sélo sus cantares, que ellos llaman areytos, es su libro o memorial que de gente en gente queda de los padres a los hijos, y de los presentes a los venideros como aqui se dira”’ (Iv, 1). [In all the ways I have been able to, after having arrived in these Indies, I have tried with much attention, whether on these islands or on the continent, to find out by what means or in what form the Indians remember their beginning and ancestors, and whether they have books, or what the signs and tokens are by which their past

is not forgotten. And on this island, according to what I have been able to understand, only their songs, which they call areytos, are their book or memorial which is passed among the people from parents to children, and from those present

to those yet to come, as will be told of here.] My translation. 15 Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, Relecturas, p. 25. 16 Demetrio Ramos, “La institucion del Cronista de Indias, combatida por Aguado y Simon,” Anuario colombiano de histerta social y de la cultura, nos. 1-2 (1963-4), 89-105. 17 José Juan Arrom in “Criollo: definicién y matices de un concepto,”’ Certidumbre de América (Madrid: Gredos, 1971), pp. 11-26, has verified the Crown’s suspicions regarding the intentions and loyalties of criollos, those born in the American colonies. In tracing the term back to the mid-sixteenth century, where it appears in the Geografta y descripcién universal de las Indias recopiladas por el cosmografo—cronista

Juan Lopez de Velasco desde el atio de 1571 al de 1574 (Madrid, 1894), Arrom observes

that already at this early date the term was used to designate American-born descendants of Spaniards whose physical and psychological makeup was perceived to be different from those of the peninsular Spaniard (“‘conocidamente salen ya diferenciados...y no solamente en las calidades corporales... pero en las del animo’’). This expression of difference was deemed so threatening, Arrom notes, that the Council of the Indies suppressed the paragraph where the definition of the term had appeared in the original. 18 The main advocate of the innate inferiority of the natives, of the New World was Juan Ginés de Sepulveda. In particular see his Democrates secundus 0 De las justas causas de la guerra contra los indios (1548).

19 Varner has speculated that the reasons for this delay may have been political in nature since there had recently been a resurgence of demands to the Crown by descendants of the Inca nobility. This fails to explain, however, the absence of censorship in the text when the first printing was made almost four years later. The

NOTES TO PAGES 48-57 175 possibility that Garcilaso lacked the finances to proceed with publication, also suggested by Varner, seems a more logical explanation. See El Inca: The Life and Times of Gareilaso de la Vega, p. 340.

20 For a discussion of the prologue during the Golden Age see Alberto Porqueras Mayo’s El prélogo en el renacimtento espaitol and El prélogo en el manierismo y barroco

espafioles (Madrid: C.S.1.C., 1965 and 1968). 21 See Varner’s El Inca: The Life and Times of Garcilaso de la Vega for a complete study

of Garcilaso’s family background, including his relationship to the medieval Spanish heroes Garci Lasso de la Vega and Garci Pérez de Vargas. 22 My typological description of the historical commentary is based on Cochrane, Pp. 20.

23 Foucault, pp. 30-44. 24 Foucault, p. 40. 25 Should doubt remain, one could mention a number of works that are composed of both a text and a metatext by the same author. Giordano Bruno’s De gl’herotct furort (1585) consists of a series of sonnets accompanied by a commentary in dialogue form. The poems were never meant to stand alone. The verses of San Juan de la Cruz’s “Noche oscura”’ (1621) are accompanied by two such commentaries — “La subida del Monte Carmelo” and another entitled, like the poem, *““Noche oscura.”’

26 Foucault, p. 41. 27 Fray Luis de Leon, “Informes inéditos de Fr. Luis de Le6n acerca de la correcci6n de la Biblia,” Obras Completas, p. 1399. 28 E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 1973), Pp. 250. 29 Frank Kermode links the concept of linguistic excellence central to the definition

of “classic’’ to a political doctrine of Empire. Although his essay is primarily concerned with the evolution of the modern concept of “‘classic’’, using Eliot’s definition as a springboard, he makes a suggestive argument regarding its Virgilian source and its transmission through Dante to Eliot. See The Classic, especially pp. 33-38. On the [berian peninsula a more direct descendant of Dante, Antonio de Nebriya, tied his Gramdtica castellana to Spanish imperial ambitions. Garcilaso also attributed the excellence of Quechua to the success of Inca imperial expansion. His own efforts at restoration, although limited in scope and in spite of

his assurances that they were intended to benefit the spread of Christianity in Peru, reveal an implicit pride in the indigenous empire. His insistence on the excellence of Quechua and his equation of it to Latin is part of a much more ambitious analogy which compares Tahuantinsuyu to the Roman empire. 30 Antonio de Nebrija, Gramdtica de la lengua castellana (Madrid: Edicion de la Junta del Centenario, 1946). 31 ““Otras cosas tiene aquella lengua diferentisimas de la castellana, italiana y latina; las cuales notaran los mestizos y criollos curiosos, pues son de su lenguaje que yo harto hago senalarles con el dedo desde Espaijia los principios de su lengua para

que la sustenten en su pureza que cierto es. lastima que se pierda o corrompa, siendo una lengua tan galana.. .”’ (Advertencia). [In many other respects the language differs from Castilian, Italian, and Latin. These points will be noted by the learned mestizos and creoles, since the language is their own. For my part, it is sufficient that I point out for them from Spain the principles of their language, so that they may maintain its purity, for it is certainly a great pity that so elegant a

language should be lost or spoilt . . .] Translated by Harold V. Livermore. 32 Nebrija, “Prologo,” Gramdtica castellana.

176 NOTES TO PAGES 57-63 33 Hanna Holborn Gray, “Valla’s ‘Encomium of St. Thomas Acquinas’ and the Humanist Conception of Christian Antiquity” in Three Essays (University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 37. 34 Flora Ross Amos, Early Theories of Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1920). 35 Margherita Morreale, ‘““Apuntes para la traduccion en la Edad Media,” Revista de literatura, XV, 29-30 (1959) 3-10.

36 Quoted by Struever, p. 69. 37 Inthe present study, I am primarily concerned with the formal and methodological impact that the translation of the Dialoght damore had on the narration of history in the Comentarios reales. In a forthcoming work, I hope to treat the influence of Hebreo’s humanist Neoplatonism on Garcilaso’s conception of Inca history. 38 Comentarios reales, pp. 122-123.

4 Philology, translation, and hermeneutics in the Comentarios reales

1 Alberto Escobar in “Lenguaje e historia en los Comentarios reales,’ Patio de Letras (Lima: Caballo de Troya, 1965) argues that Garcilaso’s linguistic observations are motivated by a desire to bridge a communication gap, in the broadest sense,

between Indians and Spaniards. According to Escobar, “El problema del ‘dialogo’ queda, pues, encuadrado, asi, en un horizonte mas amplio que el de la

original dificultad de comunicacién por ignorancia del quechua, y asume dimensiones exactas al ser propuesto como conflicto entre la timidez y el dogmatismo, entre la desconfianza del nativo y el gesto arrogante del conquistador o del cronista. La consecuencia se revela inmediatamente en la lengua, en la ‘corrupcion de vocablos’ y de manera mediata en la historia, en la ‘desfiguracién de la verdad.’ El Inca acomete la tarea de reconquistar la verdad, de restituirla a través de la recta comunicacion y de la justa equivalencia entre lo intrincado del lenguaje y lo complejo de la historia.” (p. 17) Although I agree with the basic premise of the argument, the linguistic nature of Garcilaso’s historical perspective, Escobar fails to recognize the significance of the fact that Garcilaso presents Inca

history as a text and his own interpretation as a commentary on the primary discourse. Once this aspect of the Comentarios reales is perceived the argument of

linguistic authority becomes consistent with its historical and intellectual context — sixteenth-century humanist linguistic thought and practice. Moreover,

Escobar’s conclusion that “El papel del intérprete, reclamado por exigencia historica, senialara niveles de equivalencia en la asimilacion cultural y restablecera

asi el circuito del dialogo. En esa forma el rostro del pasado se proyectara en lo porvenir, transfundiéndose en un perfil mestizo: tal el de intérprete y la nueva

nacion,” (pp. 24~5) implies an awareness on Garcilaso’s part of the future political, social, and cultural implications of the phenomenon of mestizaje and its role in the definition of Peru as a nation (“‘Garcilaso presintié revelado en el ser “mestizo’ condici6én individual y destino nacional,” p. 24) that are anachronistic when speaking of the sixteenth century. And finally, the definition of Garcilaso’s

interpretative role as that of a facilitator of a dialogue between Indians and Spaniards, although it is a suggestive metaphor, is incongruous in the context of

humanist philology, on which Garcilaso’s interpretative prerogative in the Comentarios reales ultimately rests. 2 Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, Beatrice Reynolds, trans.

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1945), ch. 9.

NOTES TO PAGES 63-75 177 3 José Durand, “El nombre de los Comentarios reales,”’ Revista del Museo Nactonal, 32

(Lima, 1963) 322-332. In light of the evidence he himself provides, Durand’s insistence on minimizing the theoretical and formal similarities between the commentaries of Garcilaso’s philologist friends and his own in the Comentarios reales is indeed puzzling — “‘No vayamos a suponer, claro esta, que el Inca trasladaba a su historia peruana, tan apasionada y tan ligadaa su vida, los complejos métodos y

el diluvial empleo de autoridades que caracterizan a los biblistas jesuitas. No. Justamente ello nos mostrara como, mientras un Juan de Pineda abruma con su

barroco saber, el Inca, mas templado, mas amante de las grandes lineas arquitectonicas y de la belleza de su historia, prefiere no extenderse mucho en datos y no agobiar al lector’ (p. 330). Part of the problem stems from Durand’s apparently limited acquaintance with the humanist philologic tradition, which makes him overlook essential characteristics of philologic discourse in favor of stylistic peculiarities. Certainly Fray Luis de Leén’s philologic commentary on the Song of Songs does not fit the “baroque” and “oppressive” labels that Durand uses to characterize philologic discourse. Durand also ignores an intrinsic component of both humanist philology and Garcilaso’s Comentarios reales when he argues that the word “‘commentary”’ in the title probably refers to Garcilaso’s commentary on the erroneous Spanish histories. As we have seen, humanist interpretative autho-

rity is founded on the commentary of the original language, the Greek and Hebrew codices of the Bible for the humanist religious reformers and the Quechua version of Inca history for Garcilaso. ““Comentarios reales” should be understood

then as “true commentaries” of the Incas; “commentaries” because they are a secondary discourse whose object is the original Quechua version of Inca history

and culture, and “‘true” because in contrast to the Spanish historians whose linguistic ineptitude resulted in false information, Garcilaso’s command of Quechua permits him to perform a true interpretation. 4 José Durand, El Inca Garcilaso, clésico de América, p. 21. 5, Aldrete specifically mentions the as yet unpublished manuscript of the Comentarios reales as his source. See Durand, El Inca Garcilaso, cldsico de América, ~ p. 142; also,

A. Miré Quesada, “Un amigo del Inca Garcilaso,” Mar del Sur, 1, 2 (1948), pp. 20-26. 6 Gray, “‘Valla’s ‘Encomium of St. Thomas Aquinas’,” p. 37. 7 Quoted by Werner Schwartz, Principles and Problems of Biblical Translation (Cam-

bridge University Press, 1955), pp. 156-157. 8 Valera, a Jesuit missionary well-versed in the language of the Indians and mestzzo

like Garcilaso, had composed a history of Peru in Latin. The manuscript was partially destroyed by fire in the British sack of Cadiz. ‘The remains of the papers

were salvaged, however, and given to Garcilaso by Father Maldonado de Saavedra. Valera makes extensive use of Quechua terminology in his own history, although not with the same conscious systematization and scope given to philological discourse in the Comentarios reales. g ‘‘Esas anotaciones, escritas con su letra clara, tranquila y redondeada, pero en las que se transparenta su emoci06n interior, pueden considerarse como un germen y un anticipo de los Comentarios y marcan un hito fundamental en su vocacion y en su decision de historiador.”” A. Miré Quesada, El Inca Garcilaso, p. 193. 10 Miréd Quesada, El Inca Garcilaso, p. 194. 11 Miréd Quesada, El Inca Garcilaso, p. 195. 12 Garcilaso’s observations regarding the polysemantic nature of the term huaca, as

well as some of his particular translations, are confirmed by Diego Gonzalez Holguin’s Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el Peri llamada Quechua o del Inca

(Lima, 1608), Raul Porras Barrenechea, ed. (Lima: Instituto de Historia, 1952),

178 NOTES TO PAGES 76-82 p. 165. Among the numerous translation of Huacca listed by Gonzalez Holguin are the following —

Huacca: ydolos, figurillas de hombres y animales que trayan consigo. Huacca muchhana: Lugar de idolos, adoratorios. Huacca: hombre de nariz partida o de labio hendido. Huacca, o puma runa: Quando tiene seis dedos en manos ' y pies como leoén. Huacca runa: Carnero, o cualquier bestia monstruosa que tiene mas, 0 menos miembros, o fealdad natural. 13 Roland Barthes, $/< (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974). 14 Gerald Taylor, ““Gamay, Camac, Camasca dans le manuscrit de Huarochiri,” Journal de la Société des Américanistes, 63 (1974-6), 231-243, corroborates Garcilaso’s impeccable philology in his exegesis of the fundamental Andean spiritual concept enclosed in the root cama. Gonzalez Holguin’s Vocabulario confirms the accuracy of his translation of Pacha as ““mundo universo,”’ thus rendering

both the concepts of space and time inherent in the original Quechua term (p. 268). 15 Translation by Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Erasmus on Language and Method in Theology (University of ‘Toronto Press, 1977), p. 9. The Latin reads “At Christus

| ideo dicitur logos, quod quicquid loquitur Pater, per Fillum loquator.”’ 16 O’Rourke Boyle p. 9. 17 Foucault, p. 42. 18 The inherent Platonism of Garcilaso’s idealized representation of the Inca state is discussed by José Durand in El Inca Garcilaso, cldstco de América, pp. 32-46. To my

knowledge the influence of Renaissance Platonism on Garcilaso’s linguistic thought has yet to receive critical attentjon. My own observations are but an outline of where an in-depth study of the subject might begin. 19 A. Lord, and M. Parry, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), is one of the most thorough studies that has been done on oral narrative to date. The effect of the oral sources on the narrative structure of the Comentarios reales is an aspect of the work that has yet to receive any critical attention. 20 Diana Gibson “La poesia religiosa de Fray Luis de Le6n”’ has demonstrated that Fray Luis utilized essentially the same method of philologic analysis in De los nombres de Cristo as he did for his translation and commentary of the Cantar de los Cantares.

21 Gibson, ibid. 22 The introduction to Fray Luis’ “De los nombres en general,” reads — “‘cuando el nombre que se pone a alguna cosa se deduce y deriva de alguna otra palabra y nombre, aquello de donde se deduce ha de tener significaci6n de alguna cosa que se avecine a algo de aquello que es propio al nombrado; para que el nombre, saliendo de alli, luego que sonare ponga en el sentido del que le oyere la imagen de aquella particular propiedad; esto es, para que el nombre contenga en su significacién algo de lo mismo que la cosa nombrada contiene en su esencia.” (my emphasis) Fray Luis de

Leon, Obras completas. [when the name is given to something that 1s deduced from another word or name, that from which it is deduced must signify a thing which

approaches a trait which is proper to the named object in order that the name coming from it, and as soon as it is pronounced, brings forth in the mind of the person who comprehends the image this particular property, that is, zn order that the name contains in us signification something of what the thing contains in its essence.|

Translated by Manuel Duran and William Kluback, The Names of Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), pp. 46-47.

NOTES TO PAGES 85-88 179 5 Contexts and intertexts: the discourse on the nature of the American indian and the

Comentarios reales

1 Mikhail M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel” in Michael Holquist, (ed.), The Dialogic Imagination (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 259-422. 2 Bakhtin considers dialogism to be characteristic of novelistic discourse, but his definition of the novel is much broader than the traditional generic definition. For Bakhtin, any text whose discourse is dialogic 1n nature is a novel. Thus, neither verse nor historical prose are excluded from his conception of dialogic discourse. 3 Julia Kristeva, El texto de la novela (Barcelona: Editorial Lumen, 1974), particu-

larly pp. 15-16 and 196-238. See also Semiotiké (Paris: Seuil, 1969), and La révolution du langage poéteque (Paris: Seuil, 1974), an intertextual analysis of Lautréamont’s Poésies. 4 The question of Garcilaso’s sources in the Comentarios reales has been addressed

from the traditional perspective by Aurelio Miré Quesada and José Durand in their numerous studies on the Inca. See also, Frances G. Crowley, Garcilaso de la Vega, el Inca and his sources in the Comentarios reales de los Incas (The Hague: Mouton, 1971).

5 Pedro Henriquez Urena, Las corrientes literarias en la América hispdnica (Mexico:

Fondo de Cultura Econémica, 1949); Edmundo O’Gorman, La invencién de América (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econémica, 1958); Alfonso Reyes, “Ultima Tule,” Obras completas (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econémica, 1960); Giuliano Gliozzi, Adamo e il Nuovo Mondo (Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1977); Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man (Cambridge University Press, 1982); Tsvetan Todorov, La congdete de ? Amérique, la question de Pautre (Paris: Editions du

Seuil, 1982). This last work by Todorov is provocative but, unfortunately, quite unreliable from a scholarly point of view. He bases his arguments ona very narrow range of texts, most of which he read only in translation, which often leads him into misinterpretations. The work also lacks a clear historical context. Its author either ignores or has misread many of the fundamental works on the discovery and conquest period, rendering his theory on the semiotics of the European conquest of America and its conclusions, on the whole, anachronistic. 6 We have already shown the significance of Garcilaso’s claim to interpretative privilege in a philological context. Alberto Escobar in “Lenguaje e historia en los Comentarios reales,” has also pointed out Garcilaso’s self-proclaimed role as interpreter between Spaniards and Indians, but Escobar’s analysis suffers trom his attempt to attribute to Garcilaso a Peruvian nationalist posture. Garcilaso’s role

as interpreter in the Comentarios reales is defined in terms of the humanist hermeneutical tradition. Although there are a number of studies which attempt to situate Garcilaso’s works in the context of sixteenth-century humanism none address the role of the Comentarios reales in the process of assimilation and interpret-

ation of the figure of the Indian. 7 For an analysis of the encomrenda system see Silvio Zavala, La encomienda indiana

(Mexico: Editorial Porrta, 1973). 8 For the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of the sixteenth-century debate on the nature of the American Indians see Anthony Pagden’s The Fall of Natural Man. Also useful is Giuliano Gliozzi’s Adamo e il Nuovo Mondo, which studies the intellectual process of definition and assimilation of the Indian in its political context. g For more information on Vitoria and the relecttones see Pagden, pp. 6-7. 10 Jean Mair was the first to discuss the legitimacy of conducting wars of conquest in the New World (1510) but most of his conclusions, which justified violence in

180 NOTES TO PAGES 88-95 order to impose the Faith and to eradicate the barbarism of the Indians, were subsequently rejected by Vitoria. See Guillermo Fraile, Historia de la filosofia espaftola (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1971).

11 Fraile, p. 286. | 12 Francisco de Vitoria, Relectio de Indis 0 Libertad de los indios (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1967), p. 97. Translated by John Pawley Bate, in Ernest Nys (ed.), The Classics of International Law, “De indis et de iure belli

relectiones’”’ (Washington: The Carnegie Institution, 1917), pp. 160-161. 13 Although we have limited our discussion to the major texts which deal with the nature of the Indian in the sixteenth century a full account of the early speculation on the subject, beginning with Columbus, can be found in Lewis Hanke, All Mankind is One (De Kalb: Northern [llinois University Press, 1974). 14 Pagden gives a brief history of the evolution of the concept of “barbarian” in The Fall of Natural Man, pp. 15-26. 15 Hanke, p. 67. On the nature and function of these royal councils or juntas, as they were called in Spanish, see Pagden, pp. 27-28. 16 Aristotle, Politics, Bk. 1, ch. 5, ““Where then there is such a difference as that between soul and body or between men and animals, as in the case of those whose business it is to use their body and can do nothing better, the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master.”’ Quoted from The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon,

ed. (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 1133. 17 Juan Ginés de Sepulveda, Democraies segundo (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1951), pp. 83-84. All translations of this text are mine.

18 Quoted by Hanke, p. 83. 19 Bartolomé de Las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria. Edmundo O’Gorman, ed., 2 vols. (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas, 1967), vol. 11, p. 641. All

translations of this text are mine.

20 Apologética historia sumaria, 1, p. 642. 21 Apologética historia sumaria, u, p. 646.

23 Hanke, p. 87. , 22 Hanke, p. 84.

24 For those who are interested in pursuing the arguments of the Defense in more detail see Hanke, pp. 73-108. 25 Edmundo O’Gorman, Apologética historia sumana, pp. xv—|xxix.

26 Apologética historia sumaria, 1, p. 3. The allusion is clearly to Sepulveda and

Fernandez de Oviedo. |

27 “*. .. pues para mila mayor prueba que nos descubre la rudeza, barbarie e innata servidumbre de aquellas gentes, son precisamente sus instituciones publicas, ya que casi todas son serviles y barbaras. Pues el hecho de tener casas y un modo racional de vida en comin y el comercio a que induce la necesidad natural, que prueba sino que ellos no son oses o monos carentes por completo de razén?. . . Me he referido a las costumbres y caracter de los barbaros, i qué diré ahora de la impia religion y nefandos sacrificios de tales gentes, que al venerar como Dios al demonio no creian aplacarle con mejores sacrificios que ofreciéndole corazones humanos ... Democraies segundo, p. 37. (for, in my view, the greatest proof which reveals to us the crudeness, barbarism, and innate servitude of those peoples, are precisely their public institutions, since almost all of them are slavish and barbarous. As for the fact of their having houses and a rational form of common life and commerce induced by natural necessity, what does this prove but that they are not bears or

monkeys completely lacking in reason? (. . .) Having made reference to the customs and character of these barbarians, what shall I now say of the impious

NOTES TO PAGES 98-105 181 religion and abominable sacrifices of such peoples, who upon venerating the Devil as God, believed they could placate him with no better sacrifice than to offer him

human hearts .. .] 28 Apologética historia sumaria, U, p. 598. 29 Apologética historia sumaria, U, p. 599. 30 Apologética historia sumaria, i, p. 375. 31 Apologética historia sumaria, 1, pp. 659-660. 32 “Decian también que el Sol era el principal criado de Dios, y que es él que habla y

significa lo que Dios manda. Y no iban en esto muy lejos de la verdad, porque ninguna criatura (sacado los angeles y los hombres) asi representa los atributos y excelencias de Dios (segan Sant Dionisio, cuarto de los Divinos nombres) como el Soi. Y asi, como tenga y produzca tan excelentes y diversos efectos, ¢ qué otra cosa parece sino manifestar y publicar las excelencias y operaciones que en estas cosas

criadas obra el Criador y verdadero Dios? Por lo cual lo sirvian y honraban y ofrecian sacrificio; pero primero y principalmente a Condici Viracocha, Hacedor del Mundo, como a Senior de todo.”’ Apologética historia sumarta, 1, p. 659. [They also used to say the Sun was the principal servant of God, and it is he who declares and makes known what God orders. And in this they were not far from the truth, because no creature (excepting the angels and men) thus represents the attributes and excellent qualities of God (according to St. Dionysis, the fourth of the Divine

names) like the Sun. And so, since it may have and produce such excellent and diverse effects, what else does it seem to do than manifest and make public the excellent qualities and deeds which in these created things are the work of the

Creator and True God? Therefore, they served and honored it and offered sacrifices to it; but first and foremost to Condici Viracocha, Maker of the World, as Lord of ail. | 33 ‘“‘When you look upward, the celestial entities tell you the glory of God through

the eyes of the stars, like glances and signs of their eyes, and the firmament announces the works of His hands. But the Sun can signify to you God himself in the greatest degree . . . So the invisible things of God, that is, the angelic divinities,

are seen particularly through the stars, and God’s eternal power and divinity through the Sun.” Marsilio Ficino, “_De comparatione solis ad Deum” in P. O. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1964), p. 98.

34 New conquests were prohibited from 1550-66. In response Toledo conducted a survey intended for the King’s information. The “‘Informaciones’’, as it was called, was a series of interviews of native informants gathered from the former provinces of the Inca Empire which attempted to establish the brutality and

illegitimacy of Inca rule in order to justify the Spanish intervention. The ‘“Informaciones” and the rabidly anti-Inca AMistoria Indica (1572), written by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa at Toledo’s request, were both intended as responses to Las Casas and most immediately to Diego Fernandez’s Historia del Perti (1571),

which recognized the Incas as legitimate lords of Peru. 35 A reduction, or reduccién, was an Indian village controlled by the Church and aimed at the full social and religious reorientation of native life. 36 Pagden, pp. 160-161. 37 Quoted by Pagden, p. 168. 38 Historia natural y moral de las Indias, Edmundo O’Gorman, ed. (Mexico: Fondo de

Cultura Econémica, 1982), p. 216. All translations of this text are mine. 39: Mistoria, p. 220.

40 As an example of this perverted imitation Acosta describes an Aztec ceremony which resembled the Christian sacrament of Gommunion: “‘Concluidas las ceremonias, bailes y sacrificios, ibanse a desnudar, y los sacerdotes y dignidades

182 NOTES TO PAGES I05-I14 del templo tomaban el idolo de masa y desnudabanle de aquellos aderezos que tenia, y asi a él como los trozos que estaban consagrados, los hacian muchos pedazos, y comenzando desde los mayores, repartianlos y dabanlos a modo de

comunion a todo el pueblo, ... y recibianlo con tanta reverencia, temor y lagrimas, que ponia admiracion, diciendo que comian la carne y huesos de dios, teniéndose por indignos de ello. (. . .) Aquién no pondra admiracion que tuviese

el demonio tanto cuidado de hacerse adorar y recibir al modo que Jesucristo nuestro Dios ordend y ensefié y como la Santa Iglesia lo acostumbra?”’ Astoria, p. 259. [The ceremonies, dances, and sacrifices having ended, they went to remove their attire, and the priests and superiors of the temple took the idol of paste and removed ail the adornments they had put on it, and they broke into many pieces the idol itselfas well.as the other parts which had been consecrated, and beginning with the elders, they distributed the pieces among all the people in the manner ofa communion, . . . and they received it with such reverence, fear and tears that it was a cause for wonder, saying that they ate of the flesh and bones of their god, and considering themselves unworthy of it. (. . .) Who would not wonder to see the devil so mindful of being worshiped and reverenced in the same manner that Jesus Christ our God has commanded and taught, and which is the custom of the Holy

Church?] My translation. 41 Mistoria, p. 216. My emphasis. 42 See José Ferrater Mora, Diccionario de filosofia (2 vols., Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1965), vol. 1, p. 58. 43 Historia, p. 249. My emphasis. 44 Comentarios reales, 1v, p. 3, and Historia General, ui, p. 20. In both passages Garcilaso’s remarks are of a negative nature, particularly in the Aistorta where he is quite critical of the New Laws which were passed at Las Casas’ instigation. 45 Another work which assumes a privileged position is Blas Valera’s account of Inca history. It it not discussed here because it has survived only in the fragments quoted by Garcilaso, making it impossible to evaluate the text independently ofits host text. 46 Pagden, p. 112. Pagden argues that Sepulveda was a humanist, not a theologian, who was serving as Charles V’s chaplain and official chronicler at the time the Democrates was written. His dialogue, though it dealt with matters which Vitoria and hjs successors had deemed to be theological in nature, was primarily a work of political rhetoric in support of the Crown’s American enterprise.

47 For a thorough typological study of the figures of intertextuality see Laurent Jenny, “The Strategy of Form” in T. Todorov (ed.), French Literary Theory Today Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 34-63. 48 The concept of praeparatio evangelica (preparation for the gospel) received its first expression in the Praeparatio evangelica of Eusebius. This work attempted to explain the early Christian rejection of Greek religion and philosophy in favor of Hebrew religious thought. In spite of Eusebius’ criticism of the Greeks, he interpreted part of Hellenic thought, particularly Platonism, as a precedent of Christian doctrine, and he compared Plato’s role to that of Moses. Among the Platonic concepts that Eusebius considered precedents of Christianity were the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and certain insights concerning the Trinity. However, he considered these precedents to be insufficient without Christian revelation which provided the only access to the truth. See José Ferrater Mora, Diccionario de filosofia, vol. 1,

p. 602. Raquel Chang-Rodriguez in “Armonia y disyuncién en La Florida del Inca,” Revista de la Universidad Catélica, 11-12 (1982) 21-31, has pointed out that Garcilaso’s conception of indigenous civilization as a praeparatio evangelica was

already implicit in his favorable comparisons of the Indians of Florida and the Ancients of classical antiquity in La Florida.

NOTES TO PAGES I17—-124 183 49 Historia, pp. 219, 224, 230. 50 The precise Spanish term used by Garcilaso is fantasma, which means ghost. For Garcilaso’s other references to Viracocha see chapters 17, 21, 22 of Book v of the Comentarios reales.

51 Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Estructuras andinas del poder: Ideologia -religiosa y politica (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1981), p. 30. 52 John H. Rowe, “The origins of creator worship among the Incas,”’ Culture in History. Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, Stanley Diamond, ed. {New York: Columbia

University Press, 1960), pp. 408-429. 53 For a detailed analysis of myths and individual deities associated with the name Viracocha see Rowe’s “The origins of creator worship among the Incas,” and especially, Henrique Urbano’s Wiracocha y Ayar: héroes y funciones en las sociedades

andinas (Cusco: Centro de Estudios Rurales Andinos Bartolomé de Las Casas, 1981).

54 Urbano, Wiracocha y Ayar. 55 A particularly interesting, if somewhat controversial, argument of the relations

between the solar deity and Viracocha is presented by Arthur A. Demarest in Viracocha: The Nature and Antiquity of the Andean High God (Cambridge, Maass.:

Harvard University Peabody Museum Monographs, 1981). 56 Rowe presents a significantly different explanation. He traces the ascendency of Viracocha to the reign of the Inca Pachacuti and suggests that the concept of Viracocha as the supreme creator deity was the result of a general reform of Inca religion undertaken by Pachacuti when he organized the Inca imperial administrative structure. He also argues that the Viracocha creation myth appears to be of late compilation since the names of places supposedly visited by the god were far from Cuzco and not known to the Incas until Pachacuti’s reign (he was the ninth

Inca to take the throne). While Rostworowski’s interpretation could explain Garcilaso’s apparent ignorance of this deity, I argue that his ignorance was actually feigned, and that it can be best explained as the result of ideological and rhetorical considerations.

57 Of particular interest are: |

Joan Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua, Relacién de Antigiiedades deste Reyno de Peri (1613) (Madrid: Biblioteca de autores espajioles, 1968). Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corénica_y buen gobierno, John V.

Murra and Rolena Adorno, eds., George Urioste, trans. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980.

Pierre Duviols, ed., and José Maria Arguedas, trans., Dioses y hombres de Huarochiré (¢. 1598) (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1966).

58 Demarest has suggested that Viracocha and the Sun were probably different aspects of the same manifold sky god. 59 The writers who relate the myth of Viracocha before the publication of the Comentarios reales are: Las Casas (1550), Betanzos (1551), Cieza de Leén (1553),

Sarmiento de Gamboa (1572), Molina (1575), Gutiérrez de Santa Clara (late sixteenth century), and Acosta (1590). 60 Gonzalez Holguin, p. 340. 61 For his invaluable help in the interpretation of Viracocha I am indebted to Frank Salomon, professor of Quechua and Andean anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Rowe states that the Incas regarded the name as unanalyzable. Ail but one of the sources he cites in support of this are Spanish, however. The one bilingual source cited, Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, he quotes incompletely. The passage he utilizes, from Part 1, Book v, chapter 21 of the Comentarios reales, is the one where

Garcilaso performs a literal translation, but refuses to interpret the term. This

184 NOTES TO PAGES [25-130 evidence is insufficient to confirm the characterization of “‘unanalyzable’’. It could be argued just as plausibly, as Garcilaso does in Book n, chapter 2, that the

Indians were reluctant to interpret their deities for the Spaniards for fear of ridicule or punishment. An explanation for Garcilaso’s own reluctance will be presented later in this chapter. Urbano explains the loose interpretative translation offered by most of the Spanish sources (Viracocha = creator god, or fundamental god) as an apologetic

translation. He points out that even such a serious student of Quechua as Gonzalez de Holguin offers an apologetic translation of the proper name Viracocha separate from the literal translation he does of the name’s composites in his bilingual dictionary. 62 Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, pp. 42-49. 63 The following passage, from Gerald Taylor’s French translation of the Quechua ““Huarochiri’’? manuscript, reputedly the most reliable version currently available, shows striking similarities between the description of Viracocha (Cuniraya

Huiracocha) and Christ: “Dans les temps tres anciens Cuniraya Huiracocha, prenant l’aspect d’un homme tres pauvre, errait, sa cape et sa tunique toutes déchirées. Les autres hommes ne le reconnaissant pas le traitaient de mendiant pouilleux. Alors, 11 animait toutes les communautés et, par son seul discours, consolidait leurs champs et leurs terrasses. I] leur enseignait a faire jaillir Peau pour irriguer en jetant seulement la fleur de la canne appelée pupuna. Alors, il poursuivait son chemin en accomplissant toutes sortes d’actions et en humiliant par son savoir les autres huacas locaux.” Rites et traditions de Huarochiré (Paris:

Editions L’Harmattan, 1980), p. 31. [During very olden times Cuniraya Huiracocha would roam, taking on the appearance of a very poor man, his cloak and tunic ali ripped and torn. Other men recognized him not, and they would treat him asa flea-ridden beggar. In those times, he would rouse all the communities and, by his speech alone, consolidate their fields and their terraces. He would teach them to make the water gush forth, in order to irrigate only the flower of the cane called pupuna. Then, he would go on his way, accomplishing all kinds of deeds and humbling the other local huacas with his knowledge.] My translation. 6 ‘Nowhere’ 1s somewhere: the Gomentarios reales and the Utopian model

1 Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Origenes de la novela, vol. 1, p. 392; Alberto Zum Felde, Indice critico de la literatura hispano-americana (Mexico, Editorial Guarania, 1954); Frank E. Manuel, ““Towards a psychological history of utopias,” Utopras and Utopian Thought (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966); Carlos Manual Cox, Utopia y realidad en el Inca Garcilaso (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1965); Luis A. Arocena, El Inca Gareilaso y el humanismo renacenitsta (Buenos

Aires: Centro de Profesores Diplomados de Ensenianza, 1949); Juan Duran Luzio, “Sobre Tomas Moro en el Inca Garcilaso,”’ Revista Iberoamericana, 96-97 (1976), 349-361.

2 The principal antagonists in this polemic were José de la Riva Aguero and Manuel Gonzalez de la Rosa. 3 See especially, de la Riva Agtiero, L. Valcarcel, Sanchez, and Durand. 4 See Cox, pp. 29-30. 5 Manuel, p. 72. The reference is incorrect since Manuel cites as his source Garcilaso’s Historia general del Peru, devoted to the first decades of colonial history, instead of the Comentarios reales.

, 6 Isay “intentional” because the sheer number of coincidences identified by Duran Luzio (and a few that he missed) lead one to suspect, at the very least, that the

NOTES TO PAGES 130-136 185 parallels and resemblances are in fact deliberate. Later in this chapter I will show

that there are indeed indicators in the text that demonstrate that the Utopian model is an important structural component of the Comentarios reales. 7 As José Durand’s indispensable study of the catalogue of Garcilaso’s library at the

time of his death clearly shows, the lack of bibliographical evidence is not particularly significant since the entries are often obscure and the inventory obviously incomplete. A number of books known to have belonged to the author, by his own testimony, do not appear on the record. Moreover, the fact that More’s Utopia appeared in the 1583 Index of the Inquisition may also have discouraged Garcilaso from keeping a copy. 8 Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y Espafia, especially pp. 807-832. g See Bataillon, Erasmo y Espafia. Also Silvio Zavala, Ideario de Vasco de Quiroga (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico 1941) and José Antonio Maravall, ““La Utopia politico — religiosa de los franciscanos en la Nueva Espafia,” Revista de Estudtos Americanos 2 (1949) 199-227. 10 Garcilaso’s description of Felipillo reads as follows: ““Llegado a la interpretaci6n que al Rey Atahuallpa le hicieron, es de advertir en las condiciones de Felipe, indio trujuman y faraute de aquel auto, que era natural de la isla de Puna, y de

gente muy plebeya, mozo que aun apenas tenia veinte y dos afios, tan mal ensenado en la lengua general de los Incas como en la particular de los espanoles; y que la de los Incas aprendid, no en el Cozco, sino en Tumpiz, de los indios que alli hablaban como extranjeros en aquel lenguaje; y que también aprendié la lengua

| espafiola sin que nadie se la ensefiase, sino de oir hablar a los espanioles, y que las palabras que mas de ordinario oia eran las que usan los soldados bisoiios, voto a tal, juro a tal, y otras cosas semejantes 0 peores; y que con estas aprendio las que habia menester para saber traer y dar a la mano las cosas que le pidiesen; porque era criado siervo de los espamioles, y hablaba lo que sabia muy corruptamente a semejanza de los negros bozales; y que aunque era bautizado, habia sido sin ninguna ensefanza de la religion cristiana, ni noticia de Cristo nuestro Senior con tal ignorancia del credo apostélico.” (Historia general del Peri, Bk.1, ch. 23) [With regard to the version that reached Atahuallpa, it is to be remarked that Felipe, the Indian dragoman who interpreted, was a native of the island of Puna, a man of very plebeian origin, young — for he was scarcely twenty-two — and as little versed

in the general language of the Incas as in Spanish. He had in fact learned the language of the Incas, not in Cuzco, but in Tumbez, from Indians who speak barbarously and corruptly as foreigners: we have already explained that to all the Indians but the natives of Cuzco this is a foreign language. He had also learned Spanish without a teacher, but merely by hearing the Spaniards speak, and the words he heard most often were those used by the ordinary soldiers: ““‘by heaven,”

or “I swear by heaven,” and others like them or worse. He also knew the words necessary for fetching anything that was asked for, for he was a servant and slave to

the Spaniards, and he spoke what he knew very corruptly as newly captured Negroes do. Though baptized, he had received no instruction in the Christian religion and knew nothing about Christ our Lord, and was totally ignorant of the Apostles’ creed.] (Livermore, 1, pp. 681-682). 11 Jakobson, pp. 232-239. 12 Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1976), pp. 21-22. .

13 Georges Mounin, Problémes théoriques de la traduction (Paris: Gallimard, 1963).

14 Mounin, p. 59. 15 Walter Benjamin, ““The task of the translator,” in J//uminations, Hannah Arendt, ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p. 72.

186 NOTES TO PAGES 137-151 16 R. W. Chambers, “The Meaning of Utopia,” in Utopia, Robert M. Adams, ed. (New York: Norton, 1975), pp. 149-150. 17 We know that More gave a series of public lectures on Augustine’s City of God in 1503. Itis therefore not unlikely that he had Augustine’s work in mind as he wrote the Utopia. The two-book structure reflects the division between the Earthly and Heavenly cities in the C7ty of God. But Utopia presents an inverted image, as it were, of Augustine’s model. It is the image of a Heavenly city fallen from Grace and an

Earthly city on the verge of Salvation. 18 Chambers, ‘““The meaning of Utopia,” in Robert M. Adams, ed., Utopia (New York: Norton, 1975), pp. 149-150.

| 19 Recently, several studies have appeared which favor an ironic interpretation of the Utopian model. Arthur F. Kinney in “Rhetoric and poetic: humanist fiction in the Renaissance” English Literary History, 43 (1976), 413-443, has pointed to supposed contradictions and inconsistencies in Raphael’s description of Utopia, and to the fact that the translations of such names as Hythlodaeus (speaker of nonsense) and Utopia (no-where) ironically undermine the praises. Kinney’s conclusion is that Utopia is actually a dystopia, just like the presentation of the European commonwealth in Book 1. It is up to the reader he argues, to supply a reasoned “third view” or critical appraisal of Hythlodaeus’ ‘ideal’? commonwealth. Stephen Greenblatt, in Renazssance Self-Fashioning (University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 11-73, sees an ambivalence in More with respect to Utopia which assumes the rhetorical form of irony and which constantly questions the status of the world it pretends to represent. However, the majority of Morean scholars

(Hexter Surtz, Chambers, Marin, Prevost, Elliott, etc.) interpret Utopia as a theoretical construct ofserious critical intent. In general, my views on Utopia are in agreement with those of the second group. While it would take us far beyond the scope of the present study to address the issue properly, I would hike to outline my

position briefly. The Christian humanist ideology embraced by More in his life and through his works is consistent with the fundamental values embodied by Utopian civilization — community of property, civic over private responsibility, peace over imperialism, the complementariness between Reason and Faith, etc. But in the final analysis, my own reading of the text reflects the reading of the Utopia performed by Garcilaso in the Comentarves reales: a reading which Garcilaso

thought would prove persuasive to his contemporaries of the late Hispanic humanism. 20 Thomas More, Utopia, Robert M. Adams, ed. (New York: Norton, 1975) p. 35. All future references to the Utopia will be from this edition. 21 Chambers, p. 152. Quoted by More in the “Treatise upon the Passion’’, written while he awaited execution for his belief in Catholicism. 22 My translation **. . . mais que ce soit Cicéron, Jérome ou du Bellay, tout ceux qui traitent de difficultés de la traduction sont persuadés qu’ils peuvent exprimer le sens d’un text... . Un postulat soutend tous les raisonnements des Anciens sur ia traduction: le postulat de l’unité de l’expérience humaine, de l’identité de esprit humain, de l’universalité des formes de la connaissance.’ Mounin, p. 169. 23 My translation. “. . . la philologie démontre que comprendre un texte signifie ces deux choses séparables et quelque fois separées. Comprendre les signifiants sans comprendre les signifiés, c’est comprendre tout ce que permettent de comprendre les relations formelles que constituent le systéme linguistique d’une langue, sa structure: lexicologique, morphologique, syntaxique — ce qui peut se faire sans atteindre les signifiés. La compréhension des signifiés c’est — ajoutée a la précédente, accessible par une autre opération: la connaissance des relations arbitraires, a travers le temps, cette fois, des mémes signes avec leurs signifiés successivement differents”. Mounin, p. 246.

NOTES TO PAGES 152-162 187 24 J. H. Hexter has written an elegant and persuasive study of ironic intention through contextual lexicological analysis in “Intention, words and meaning: the case of More’s Utopia’, New Literary History 6, 3 (1975), 529-541.

25 Arthur F. Kinney, “Rhetoric and poetic.” 26 Louis Marin, ““Toward a semiotic of Utopia: political and fictional discourse in More’s Utopia” in Richard H. Brown and Stanford M. Lyman (eds.), Structure, Consciousness, and History (Cambridge University Press, 1978), 261-282.

27 Juan Duran Luzio, “Sobre Tomas Moro en el Inca Garcilaso.” 28 “(los incas] les manifestaron las leyes, asi las de su idolatria como las del gobierno

de la republica; y esto se hizo muchas veces y en muchos dias hasta que las entendieron bien. Los indios, mirando con atenci6n cuan en su honra y provecho eran todas, dijeron que el Sol y los Incas, sus hijos, que tales ordenanzas y leyes daban a los hombres merecian ser adorados y tenidos por dioses, y senores de la tierra. Por tanto prometian guardar sus fueros y estatutos y desechar cualesquiera idolos, ritos, y costumbres que tuviesen.”’ (11, 15). [The laws were expounded

many times for many days until they were clearly understood. The Indians, realizing how much they redounded to their honor and welfare said that the Sun and his children the Incas well deserved to be worshipped and held as gods and lords of the earth for having conferred such laws and ordinances on mankind. They therefore promised to serve his statutes and rules, and repudiate all the idols, rites, and customs they had.] (Livermore, I, p. 170) 29 “El Inca los recibié sentado en su silla rodeado de su gente de guerra, y, habiendo oido a los curacas, mando que les desatasen las manos y quitasen las sogas de los cuellos, en senal de que les perdonaba las vidas y daba libertad, y con palabras suaves les dijo que no habia ido a quitarles sus vidas ni sus haciendas, sino a hacerles bien y a ensenarles que viviesen en razon y ley natural, y que, dejados sus idolos, adorasen por Dios al Sol, a quien debian aquella merced; que por habérselo mandado el Sol les perdonaba el Inca y de nuevo les hacia merced de sus tierras y

vasallos, sin otra pretension mas que hacerles bien, lo cual verian por larga experiencia ellos y sus hijos y descendientes.” (m1, 3) [The Inca received them seated on his chair and surrounded by his warriors. Having heard the curacas, he ordered their hands to be unbound and the ropes removed from their necks as a token that he spared their lives and set them free. With gentle words he told them he had not come to take their lives or property, but to do them good and teach them to live by natural law and reason, and, abandoning their idols, to worship the Sun as god, to whom they owed their pardon. The Inca forgave them by the sun’s command and returned their lands and subjects to them as a favour, with no other purpose than to do them good, as they and their sons and descendants would find from long experience.| (Livermore, 1, pp. 141-142) go Duran Luzio sees a corrective allusion to the Utopia in Garcilaso’s criticism of the use of paid mercenaries for military combat. 31 I borrow the phrase “‘petits scandales semantiques”’ from Dubois, who uses it in Rhétorique Générale to describe the incongruous relationship between two signifieds

and the corresponding identity of their signifiers in a conventional metaphor and its effect on the reader who attempts to find a third term or missing link to resolve the semantic incongruity. Although I use the phrase in a different sense, the effect

of Garcilaso’s contradictions and incongruities and the critical reaction they provoke are quite similar. 32 [have followed the basic model of ironic decoding presented by Wayne Booth in A Rhetoric of Irony (University of Chicago Press, 1974). The steps Booth offers for the decoding of an ironic sequence are: the recognition by the reader of two levels.of

signification due to the perception of an incongruency (rejection of a literal reading), the search for alternatives to solve the incongruency produced by a

188 NOTES TO PAGES 165-168 literal reading, reference to available clues and criteria, and finally the assignment

of a new meaning to the ironic sequence. Booth stresses that our final court of appeal is our conception of the author and his intentions. I prefer to analyze the ironic sequence in relation to the discoursive context into which it is set, believing that it is precisely (perhaps exclusively) through the text that the author makes his

or her intentions known to the reader. 33 José Juan Arrom was the first critic to point out the importance of the “stories” that are interspersed throughout the Comentarios reales in revealing aspects of Garcilaso’s ideology. See “Hombre y mundo en dos cuentos del Inca Garcilaso”’ in Certidumbre de América (Madrid: Gredos, 1971), pp. 27-35. I disagree, however,

with Arrom’s interpretation of the Pedro Serrano story, in which he claims that Garcilaso was not interested in differences of color, language, or religion — ““De aqui que ambos naufragos sean de la misma tierra, hablen la misma lengua, crean

en el mismo dios.’’ A closer reading of the text shows, as I have tried to demonstrate, that what Serrano and the stranger see when they first gaze on each other in precisely difference. It is only through Christianity that they recognize each other as fellow human beings. 7 Epilogue

1 For a detailed discussion of the evolution of the cosmographical and geographical ideas on the nature of the world see Edmundo O’Gorman, The Invention of America

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961). ,

2 For more information on the concept of antipodes see C. Raymond Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, vol.1 (New York: Peter Smith, 1949), especially chapter VI.

3 Jonathan Culler, “‘Presupposition and Intertextuality” in The Pursuit of Signs (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 110-118.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Vega, Garcilaso Inca dela. Comentartos reales de los incas, Angel Rosenblat, ed.,

Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1943. La Florida del Inca. Didlogos de amor. Obras completas. Carmelo Saenz de Santa

Maria, ed., vol. cxxxu1, Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Espaniles, 1960. Eistoria general del Pert, 2 vols., Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1959.

English Translations . Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, Harold V. Livermore, trans., 2 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966. The Florida of the Inca, John Grier Varner and Jeannette Johnson Varner, trans., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. Secondary sources

Many items of this bibliography are commented on at the appropriate places in the text and notes.) Amador, Raysa. Aproximacién histérica a los Comentarios reales, Madrid: Editori-

al Phegos, 1984. An interdisciplinary approach to the Comentarios reales

and Historia general del Pert, utilizing a Marxist methodology. The author’s arguments, often tendentious, are based on textual analyses that are at times inaccurate and unreliable. Arocena, Luis A. El Inca Garcilaso y el humanismo renacentista, Buenos Aires:

Centro de Profesores Diplomados de Ensenanza, 1949. A_ useful although extremely limited introduction to Garcilaso’s humanist filiation. Much information has become available since its publication. Arrom, José Juan. ““Hombre y mundo en dos cuentos del Inca Garcilaso”’ in Certidumbre de América, Madrid: Gredos, 1971, pp. 27-35. Asensio, Eugenio. “Dos cartas del Inca Garcilaso,” Nueva Revista de Filologta Hispdnica, 7 (1949), 583-593. Avalle-Arce, Juan B. El Inca Garcilaso en sus Comentarios, Madrid: Gredos, 1964. An anthology of the Comentarios reales with an excellent introduc-

tory essay outlining Garcilaso’s intellectual horizons. Castanien, Donald G. El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, New York: ‘Twayne

Publishers, 1969. A readable and reliable introductory study of Garcilaso’s life and works.

189

190 BIBLIOGRAPHY Cevallos, Francisco J. ““La vision del indio americano en los Comentarios reales

del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega,” Symposium xxxIx, 2 (1985), 83-92. Chang-Rodriguez, Raquel. ““Armonia y disyunci6n en La Florida del Inca.”’ Revista de la Universidad Catélica, 11-12 (1982), 21-31. Cox, Carlos Manuel. Utopia y realidad en el Inca Garcilaso, Lima: Universidad

Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1965. A study of economic thought and historical interpretation in the Comentarios reales. Crowley, Frances G. Garcilaso de la Vega, el Inca and his sources in the Comentarios

reales de los Incas, The Hague: Mouton, 1971.

Duran, Luzio, Juan. “Sobre Tomas Moro en el Inca Garcilaso,” Revista Iberoamericana, 96-97 (1976), 349-361. Durand, José. El Inca Garcilaso, cldsico de América, Mexico: Sep Setentas, 1976.

An important collection of previously published articles. Of particular

value are those chapters dealing with the influence of Renaissance thought on Garcilaso’s intellectual development. ‘“Garcilaso between the world of the Incas and that of Renaissance concepts,” Diogenes, 43 (1969), 14-21. “El nombre de los Comentartos reales,” Revista del Museo Nacional, 32 (Lima,

1963), 322-332. ““Garcilaso y su formacion literaria e histérica,”” Nuevos estudios sobre el Inca

Garcilaso de la Vega, Lima Instituto de Estudios Histérico-Militares del

Pert, 1955, 65-85. ““Veracidad y exactitud en La Florida del Inca,” Letras, 54-55 (1955), 143-150. ‘‘La biblioteca del Inca,”’ Nueva revista de filologia hispdnica, 11, no. 3 (1948),

239-264. Duviols, Pierre. “El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, intérprete humanista de la religion incaica,’’ Diogenes, 47 (Buenos Aires, 1964), 31-45. Escobar, Alberto. ““Lenguaje e historia en los Comentarios reales,’ Patio de Letras, Lima: Caballo de Troya, 1965. Fernandez, José B. ‘Vision del indio floridano en La Florida del Inca,” América Indigena, xLtv, 4 (1984), 703-711. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Julia. The Inca Garcilaso, Oxford University Press, 1921. The first and still one of the very few studies of Garcilaso’s life and works

in English. Much of the information provided is now outdated. Gonzalez Echevarria, Roberto. ‘“Imperio y estilo en el Inca Garcilaso,” Discurso Literario, 3, 1 (1985), 75-80.

Gonzalez de la Rosa, Manuel. “Las obras del padre Valera y Garcilaso.”’ Revista Histérica [Lima], 4 (1912), 301-311. Hernandez, Max and Saba, Fernando. “Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, historia de un patronimico,”’ Pert, wdentidad nacional, Lima: Cedep, 1979. Ilgen, William ‘La configuracién mitica de la historia en los Comentarios reales del Inca Garcilaso de le Vega” in Andrew P. Debicki and Enrique Pupo- Walker (eds.), Estudios de literatura hispanoamericana en honor a José

Arrom, Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 1974, 37-46. ‘The meaning of the Comentarios reales of Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca,” Dissertation, Yale University, 1970.

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ship and Public Affairs, 1984. A study of Garcilaso’s works in light of recent literary theory, especially semiotics. Its conclusions are often anachronistic because the analysis lacks a clear historical context.

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“Un amigo del Inca Garcilaso,”” Mar del Sur, 1, 2 (1948), 20-26. Ortega, Julio. “El Inca Garcilaso y el discurso de la cultura,” Prismal, 1 (1977), 5-16. Porras Barrenechea, Raul. Ei Inca Garcilaso en Montilla, Lima: Editorial San Marcos, 1955. A collection of documents dating from Garcilaso’s years in Montilla (1560-91). Also included are documents pertaining to his activities after he left Montilla for Cordoba (1591-1614). Of particular interest in this collection are two letters from Garcilaso to the antiquarian J. Fernandez Franco, commented by Eugenio Asensio, and a transcription and commentary of Garcilaso’s annotations in the margins of Lopez de Goémara’s Historia de las Indias.

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Gredos, 1982. A stimulating collection of essays on the influence of literary techniques in the narration of New World history. Chapter 2 discusses imaginative amplifications in the Historia general del Peri. Eistoria, creacién y profecta en los textos del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Madrid:

José Porrua Turanzas, 1982. The author traces the literary elements in the corpus of Garcilaso’s works, with emphasis on La Florida. The writing of history is seen as an act of the imagination which produces the

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del Museo Nacional, 1939. A short biographical sketch. Varner, John Grier. El Inca: the Life and Times of Garcilaso de la Vega, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. The most complete biographical study

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