The Depiction of Self and Other in Colonial Peru

Author(s): Rolena Adorno

Source: Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 2, Depictions of the Dispossessed (Summer, 1990), pp.
110-118
Published by: CAA
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/777190
Accessed: 21-09-2018 01:23 UTC

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 The Depiction of Self
and Other in Colonial Peru

By Rolena Adorno

During the European colonization ofmade about the conceptualization of self Apart from the depictions of build-
the New World, the depiction ofand Other across cultural boundaries in ings and building construction, repeated
self and Other (European and Amerin-the early Spanish colonial period. some twenty-five times throughout Cie-
dian, or Amerindian and European) Cieza's work is appropriate for this za's work to highlight the recurring
excursion because, along with the Suma theme of Native American and colonial
implied complex processes of observa-
y narracion de los Incas of Juan de
tion, mediation, and projection. Often Spanish foundations, there is another
Betanzos (1551), it presents the earliest
the image created and communicated by image of interest to us here: a woodcut
the observer had little or nothing to do European interpretations of the Andean of a group of Indians conversing with the
with what had been seen. To consider world and its past.2 The first edition of devil, repeated a total of eight times (fig.
the depiction, therefore, is to reflect Cieza's
on Chrbnica del Peru is richly 1). On this illustration's first appearance
the observing subject. Whether the illustrated, and, at least some of the (chap. 15), the accompanying prose text
observing subject was the colonizer or woodcuts were executed according to tells of current practices of divination
the colonized, the relationship between the author's own directions.3 Two subse- and sorcery that "the devil commands
them suggests that the best way to study quent editions, appearing in Antwerp in those who are in communication with
either is to take into account both 1554, copy these illustrations and repeat him to undertake."5 Another image,
simultaneously. A case in point involves their exact location throughout.4 appearing but once, depicts a scene of
the earliest European images of the human sacrifice (chap. 19); here Cieza
Incas of Andean South America, and, in made a correction, in his fe de erratas,
turn, Andean images of indigenous indicating that the Indian should be
culture and the foreign, Spanish invader. portrayed naked instead of clothed.6
For the purpose of this discussion, I Again we see the devil in attendance; the
shall take as exemplary of the stated themes of affiliation with the devil and
principles two textual cases: one, the human sacrifice are combined in the
1553 publication of the Parte primera pictorial text as they are in the prose
de la chronica del Peru (First part of the text.7 As Cieza described the devouring
chronicle of Peru) by Pedro de Cieza de of the sacrificial victims, cannibalism
Leon, represents one of the earliest was added to his picture of the Amerin-
series of European images of Andean dian natives.
South Americans disseminated after the The depictions of the natives in
invasion of Peru by Francisco Pizarro conversation with the devil are related to
and his company; the other, the 1615 two others that complete the series:
Nueva corbnica y buen gobierno (New natives worshiping an emerald globe at
chronicle and good government) of Manta (chap. 50) and the heavenly
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, is an punishment of ancient giants engaged in
Andean response to eighty or ninety sodomy (chap. 52). Thus, apart from
Fig. I Pedro de Cieza de Le6n, Pagan two elegant representations of the
years of European writing on the Andes.'
Amerindian priests speak with the princely Inca (chaps. 38 and 92), every
The mediations that come into play
devil, woodcut, from Parte primera de
require more ample explanation than other pictorial image shows individuals
la chronica del Peru (Seville: M. de identified as Andeans as communicating
can be provided here. Thus, although I
Montesdoca, 1553). Courtesy of the directly with Satan, engaging in acts of
direct my attention to two concrete
John Carter Brown Library, Brown human sacrifice, sodomy, or pagan
examples, the discussion as a whole
University. worship.
synthesizes several arguments I have

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 My argument here is that these
depictions of sensational and sensation-
alizing topics were designed to produce
certain effects of interest and fascination
on the part of their readers. I support
this contention by examining a related
textual feature: the tabla alphabetica,
or alphabetical table of contents, found
in the 1554 Antwerp edition of Cieza by
Bellero.8 These schemata of the contents
of early modern imprints tell us what
topics publishers and printers consid-
ered useful in piquing potential reader
interest. Under "C," for example, we
find, "Marriage [casamiento] of Indian
slaves so that they have children which
their lords will eat." Dozens of similar
examples could be cited to suggest how
accessory textual elements were created
and manipulated to attract readers and
simultaneously create and confirm their
expectations.
In the case of the Chrbnica del Peru,
the author was intent on presenting a
balanced, possibly sympathetic, view of
Amerindian societies.9 The tone of Cie-
za's work is set by his admiration for the
Incas and his confidence about bringing
all Indians into the Christian fold,
despite the devil's dominion over them.
He cautioned that the accounts of
sodomy and cannibalism he presented
regarding some groups-obviously con-
sidered the most grave among all Amer-
indian shortcomings-were not to be
generalized to all. Cieza's apprehen-
sion that certain aspects of his work
were likely to be sensationalized and
Fig. 2 Alonso de Ovalle, Virgin and Child with Araucanian
generalized was well taken. He under-
Supplicants, engraving, from Histbrica relacion del reyno de Chile
stood that despite his attempt to present
y de las missiones (Rome: Francesco Cavalli, 1646), 393. Courtesy
a balanced picture of native Andean
of the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.
culture, he could not control its recep-
tion by readers. Through his warning, he
acknowledged having created an ac- the doctrine seems inadequate to ac- tion for an assumption others had
count for all the ways we see Amerindi-reached intuitively" or by personal
count that, in spite of his own intentions,
could be used by anti-indigenist polemi- observation.14
ans discussed in the early writings of the
colonial period. In my opinion, the
cists in debates on the rights of conquest. The notion that the Indian was to be
Indian as adult-child was given more
In addition to the explicit features of his considered like a child was common in
depictions of Andeans, other seeminglycredence in the discourses of colonialism missionary writings15 and was reflected
unrelated factors came into play in thethat was any other view. This theoretical in accompanying visual images of the
position was developed in the 1530s at Amerindians. The engravings from an
creation of the first figuration of the
Amerindian Other. the University of Salamanca by Fran- account published in 1646 by the Jesuit
cisco de Vitoria, who abandoned one Alonso de Ovalle, for example, attach an
The most famous and controversialavenue of Aristotelian-faculty psychol- immature psychological quality to the
context for the discussion of the Chilean natives by the representation of
ogy for another and identified Amerindi-
Amerindian in the sixteenth century- ans not as "nature's slaves" but as childlike and adolescent physical at-
according to the scholarship of the past "nature's children."13 That is, the tributes.
Amer- Here the newly converted Arau-
forty years-is the debate on the rights indian was considered to be physically canians worship a miraculous image of
of conquest and the Aristotelian theory an adult but psychologically a child; the Virgin Mary that appeared in a cave
of natural slavery."1 This scholarship with all rational faculties complete but in Araucania (fig. 2).16
has argued that the theory of natural not fully developed, the Amerindian These and other such perceptions
slavery, appropriated from Aristotle, needed instruction and education in produced in the writings on Amerindian
was a concept subsequently translated order to realize both psychologicalculture and must be considered in the light
into a description of New World inhabit- of the assumptions, associations, and
mental potential. Vitoria's hypothesis
ants. Apart from the very troublesome was not novel; "because it was groundedanalogies about other subordinated
problem of ascertaining precisely what in a theory about the way in which all
groups. The typology of relations devel-
the sixteenth-century theoreticians men come to understand the law of oped in discourse by the European to
deal with the non-European had more to
meant by the term "natural slavery,"12 nature, [it] provided a reasoned explana-

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 EtiPP1M ERMvt/cdO

Fig. 4 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Adam and

Fig. 3 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Self-Portrait,
pen-and-ink drawing, from Nueva coronica y buen pen-and-ink drawing, from Nueva corbnica y buen
gobierno (1615; Madrid: Historia-16, 1987), 368. gobierno (1615; Madrid: Historia-16, 1987), 22.

do, I would argue, with stances previ- comparative models and frames of refer- Chivalric discourse, in its secular
ously taken regarding other subordi- ence by which they attempted to recog- and religious manifestations, was
nated or subjugated groups than with nize, comprehend, and then classify the pervasive in the sixteenth century in
factors pertaining to the conquest and newfound humanity. Europe. In literature, it had two princi-
colonial experience. What is involved In explaining the foregoing European pal manifestations: the epic poems of
here is not the direct and immediate visions of otherness, we need to abstract heroic conquest and the novels of chiv-
observation of reality but rather observa-the composite profile of the observingalry. The first implies the relationship of
tions and judgments that originate in,subject who looked at certain social the Amerindian to other discourses on
and are mediated by, experience with types as different from himself but infidelity; the second, the relationship to
other discourses. I am thinking espe- similar to each other.'8 This subject is discourse on women and the requisites of
cially of those whose referents would bemale and Christian, and his values are moral instruction for weaker beings.19
contemplated as a version of alterity, as those of masculine, chivalric, Christian The epic celebrated the triumph of
outsiders removed from an individual's culture; his category of alterity would Christian militancy, and its source was
own personal experience by gender, include moriscos, Jews, Indians, peas- the medieval conception of an aggres-
cultural difference, or social class. ants, and women. From the perspective sion that opposed the enemies of Christi-
The theory of the descent of the of such an individual, discourses on anity, particularly the Muslims and
Amerindian peoples from one of the ten otherness would be those that deal with Turks. From about 1555 on, epic poetry
lost tribes of Israel, for example, illus-infidelity (the writings on Muslims, no longer celebrated only ancient deeds
trates the point. Such notions came notmoriscos, Jews, and conversos) and but contemporary ones, too. The mili-
from armchair speculators but from Christianity imperfectly achieved (the tary feats of Charles V and his captains,
missionaries such as the Franciscan writings of Christian moral instruction those of the Spanish conquests in the
friar Toribio de Benavente Motolinia for women). Comparable elements are Indies, and the victory over Islam in the
and the Dominican friar Diego Duran, found in the depictions of Amerindians, Mediterranean and in southern Spain
who spent their lives among the new and our approach to them will parallel now became the topics of heroic poetry.
brethren.17 Consciously or unconsciously,the most common pattern followed by How did this type of discourse portray
the chroniclers, missionary writers, and the above-mentioned observer: the dis- the Amerindian? Its major themes were
theological-juridical experts put forth course of chivalry. the conquest of the infidel barbarian, the

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triumph of the faith, and the religious tion and comparison for what we might ness of European notions of the Amerin-
conversion of the indigenous American call Indianist discourse is found in the
dian. For this reason, we begin with his
warrior. The Amerindian lord ended up writings on morisco culture. The com- Andean self-representations, which are
either dead on the battlefield or con- parison is appropriate because officialalready a response to a polemic, in order
policy toward both groups followed a
verted to Christianity before his execution. to better appreciate the polemical nature
What did the novel of chivalry have similar
to path until the beginning of the of his representation of the foreigners.
do with women and Indians? As a genre seventeenth century, when the moriscos Guaman Poma's self-portraits summa-
that specialized in chivalric feats by were expelled from Spain.25 There were rize his visual argument by communicat-
noble knights in shining armor who systematic attempts at conversion of the ing Andean values through European
defeated dragons, armies, and enchant- moriscos, and the elaboration of policysymbols. His European-style heraldry
ers by day and made love to courtly with respect to one group often took as materializes the totemic names falcon
its model a discipline that was applied to (guaman) and lion (poma), his Euro-
ladies by night, the novel of chivalry was
the object of scathing criticism by the other. The discourses through which pean hat always covers an Andean
moralists. Their invective was expressed these policies were elaborated were haircut, and his European courtier's
in two ways and both had to do with the remarkably alike, and so were the nativecostume includes a traditional Andean
supposed effects on readers. One wasmorisco and Amerindian protests againsttunic (uncu) worn over billowed Spanish
that the representation of magic andthem.26 Like the Jews, moriscos andknee breeches (valones) and under a
superstitious practices could lead the Amerindians were accused of secret Spanish cape (fig. 3). Even when dressed
reader to heresy and disbelief in dogmatizing in their own traditions in Andean costume, he carries a Roman
Christianity.20 The other was that the after undergoing public conversion toCatholic rosary to convey the message of
representation of sexual liberality and Christianity. Works in Arabic and in Christian civility.31 In each of the five
relationships outside wedlock could cor- Amerindian languages, as in Hebrew- self-portraits he presents,32 the figure of
rupt a vulnerable, gullible, and specifi-as well as works in Castilian describing the Christian Andean lord corroborates
cally female readership.21 The Amerin- Jewish, Muslim, or Amerindian cus- the verbal message of the author's
dian was projected to be a reader of the toms-were prohibited or suppressed. Inprofessed acculturated status. The term
same type. some respects, the Jews, the moriscos,used by the Spanish to refer to such
Royal edicts of 1531 and 1543 de- and the Amerindians, as discursive natives who were acquainted with Euro-
clared that "lying histories" should be entities, belonged to the same "fixed pean culture was indio ladino. Guaman
prohibited from export to the Indies semantics."27 Let us now examine thePoma's self-portraits convey the mes-
because from them the Indian "and terms by which one native Andean sage of his ladinidad. Let us now turn to
other inhabitants of the afore-men- writer reordered those semantic elements. the messages that his self-portraits
tioned Indies" would learn new vices contradict.
and evil ways.22 The stated argumentFelipe for Guaman Poma de Ayala was
prohibiting all but works of religious an Andean descended from the r he Cieza de Leon woodcuts reveal
instruction was that the Indians, not yet Yarovilca dynasty that predated the that idolatry (that is, living literall
well grounded in the faith, would give as Inca empire in the Andes; he claimed in conversation with the devil) and
much credence and authority to these maternal descent from the Incas.28 Bornsexual deviation or excess were depic-
profane works as they would to works of shortly after the Spanish conquest of tions commonly used to portray Andean
religious doctrine. This leads me to Peru, he was raised in contact with society. The literature of religious and
suggest that expectations set up for the European colonial society and employed moral instruction specifically dedicated
female gender by learned male Euro-by the colonial establishment as an to the evangelization of the native
pean society served as one of the filters interpreter.29 His command of the Span- populations in their own languages was
through which the Amerindian was ish language was in part self-taught, butfull of accusations against the Andeans
imagined. he mastered it well enough to pen a of sexual depravity, dishonesty, thiev-
Here it is useful to return to the twelve-hundred-page chronicle (includ- ery, drunkenness, and idolatry. In re-
theorizing done by Francisco de Vitoria ing 400 line drawings) to King Philip IIIsponse, Guaman Poma presented cer-
and the School of Salamanca; the of Spain. For Guaman Poma, writing tain characterizations of Andean
Amerindian was considered psychologi- was the only avenue of social participa- humanity and denied others. In the f
cally a child and, like that other defec- tion left when all other traditional place, he affirmed that the Indians w
tive creature, woman, morally weak. means
In had been closed. He took updescended
the directly from Adam and E
both instances, the woman and the pen to defend himself and his people, His to
portrayal of the biblical pair as
Amerindian were granted rational capac- engage in the struggle for the survival of farmers (fig. 4)33 is accompa-
Andean
ities that were complete and intact but Andean cultures, and, more immedi- nied by a prose text explaining that the
not yet fully developed.23 Indians in ately, to protect and recover the privi- first Indians followed the customs, in
America, like women and children in leges and prerogatives traditionally in-dress and occupation, of Adam and
Europe, were considered to rely more onherited by the native elite. Eve.34 Here the artist appropriated the
emotion than on reason, and they were In Guaman Poma's Nueva coronica y figures of Christian art for his own
considered naturally to be given over buen gobierno, we have a world of visual tradition, and in so doing he removed
more to sensuality than to the sublime; images offering Amerindian glimpses of them from the sphere of the European.
as a result, they needed constant supervi-Andeans as self, European as Other. In this drawing, Adam and Eve are more
sion and serious tutelage. The concepts Like many other colonial Amerindian visibly the progenitors of the Andean
of the natural inferiority of women and testimonies of Mesoamerica and Peru, race than of the European.
children to men, and of Amerindians to he incorporated the European into his Guaman Poma explained further that
Europeans, bring together the domestic world by interpreting the Spanish con- the Indians are not Jews, referring to the
and imperial discourses of domination of quest as the fulfillment of traditional theory of Amerindian origins as one of
the period.24 Inca prophecy and the will of God.30 the ten lost tribes of Israel. Nor are they
Among these many overlapping dis- Guaman Poma's representation of the Muslims or Turks. (Thus he denied
courses another crucial term of conjunc- European is conditioned by his aware- Amerindian descent from any non-

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 Christian peoples.)35 The Andeans are first European representations. The fron- icons representing the Christian god
not savages, but highly civilized.36 This tispiece used in two texts of 1534 depicts confirms the abstract nature of this
point is made by his visual representa- the Andean retinue of the Inca Ata- portrayal. In contrast, the naturalistic
tions of four epochs of the Andean world hualpa as nearly naked warriors (fig. depictions
5). of nakedness include explicit
that preceded the age of the Incas. The This depiction ignored the literary illustrations
con- of the genitalia and are
first generation wore the leafy "suit of tent, which in both cases explicitly found where exploitation and physical
Adam" and cultivated the land; the describes the costumes and headgear abuse of the Indians by the colonizers
second constructed houses of stone and worn by the royal entourage, with one are documented (fig. 6).41 Although the
adored the "true god"; the third devel- noting that under their livery these four unclothed Indian figure might suggest
oped weaving and other mechanical hundred warriors carried secret the natural condition of the "noble
arts; the fourth extended its dominion weapons.39 Indifferent to such guidance, savage" to the modern viewer, that idea
and territory and engaged in war against the artist created the scene by reaf- is irrelevant in view of the physical
its enemies.37 Guaman Poma further firming the European stereotype of the vulnerability denoted in Guaman Po-
negated the European idea of Amerin- half-naked and barefoot barbarian. Gua- ma's drawings. Furthermore, it is incon-
dian savagery for the Andeans by using man Poma reversed the formula and gruous with the conception of the
it to identify only the Anti, the hunters made nakedness a non-Andean trait. development of Andean civil culture as
and gatherers of the tropical rain forest.38 There are two kinds of Andean shown in his representations of ancient
This primitive state is conveyed by the nakedness in the Nueva corbnica; one is generations of pre-Incaic civilization.
iconographic sign of nakedness, whereas, naturalistic; the other, symbolic. Naked- No doubt in reaction to the European
in contrast, the ancient Andeans, like ness is stylized in the pictures of stereotype of the autochthonous Ameri-
Guaman Poma's Adam and Eve (fig. 4),symbolic meaning such as the creation can as naked barbarian, Guaman Poma
are fully and elaborately clothed. of Adam and Eve, in which the figures constituted
of the sign of nakedness as an
Nakedness is a powerful sign associ- both male and female are pictured anomaly to the scheme of the develop-
ated with Andean "barbarity" from the without genitalia.40 The presence of ment of Andean civilization. In the
iconographic narrative of the ancient
past, only a couple being executed for
adultery is shown unclothed.42 Thus, in
the context of the foreign invasion of
Guaman Poma's time, being stripped
bare signifies an equally deviant phenom-
enon: the intrusion of the outsider into
Andean culture space and the subse-
quent destruction of Andean cultural
and social norms. When Andeans ap-
pear naked in Guaman Poma's draw-
ings, they convey not barbaric savagery
but rather victimization at the hands of
the European invaders. This display
occasionally includes the twist that the
Andean female has become the lascivi-
ous accomplice to her own exploitation.43
By responding to common European
visions of alterity, Guaman Poma's
drawings confirm for us what those
commonplaces were. His visual testi-
mony allows us to glimpse the distorted
visions produced by the mediation of
various cultural filters. Understanding
the straitened conditions of emergence
of the first European views of Amerin-
dian humanity, we turn more discern-
ingly to this Andean's creation of the
European as Other.

T he dilemma for Guaman Poma was

how to condemn the invaders with-
out offending their king, Philip III, to
whom he was writing for help. The
petitioner's strategies are subtle and
numerous, but in the present case I shall
mention only two. First is the use of
symbolic values of space, given that
Andean cosmology and geography orga-
nize space according to values of
Fig. 5 Francisco de Xerez, Atahuallpa Inca and his army meet the Spanish hierarchy.44 Guaman Poma utilized them
conquistadores, woodcut, from Verdadera relacion de la conquista del Peru
in the composition of his own pictorial
(Seville: Bartolome Perez, 1534), frontispiece. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown
narrative by placing only Andeans in the
Library, Brown University.
positions of priority and privilege, reserv-

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 contradict those professed Christian
ideals. Because the representation of
this theme is self-evident in his drawings
and verbal diatribes, I would like to
outline one of the more subtle strategies
of representation contained in the icono-
graphic codes of the pictorial text.50

r he pictorial backgrounds Guaman

Poma created appear to collapse
the anecdotal data of diverse cultural
phenomena into a single, uninterrupted
continuum. In general, the indoor set-
ting is the same for such wide-ranging
subjects as the author's family home in
Cuzco, the papal palace in Rome, the
palatial quarters of the Incas' queen-
consorts, and the administrative head-
quarters of the colonial province. Simi-
larly, the outdoor landscapes, from the
depiction of Adam and Abraham
through that of the ancient Incas and
the contemporary colonial Andeans, are
regularly composed of mountain peaks
whose natural connotation is the An-
dean sierra. The temporal and spatial
suggestion of this pictorial strategy is,
on the surface, to unify the entire spread
of human experience from its mythical
beginnings to daily life in the Peruvian
viceroyalty. Nevertheless, the opposi-
tions between indoor and outdoor set-
tings constitute evaluative statements
about the importation of European
Fig. 6 Felipe Guaman Pomaculture
deto the
Ayala,
Andes. Executio
priest, punishes the naked Indian without
The indoor setting consi
becomes the stan-
whether he is a lord or commoner, pen-and-ink
dard iconographic framework to repre-
from Nueva coronica y buen sent thegobierno
scenes of non-Andean, (1615;
Western
Historia-16, 1987), 596. social order, while Andean civilization is
consistently placed in the outdoor set-
ing for Europeans the lesser hierarchical ary motif of the "world-upside-down" ting. In the original five ages of the
and negatively valued sections of the (mundo-al-reves), and it refers to the world that Guaman Poma presented, the
pictorial field. This secret spatial symbol-domination of colonial society by the spaces of Adam (identified as rural,
ism, invisible and undecipherable to the common-born and greedy invaders who moral, and good) and King David
European reader, nevertheless provided have replaced the native Andean elite.47 (urban and ordered but also corrupt)
the means by which the Andean artist Guaman Poma adopted in his writing articulate a mutual exclusivity of the
could order and interpret his pictorial the values that European Christian two models: the space of moral, ethica
universe in consonance with indigenous culture represented. The degree to which action is signified by the out-of-doors;
values.45 he did so is evident in his portrayal ofthe space of social, corrupt dealings is
The second use of pictorial space Andean society as currently Christian indoors.51 In Guaman Poma's model o
concerns Guaman Poma's articulation and part of the biblical spiritual tradi- Andean culture space, the domains of
of his model of culture. Here we invoke tion in ancient times.48 Therefore, the moral virtue and society are one, as bot
the theory that cultural modeling is way he identified the Europeans as are depicted consistently against an
conceived spatially; the category Other was to separate them from the outdoor setting.
"culture" is represented by whatever religious
is beliefs professed by their soci- The problem of the erection of the
enclosed within a certain spatial do- ety and culture. The European, Guaman palace of King David on the soil tilled by
main, and "nonculture" is all that is Poma made clear, is an outsider to the Adam-that is, the replacement of one
located outside it.46 Guaman Poma's is Andesa and alien to his own values. model of Western culture by another-
many-leveled discourse in which he To make the point that the European is that it is inadequate to express the
identified the Spanish king with himself is an unlawful interloper in the Andes, exact nature and significance of the
on a high moral plane; both are removed Guaman Poma followed the argumenta- event that Guaman Poma portrayed, not
from, and superior to, the corruption of tion of Las Casas, based on Scholastic surprisingly, as the seminal occurrence
the colonialists and their indigenous and concepts of natural law and the naturalin the history of Western civilization:
mestizo collaborators. As Other, the right of a people to sovereignty over its the birth of Jesus Christ and the advent
European is associated exclusively withown territories.49 To make the second of Christianity. He solved the dilemma
social disorder and chaos. The epithet point about the abandonment of their iconographically by placing the birth of
that Guaman Poma applied to the own values, he depicted the colonists, Christ spatially at the juncture of the
colonial situation is the European liter- verbally and in pictures, in actions that natural and socialized worlds, at the

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Fig. 7 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, The birth of Fig. 8 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Administrator of
Jesus Christ, pen-and-ink drawing, from Nueva corbnica five Indians, pen-and-ink drawing, from Nueva cor6nica
y buen gobierno (1615; Madrid: Historia-16, 1987), 30. y buen gobierno (1615; Madrid: Historia-16, 1987), 769.

seam that connects the spaces of natural background is the characteristic interior plary comportment of a Christian friar
virtue and innocence and the structured wall and window of the European At the same time, the mountainous
social order (fig. 7).52 culture space (see fig. 6). At the same landscape that formed part of the
The curious feature of the setting is time, the Andean mandoncillo stands Golden Age of the ancient Andeans
the tiled floor (representing indoor space) before an Inca stone house as seen from becomes the universal emblem of An-
on which the Holy Family is located. the outside.54 Like its prototype in the dean experience, right through the depic-
Although there are surely European nativity scene, this depiction is an tions of colonial times. Overall, Guaman
artistic precedents for this depiction, instance of the mediation of the two Poma's iconographic text conveys a
Guaman Poma's use of it is meaningful cultural spheres through the agencymessageof about the integration of social
in the context of an iconographic system Christianity: the Andean figure holds organization,
a moral conduct, and reli-
that assigns distinct values to the con- rosary as his key to negotiating acrossgious piety in Andean experience, in
trast between indoor and outdoor set- the boundary that separates Andeancontrast to the absence of such integra-
tings. In relation to his drawings of the and European cultures. tion in the European culture space.
ages of Adam and David, the integrationArticulated by the background set-
of outdoor and quasi-indoor pictorial tings that identify the European almost N ow we come to the use Guaman
space here suggests that the theology exclusively with the indoors, we see two Poma made of the Christian icono-
and ideology of Christian salvation is to theses elaborated about the foreign graphic code. The introduction of reli-
become the mediator between European culture. First, it is the site of the creation gious symbolism raises questions about
(depicted as indoors) and Andean (out- of a hierarchical colonial administra- the relationship of the models of Andean
doors) spheres. tion, civil and ecclesiastic; and, second,
and European culture, which I have
This notion is borne out in another interpreted as being separate and dis-
it is the locus of moral depravity and the
significant and curious drawing in which criminal exploitation of the Andean tinct. Symbolic icons like the devil and
a colonial Andean functionary is posedpeople. The space of virtue in the the dove are metalinguistic signs insofar
in an indoor/outdoor setting and holds European
a orb is so limited that it as they stand alongside icons in the
Christian rosary as well as the character- requires the imposition of a linguis- naturalistic register of representation
istic Andean coca pouch (fig. 8).53 The tic marker-the word "obedience," for and effectively comment upon them.
figure is placed indoors insofar as the example-to indicate the exem- The icon of the dove representing the

116Art Journal
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Holy Spirit appears frequently in the ans is predictable. Because of this Andean view of the European as uncivil
depiction of Andeans, portraying them attitude, however, we might expect him being and outsider is a subtle but
as devout Christians. This signification to condemn them pictorially throughcalculatedthe construction. In pictures and
of Andean piety is predictable in the use of a grotesque horned beast. It is in prose, the Amerindian's view of the
context of an arduous defense of the possible that the artist refrained from European as Other is one that places the
Andeans as Christians and as part of the such visual condemnation of the Span- latter outside everything the subject
author's effort to argue for their legal iards in order not to offend his intended represents, even as this colonial subject
rights as members of a Christian state. royal reader. Yet his strident, anti- has had to rely on the expressed values
Why, then, did he make Satan a Spanish diatribes throughout eight hun- of the European in order to do so.
member of the Andean pictorial cast dred
of pages of prose would not have These examples make clear, I hope,
characters in settings of both ancient spared him the royal wrath. There is the double and redoubling perspectives
and modern times? more subtlety in his strategy and it that go into the formation of images of
For the depictions of ancient times, pertains to a fundamental description ofthe Other. Although incomplete as an
Guaman Poma's employment of the the two cultural entities. account of the depiction process, the
devil motif is the negative sign of an The importation of Christian religious examples herein illuminate certain prin-
affirmative gesture; by placing the Chris- ideology into the representation of An- ciples-namely, (1) the requirement of
tian devil among the Inca's diviners, dean culture space would seem to looking beyond (and behind) the obvi-
Guaman Poma reminded his readers require the full utilization of both its ous, stereotypical features of cross-
that Christianity was contemporaneous positive and negative symbols. At the cultural portraits in order to grasp their
with the ancient Andean world.56 (Gua- same time, the absence of the signs of fuller resonances; and (2) the recogni-
man Poma had dated the birth of Jesus the devil and the dove from the Europe- tion that imperfect superimpositions and
Christ as having taken place during theans' arena of action deprives that cul- partial renderings are characteristic of
reign of the second Inca, Sinchi Roca.)57ture space of the values that such icons the complex, often contradictory pro-
The demon with the Andean thief in impart. In effect, Guaman Poma's final cesses of representation and self-repre-
modern times is the exception that step in arguing for the fusion of Chris- sentation undertaken by the colonial
proves the rule that thievery is not a tian values and Andean culture is to pull subject.
characteristically Andean crime.58 away those very values from any identi-
In the context of their employment in fication with the European.
Andean depictions, the omission of such To echo an analysis of Montaigne's Rolena Adorno is professor of
signs from drawings of the European "On Cannibals," in which "barbarism Romance languages and literatures at
colonialists merits comment. Given Gua- comes over here" (to the European Princeton University and a 1989-90
man Poma's critique of Spanish behav- side),59 we might say that GuamanGuggenheim Fellow. She is currently
ior, the absence of the dove of the Holy Poma gave us "barbarism going over working on the historiography of the
Spirit from drawings featuring Europe- there," also to the European side. This conquest of Mexico.

Notes

1 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El primer llamada la Nueva Castilla, in Rafil Porras 11 See Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for
nueva corbnica y buen gobierno (1615), ed. Barrenechea, Las relaciones primitivas de la Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadel-
John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno, Quechua conquista del Peru (Lima: Universidad Nacio- phia: American Historical Association, 1949);
translations by Jorge Urioste (Madrid: Histo- nal Mayor de San Marcos, 1967), 45-66, and idem, Aristotle and the American Indians
ria-16, 1987). This edition is cited throughout; 79-101; and Francisco de Xerez, Verdadera (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1971).
its pagination corrects Guaman Poma's origi- relacibn de la conquista del Periu, in Crbnicas12 See Lino G6mez Canedo, "^Hombres o bes-
nal numbering. de la conquista del Periu, ed. Julio Le Riverend tias? (Nuevo examen critico de un viejo
2 Franklin Pease G. Y., "Introducci6n," in Pedro (Mexico City: Editorial Nueva de Espafia, t6pico)," Estudios de Historia Novohispana 1
de Cieza de Le6n, Crbnica del Peru: Primera n.d.), 29-124. (1966): 29-51; and Rolena Adorno, "La
parte (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cat6olica 5 Pedro de Cieza de Leon, La crbnica del Pertu, discusi6n sobre la naturaleza del indio," Histo-
del Per6 y Academia Nacional de la Historia, ed. Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois (Madrid: ria de la Literatura Latinoamericana, ed. Ana
1984), xi. Historia-16, 1984), 113. Pizarro (Paris: UNESCO and Association
3 Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, "Los manu- 6 Saenz de Santa Maria (cited in n. 3 above), Internacionale de Litt6rature Compar6e, forth
scritos de Pedro Cieza de Le6n," Revista de 184. coming).
Indias (Madrid), nos. 145-46 (1976), 188. 7 Cieza de Le6n (cited in n. 5 above), 124. 13 See Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural
4 Pedro de Cieza de Le6n, Parte primera de la 8 Cited in n. 4 above. Man: The American Indian and the Origins of
chrbnica del Peru (Seville: M. de Montesdoca, 9 Politically, Cieza was indigenist in his outlook. Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: Cam-
1553); idem, Parte primera de la chrbnica del He hoped to leave his papers to Fray Bartolom6 bridge University, 1982), 42-44.
Peru (Antwerp: Juan Bellero, 1554); and idem, de Las Casas, the principal Spanish defender of 14 Ibid., 106.
La chrbnica del Peru, nuevamente escrita the Indians, and he shared Las Casas's convic- 15 Ibid., 106, 222.
(Antwerp: Martin Nucio, 1554). The only tions about the cruelty of the conquests and the 16 Alonso de Ovalle, Histbrica relacibn del reino
earlier Andean image in a European imprint dignity and worth of Amerindian peoples. One
de Chile (Rome: Francesco Cavalli, 1646),
was the frontispiece (a woodcut) to Crist6bal of the Andeanist scholars consulted both by 393; see also pp. 91, 93, 104.
de Mena's account of the conquest of Peru, him and by Las Casas was the great Quechua 17 Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, Historia de
published anonymously in Seville in 1534; it grammarian Domingo de Santo Tomas, who los Indios de la Nueva Espaha, ed. Claudio
was used again during the same year in was also a Dominican friar and bishop of Esteva (Madrid: Historia-16, 1985); Diego
Francisco de Xerez's Historia del descu- Charcas. See Pease in Cieza de Le6n (cited in Duran, Historia de las Indias de Nueva
brimiento del Peru, also published in Seville. n. 2 above), xiii, xix. Espaha y Islas de Tierra Firme, ed. Jos6 F.
10 Cieza de Le6n (cited in n. 5 above), 389-90.
See Crist6bal de Mena, La conquista del Periu, Ramirez (Mexico City: Editora Nacional,

Summer 1990 117

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 1951),chap. 1. 30 Ibid., 107, 114, 380. Guaman Poma, however, Lore 5, no. 1 (1979): 83-116.
18 See Rolena Adorno, "El sujeto colonial y la did not find this Christian interpretation fully 46 Juri M. Lotman, "On the Metalanguage of a
construcci6n cultural de la alteridad," Revista satisfactory in explaining Andean history. See Typological Description of Culture," Semiot-
de Critica Literaria Latinoamericana, no. 28 Frank Salomon, "Chronicles of the Impossible: ica 14, no. 2 (1975): 97-123.
(1988), 55-68. Notes on Three Peruvian Indigenous 47 See Rolena Adorno, Guaman Poma: Writing
19 On both topics, see Rolena Adorno, "Literary Historians," in From Oral to Written Expres- and Resistance in Colonial Peru (Austin:
Production and Suppression: Reading and sion: Native Andean Chronicles of the Early University of Texas, 1986), 84, 106, 164.
Writing about Amerindians in Colonial Span- Colonial Period, ed. Rolena Adorno (Syracuse, 48 Guaman Poma (cited in n. 1 above), 86, 246,
ish America," Dispositio 9, nos. 28-29 (1986): N.Y.: Foreign and Comparative Studies Pro- 277, 279, 306, 308, 340, 358, 565, 755, 770,
1-25. gram, Syracuse University, 1982), 9-39; and 776,862,928.
20 See Fray Luis de Le6n, De los nombres de Rolena Adorno, "The Rhetoric of Resistance: 49 Fray Bartolom6 de Las Casas, Tratado de las
Christo (1591), in Obras completas castella- The 'Talking' Book of Felipe Guaman Poma," doce dudas (1564), in Obras escogidas, V, ed.
nas de Fray Luis de Lebn, I, Biblioteca de History of European Ideas 6, no. 4 (1985): Juan P6rez de Tudela, Biblioteca de Autores
Autores Cristianos, vol. 3 (Madrid: Editorial 447-64. Espafioles, vol. 110 (Madrid: Atlas, 1958). For
Cat6lica, 1957), 406. 31 Ibid., 1105. an analysis of Guaman Poma's use of Las
21 Ibid., 407. See also Ida Rodriguez Prampolini, 32 Ibid., 1, 17, 368,755, 1105. Casas's argumentation, see Adorno (cited in n.
Amadises de America: la hazaha de Indias 33 Ibid., 22, 48. 47 above), 21-32.
como empresa caballeresca (Mexico City: 34 Ibid., 51, 60. 50 This argument summarizes one that I have
Junta Mexicana de Investigaciones Hist6ricas, 35 Ibid., 60. made previously about Guaman Poma's repre-
1948), 12-15. It is known today, however, that 36 Ibid. sentation of cultural typology, as based on his
the readers of chivalric fiction in its time were 37 Ibid., 48, 53, 57, 63. use of pictorial codes of background representa-
male and aristocratic. See Daniel Eisenberg, 38 Ibid., 177, 293, 324. tion and Christian iconography. See Rolena
"Who Read the Novels of Chivalry?" Ken- 39 Mena in Porras Barrenechea (cited in n. 4 Adorno, "On Pictorial Language and the
tucky Romance Quarterly 20, no. 2 (1973): above), 84-85; Francisco de Xerez (cited in n. 4 Typology of Culture in a New World
209-33; and Maxime Chevalier, Lectura y above), 66-68. Chronicle," Semiotica 36, nos. 1-2 (1981):
lectores en la Espaha del siglo XVI y XVII 40 Guaman Poma (cited in n. 1 above), 12. 51-106.
(Madrid: Turner, 1976). 41 Ibid., 596. 51 Guaman Poma (cited in n. 1 above), 22, 28.
22 Cited by Rodriguez Prampolini (cited in n. 21 42 Ibid., 310. 52 Ibid., 30.
above), 18. 43 Ibid., 503, 529, 596, 599, 684, 885. One rare 53 Ibid., 769.
23 Pagden (cited in n. 13 above), 104-5. but revealing picture (p. 507), titled The 54 The Inca stone structure with a pitched roof is a
24 See Juan Gines de Sepuflveda, Dembcrates corregidor and the priest and the lieutenant common feature of Guaman Poma's portrayal
Segundo o de las justas causas de la guerra make their rounds, looking at the women's of the Andean world (ibid., 57, 300, 306, 331).
contra los indios, ed. and trans. Angel Losada shameful parts, shows a naked Andean woman 55 Ibid., 478, 482.
(Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones striking an erotic pose for her visitors. 56 Ibid., 279, 281.
Cientificas, 1951), 20-22. 44 Nathan Wachtel, Sociedad e ideologia: en- 57 Ibid., 90-91.
25 On morisco history, see Antonio Dominguez sayos de historia y antropologia andinas 58 Ibid., 942. This drawing shows an Andean in a
Ortiz and Bernard Vincent, Historia de los (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1973), gaudy European costume with an Andean
Moriscos: vida y tragedia de una minoria 165-232. mantle wrapped around him. He leads a horse
(Madrid: Alianza, 1985). 45 For a full discussion of this topic, see Rolena and a llama by their halters and holds a bag of
26 See Rolena Adorno, "La Ciudad letrada y los Adorno, "Icon and Idea: A Symbolic Reading silver, which is being handed to him by a
discursos coloniales," Hispamerica, no. 48 of Pictures in a Peruvian Indian Chronicle," delightfully exaggerated demonic figure as tall
(1987), 3-24. Indian Historian 12, no. 3 (1979): 27-50; as he is. This Christian devil speaks in
27 Angel Rama, La ciudad letrada (Hanover, idem, "Paradigms Lost: A Peruvian Indian Quechua: "You are going to rob well. I will
N.H.: Ediciones del Norte, 1984), 55. Surveys Spanish Colonial Society," Studies in help you. Here are a hundred coins of silver."
28 Guaman Poma (cited in n. 1 above), 75, 991; the Anthropology of Visual Communication 5, 59 Michel de Certeau, Heterologies: Discourses
see Jos6 Varallanos, Historia de Huanuco no. 2 (1979): 78-96; and Mercedes L6pez- on the Other, trans. Brian Massumi, foreword
(Buenos Aires: Imprenta L6pez, 1959), 79-82. Baralt, "La persistencia de las estructuras by Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of
29 Guaman Poma (cited in n. 1 above), 715-16, simb6olicas andinas en los dibujos de Guaman Minnesota, 1986), 73.
860. Poma de Ayala," Journal of Latin American

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