Scholars have long recognized Guaman Poma's letter to the King of Spain as one of the most important sources of information on pre-Conquest and colonial Peru. However, they often add that his Spanish is faulty, his history naive, and his quest to enlighten the Spanish monarch ridiculously quixotic. He is called eccentric and dotty.
In this paper I'll argue that the difficulties we experience reading Poma's letter are not the result of eccentricity or sloppiness on his part. Instead, the tradition-minded Poma is following conventions and customs unfamiliar to us. Detective-work to solve the puzzles presented by Poma will yield insights into the Andean worldview.
For background on Poma's letter, his life, and other subjects, look at the topics listed in "Introducing Guaman Poma: For the General Reader".
Christian, of Incan and non-Incan descent, with a close attachment to a mestizo priest, Poma is well equipped to serve as interpreter for Andean culture. His non-Incan ancestors had been conquered not long ago by the Incas; in living memory, his people had been conquered again by the Spanish. His family must have been accustomed to coming to terms with new conquerers, new religions, and new languages.
Poma's cultural heritage emphasizes tradition and fulfilling one's role honorably in an established hierarchy. But as he grows to manhood, Poma becomes convinced that the world has been turned upside down (Quechua pachakuti). The new conquerers are cruel, and more importantly, they do not recognize the reciprocal nature of relationships in the Andes. They take, but they do not give in return. The priests of the new religion are a disappointment. Poma caustically notes that most of the clergy only know a few phrases in the Indian languages: "Lead the horse," " There's nothing to eat," and "Where are the girls?" (Dilke, page 152).
In such circumstances, is it not the duty of an Indian leader to bring matters to the attention of the proper authorities? (This is not as unrealistic as it might sound; see "A Ridiculous Quest").
Poma has had his share of legal problems. He knows that he must use all his powers of persuasion. "He needs to be bold and docile in turn with the Spanish authorities, according to the circumstances." (Dilke, page 174).
He is willing to adopt some of the customs of the conquerer. Already he dresses in European clothing (or at least pictures himself as doing so). The Spanish have a written language and so he will use that. Unlike many Indians, he had been taught his letters at an early age, by his mestizo half-brother, the priest Martin. However, he does not mention any further education. "I am no doctor or Latin scholar," he admits (Dilke, page 19). Nor does he have easy access to written materials. "I have never been in a position to study any documents or texts [for the history]," he says (Dilke, page 228).
Knowing Poma's background and motivation, doesn't it make sense that he would adopt whatever means are at his disposal to communicate and persuade the king? For example Poma knows the Spanish monarch is "greatly addicted" to drawings, so he decides to illustrate his letter.
Knowing Poma's respect for authority and custom, wouldn't he follow whatever forms he thought would be respected by the Spanish? He notes that the Spanish honor coats-of-arms, so he draws the coats-of-arms of the Spanish king, and invents a coat-of-arms for himself. (See "Frontpiece").
If Poma writes anything that puzzles us, he has a reason behind it.
With these points in mind, let's look at Poma's drawings.
However, even in the drawings there is a cultural chasm between Poma and us. Just trying to decipher the titles of Poma's figures makes you wonder if perhaps you've fallen into an alternate universe.
Or this title in the "Pregunta" drawing:QVNTA CALLE CIPAS*CONA
^ Db TOR
PREGVNTASV.M.RESPO.EL.AV
DONPHELIPE*ELTER
For more examples, see "A Quick Tour of Poma's Letter.
Looking at the titles, we begin to see some consistencies. Often words are separated by dots. If a word doesn't fit on a line it is continued on the next, without a hyphen. The "U"'s are printed as "V"'s. This last detail may give us the clue that we are looking for. Could Poma be taking his model from Latin stone inscriptions, in which "V" is inscribed rather than "U"? A fellow student was describing some Roman inscriptions at Hadrians Wall and listed the same characteristics as in Poma's titles.
In several places in his manuscript, Poma mentions Latin as the mark of the educated person. He writes
"Some of them [the Indians] know Latin and study literature. If they were allowed to, they could perfectly well be ordained as priests." (Dilke, page 186).
Latin was the language of the Church; Poma described himself as a devout Christian and was taught to read by a priest, his half-brother. If he were looking for a format to convey authority and learning, he might well have adopted that of Latin inscriptions.
Two men in skirts and headdresses carry a skeleton on a litter. (See the "Defunto" drawing.)
Naked men are whipped and hung upside down, while one man seems to be sitting in the stocks, praying. (See the "Mines" drawing.)
The drawings are compelling, dramatic; many of them convey a sense of moral outrage such as the richly dressed man kicking another (See the "Porter" drawing.)
The figures are trying to convey an urgent message, but what is it? What is going on?
Those familiar with Andean culture can probably make sense of most of these figures. But for the rest of us, these examples point up the importance of cultural context in making sense of Poma. I've tried to provide some context for the drawings in "A Quick Tour of Poma's Letter".
At one level are obvious differences in culture. Poma pictures In the "Adam" drawing), Poma pictures the first human being with a foot-operated plowing tool from the Andes. It looks strange to us, until we realized that the European plow is pulled by draft animals, whereas the Andean peoples had only llamas and human power.
A more subtle example is cited by Ronald Wright. The Andean Indians, says The Four Quarters of the Inca and Spanish Empires).
One thing that puzzles me is the model that Poma used for his drawings. I think there must have been a model, since Poma's drawings are often very sophisticated as story-telling devices. When possible, he picks dramatic scenes or telling details. He shows the fifth Inca queen falling on the floor, apparently in an epileptic fit. In many of his figures, he places objects in the hands of the people depicted: a quipu, a drop spindle, a bird, the head of an enemy. Such skill comes from study of an established tradition.
I would guess that the model would have been European. As far as I know, there is no tradition of dramatic pictorial realism in the Andes. The only realism I've seen is that of the Moché on the Coast, many centuries before Poma.
Also, the figures look European, or at least of indistinct race: generic human beings.
Keeping in mind Poma's goal to persuade and please King Philip III, I would guess that Poma would have found the model for his drawings among the books or pamphlets of the period. It would be interesting to research this hypothesis.
What can be said in Poma's defense? In general we should keep in mind that Spanish was not Poma's native tongue; it was the tongue of the invaders. Given the content of his book, asking for help from a Spanish speaker might well have meant death. Let's look at particular problems with the text and see if there are any more detailed explanations.
As in any writing before spelling became standardized, Poma's letter contains "incorrect" spellings. In addition, Poma probably has more than his share of misspellings. However, looking at the errors, one can see a consistency.
Carlos Aranibar notes that many of the spelling errors made by Poma are similar to the errors in Spanish made by present-day Quechua speakers. The cause of the errors he attributes to the differences between the two languages, both grammatical and phonetic. Corresponding errors occur when an English-speaker tries to use the subjunctive case in Spanish or spells "llama" as "yama." In neither case is the error a sign of eccentricity or stupidity; it represents the struggle to express oneself in an unfamiliar tongue.
A Quechua-speaker, says Aranibar, will have trouble distinguishing between the sounds of Spanish "e" and "i" or between "o" and "u". This confusion is common in Poma. For example, he might write "murir" instead of "morir", or "tinir" instead of "tener".
Writers complain that Poma freely mixes Quechua and Aymará words with Spanish. Again, I think the clue to an underlying pattern is Poma is consistent: he is not promiscuous in his use of Indian words. n the titles of the drawings, he consistently uses Quechua terms for Quechua concepts or roles, where Spanish terms would be inappropriate.
For example, in his drawings of the census categories (the "Calles"), he consistently labels the Calle in Spanish (e.g., "Qunta Calle") but gives the census category in Quechua ("Cipas Cona") since that is an Indian term.
Perhaps the one thing that makes reading Poma into an exercise in cryptography is his odd word breaks. For example:
Original: "ysenbras mucho uerdura y plantar frutar en gerillas plantaruina enestemes."
To make Poma readable for a modern Spanish audience, claims Carlos Aranibar, all that needs to be done is to modernize the spelling and the punctuation, just as would need to be done for any written work from that era. Editing the above fragment yields the following in understandable (if ungrammatical) Spanish:
Edited: "y sembrar mucha verdura y plantar frutas, injertarlas; plantar viña en este mes."
English: "and sow many green vegetables and plant fruits, grafting them; plant vinyards in this month"
Poma apparently is transcribing the sounds of Spanish rather than writing discrete words ("enestemes" rather than "en este mes") -- a logical strategy if one is unfamiliar with written Spanish. This would be the case if one's main contact with the language has been with spoken Spanish rather than with books. In fact, Poma says on several occasions that he has not been able to consult books for his project: "I have never been in a position to study any documents or texts."
Modern readers and scholars are daunted by what seems to be Poma's wandering, repetitive style.
One reason for the poor style may have been Poma's lack of exposure to written Spanish. One learns to organize thoughts on a page by reading good examples and imitating them. As Poma showed in his drawings, he is a brilliant learner once he has a model to work from.
A second reason might be that Poma is a poor writer, nothing more complicated than that. Many brave and intelligent people cannot write well. It is inconvenient, but it is not shame.
A third reason might be that Poma is following models that are unfamiliar to us, at least in some sections of his work.
The key question: is there a hidden consistency to Poma's style?
One of the closest observers of Poma was Christopher Dilke, the English translator, who spent five years immersed in Poma's works. Dilke observed:
"Human Poma had something in common with the old quipucamoyoc, the keeper of the knotted cords, who was the official recorder of the Inca civilisation. When in his writing he reached a point at which certain facts or memories became more less relevant he always set them down regardless of whether he had done so in a preceding chapter or not. He also had the habit of using unrealistic and repetitious phrases to describe his heroes, as when he says of some legendary Inca that "his helmet was blue".Although Dilke makes this observation in passing, I think it holds the key to Poma's style: Poma is a product of an oral culture. His people had no written language, but instead depended on bards or storytellers who use heroic epithets and repetition, to organize their material.
In fact, Poma consulted these people:
"...I lacked all written evidence and had to rely on the coloured and knotted cords [quipus], on which we Indians of Peru used to keep our records. Among our people I also sought out the oldest and most intelligent, on whom I could rely as witnesses of the truth." (Guaman Poma in Dilke, page 19.)Elsewhere he says enigmatically:
I, Guaman Poma, chief of Lucanas, have opened the secrets of the quipu to my readers. I have recounted what has been told me by descendants of the Incas and the other dynasties of rulers. I have traced our history from the arrival of the first Indian sent by God to these shores through the various ages which followed. (Guaman Poma in Dilke, page 102.)Might Poma have adopted the style of the quipucamoyoc in his writing, at least in those sections that deal with traditional subjects?
Several sections of Poma's letter seem to be organized in a way especially suited for oral transmission. For example, each account of the twelve Inca kings and twelve Inca queens has a similar structure. Also, an account of the year in Inca times is organized into separate accounts of the months, each with a similar structure, covering weather, agricultural tasks, festivals.
Study in the nature of oral epic song, as described in Albert Lord's Singer of Tales, together with a close study of Poma's text, might yield some interesting findings.
Poma is sometimes faulted for his historical inaccuracy. This is a complicated subject, and I just have time to mention some possibilities.
One example of Poma's treatment of dates appears in his description of the third census category: senior citizens who range in age from 80 to 100 or 150. I think are scholars are right to be skeptical of that "150."
But again, there is an apparent consistency to Poma. Dilke observed that "Poma usually doubled figures relating to time, for whatever cause...." A consistent distortion such as this argues for a convention of which we are unaware.
It's a truism in anthropology that few other cultures share our modern preoccupation with precise quantification of time. I would suspect that this different attitude towards time would explain the discrepancies we detect in Poma's accounts.
See An Example: the "Calles" Series for an example of a non-quantitative attitude towards time.
Cynical as we are, Poma's letter of grievances King of Spain strikes us as ill-advised or indicating a slender hold on reality. The scene in Poma, in which he boldly lectures the king on how to rule Peru, seems ludicrous.
A sympathetic writer, Ronald Wright, comments that Poma's letter, if the Spanish king had received it, "would have been about as well-received in Castile as the writings of Che Guevera at the Reagan White House."
Surprisingly, Poma's letter is not so quixotic a venture as we would think. Although the odds for success were not great, they were certainly better than the alternatives: doing nothing or taking to the hills in suicidal military ventures.
As Hemming documents, the Spanish Crown was capable of being moved by arguments, particularly religious arguments, and issuing pro-Indian legislation. Hemming reports that the Spanish Crown had decreed in 1521 that no useful communication should be prevented from reaching the King, resulting in a flood of pro-Indian correspondence.
In 1542, the strongly pro-Indian New Laws were issued. In 1550 King Charles took the unbelievable step of ordering all further conquests to cease until it was determined whether they were just.
Father Bartolomé de las Casas, the Dominican advocate for the Indians, enjoyed immense influence during his long life. A letter written about 1571 by a chaplain to Viceroy Francisco de Toledo remarked that the King had at one time been so moved by the arguments of de las Casas that he considerd giving Peru back to the Incas. (Hemming, page 413).
From his own experience in the courts of the Spaniards, Poma observes:
"All such officials [royal administrators] are understandably hostile towards clever Indians, who have learnt how to read and write and, even worse from the officials' point of view, know how to formulate complaints to higher authority. Indians of this sort are capable of appearing in court and demanding an account of the wrongs and sufferings of their people." (Guaman Poma in Dilke, page 131)
Having seen the Indian cause argued both in the Spanish Empire in the Spanish courts of his province, Poma had a rational basis to pursue his mission.
Poma did all he could to get his message to the non-Indian world. The strangeness and difficulty comes from the chasm between us: language, worldview, and the passage of centuries.
If we can hear it, he gives us a voice from an alternate universe, a vanished Indian civilization. As Carlos Aranibar says, there is something different about Guaman Pomo. It is:
"el haber mirado los cosas desde adentro, con ojos de indio - y no desde afuera, con ojos de español."
"having seen things from within, with the eyes of an Indian, and not from outside, with the eyes of a Spaniard."
