SOURCE: Pease G. Y., Franklin. “Spanish and Andean Perceptions of the Other in the Conquest of the Andes.” In Violence, Resistance, and Survival in the Americas: Native Americans and the Legacy of Conquest, edited by William B. Taylor and Franklin Pease G. Y., pp. 15-39. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.

[In the following essay, Pease argues that the manner in which Spaniards justified their sixteenth-century conquest of the Andes—by enforcing stereotypes that Incan rulers were illegitimate and treacherous, and that Andean people believed that Spaniards were gods—was a pattern of domination common to all Spanish conquests in the Americas.]

Recent research has revealed the need to reexamine the way in which Spaniards and Andeans perceived each other. The Other thus takes on new importance and deserves greater examination. Scholars have noted that the attitude of the European in general was not open to perceiving and seeing the American. Rather, Europeans actually sought to recognize in American people and societies what their own European history allowed them to accept. By accepting a Eurocentric history as the only true history, Europeans interpreted Americans and their social organizations within a European mindset. This can be seen as far back as the writings of Christopher Columbus and certainly in the Spanish experience in the Antilles and Mexico.

I will not describe here the various perceptions of the Other throughout the Spanish occupation of America. I will treat only the central Andes, although I must point out a continuity in the uniformity of opinions and contrasts. That Europeans used their own preconceptions to see and recognize Americans is not a new idea. But they did more: They transferred categories and stereotypes of the people, from the Antilles to Mexico and from Mexico to the Andes. This transference and stereotyping occurred also with language. Early chronicles and administrative colonial documents recorded the presence of Nahuatl and even Taíno terms in the Andes. These helped the Spanish identify—in reality, recognize—new situations and objects (such as tiánguez for Indian markets or cacique for local ruler).

The case of the Inca is interesting. It was natural that he himself was identified as a king who obtained his power through an original divine mandate and transferred it through a legitimate patrilineal lineage. He thus had the right to levy taxes, expand his power by means of conquest, and govern on the basis of patrimony. As it appeared to the chroniclers, the Inca—like the king—appointed authorities, determined how the wealth produced was to be used, and granted even the most trivial rights of his subjects, such as marriage and the allocation of land. Certainly, the Inca was idolized, like the devil in the Christian conception, which gave credence to the Spaniards' perception of the Inca's status as “illegitimate” and “tyrannical.”

It is important to describe here the dimensions of violence in the new hemisphere. Generally violence is described in terms of acts of war, theft, and extortion. However, many of the chronicles offer a different though congruent image: heroes—those who conquer—have to be strong and dominant. Their warrior's resolve required violence. The subsequent rancheo (thievery) and use of those conquered as laborers are regarded as natural consequences. Although chroniclers initially spoke about an avenging violence, they believed that the actions of those conquered provoked the violence of the Conquest. Their writings assumed that the conquistadors upheld high ideals—Christianization and the incorporation of Americans into civilization and, by extension, into history—and originally did not intend to wage war. Instead, those conquered betrayed the good intentions of the new arrivals, precipitating the “just” repression. It is thus important to describe some of the stereotypes that served as justification for the Conquest. In this essay I will discuss Andean traitors, specifically the Inca, and the identification of the Spaniards as gods.

Sixteenth-century Europeans did not view violence as an isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, they considered it a natural, inevitable, and not always dishonorable consequence of “just” wars or conquests. This applied not only to conflicts among Europeans, which were covered by a rule of law that was at times supernatural and always ethical, but also to their conquests to the extent that these served to integrate other human beings into the history of salvation and consequently saved them as well. Although this view appears to be contemporary, it derives from an old unilinear vision of history. From these and other such considerations a controversial interpretation of the violence of the Conquest could evolve, one that considers it independent of the realm of normal human behavior (normalcy having different characteristics at any given moment) and not a consequence of human acts and decisions themselves. Certainly this view would facilitate not a historical explanation of the violence but rather an explanation of history based on the violence itself. The latter is, of course, based on moral considerations that may very well be different today from those prevalent in the sixteenth century and also, specifically, in stereotyped visions of the past.¹ A historical explanation based on moral considerations, regardless of what these may be, is more a historical justification than a true explanation.

Most chronicles written by Spaniards during the sixteenth century about the Andean region explained the Andean people on the basis of a history understood to be already completed and ethically accepted. Not even authors usually considered to have challenged this view, such as Bartolomé de las Casas, would escape it completely. Thus it is important to analyze the stereotypes that helped justify the Conquest, for these, when combined with preexisting ethical explanations, transformed as a result of the march of history the portrayal of the Other—whether the conquerors or those conquered.

THE TREACHEROUS ANDEANS

The chronicles generally relate the betrayal of Native Americans who received the Europeans peacefully and subsequently not only repudiated them but also waged war against them. A good example of how the stereotype was designed is found in the chroniclers' descriptions of the Inca Atahualpa.

Francisco Pizarro arrived in the Andes at a moment when a transfer of power was taking place. The Inca Huayna Cápac had died, and the complex ritual that culminated in the designation of the new Inca was taking place. The Spaniards viewed the situation as a dynastic war in which those aspiring to power were fighting among themselves, not as the ritual war it was. They identified the protagonists as sons of the deceased Inca, ascribing to one of them, Huáscar, the characteristics of legitimacy and to another, Atahualpa, those of bastardy. The Spaniards justified the execution of Atahualpa because he was illegitimate, he had attempted a rebellion against the Spaniards, and he had ordered his brother Huáscar killed. In addition to rebellion, he was accused of usurpation, regicide, and fratricide. Thus, it was easy to condemn Atahualpa.

The version accusing Atahualpa of regicide and fratricide appears in the chronicle attributed to Cristóbal de Mena and also in a text whose authorship remains undetermined, although Miguel de Estete has been suggested as the possible author. Both were witnesses to the events at Cajamarca. The chronicle attributed to Mena, La conquista del Perú, was published in Seville in 1534; it is not known exactly when the other text was written, but it was published later.² In contrast, the accusation is not clearly stated in the chronicle by Francisco de Xerez, Verdadera relación, also published in Seville in 1534. He indicates only that “among the many messengers who came to Atabalipa, one of them who was bringing his brother as a prisoner came to tell him that when his captains learned of his imprisonment, they had already killed Cuzco [the name the first chroniclers gave to Huáscar]” (Xerez 1534:22b). Several pages earlier in the text Atahualpa had told Pizarro that he would deliver his brother to the Spaniards (Xerez 1534:21b).

The recounting attributed to Mena, on the other hand, sets forth a different version:

… we learned that this cacique had captured another lord, who called himself Cuzco and who was a greater lord than he: he was his brother through his father and not his mother, and the same Cuzco who came as a prisoner learned how the Christians had captured his brother: and said if I were to see the Christians, I would be lord because I have a great desire to see them: and I know that they have come in search of me: and that Atahualpa promised them a hut of gold which I had for them: but I would give them four huts and they would not kill me like this one [Atahualpa] I think intends to do. After Atabalipa learned what his brother the Cuzco had said, he was in great fear that knowing this, the Christians would then kill him and elevate his brother the Cuzco to lord: and he ordered that they kill him immediately: and they killed him in such a way that he did not take advantage of the great fear that the governor had of Atabalipa. When he [Pizarro] learned that one of his [Atahualpa's] captains had him [Huáscar], he told [Atahualpa] not to have him killed, but to bring him there where they were. …

(Anon. [1534] 1929:6-7)

Later on, the same author's version of Atahualpa's execution describes briefly how some of Atahualpa's other brothers arrived in Cajamarca “… well hidden out of fear of their brother. …” The next passage refers, as does Xerez's Verdadera relación, to the organization of an army to defeat the Spaniards.

The text presumed to be by Estete states that Pizarro had told Atahualpa he knew that

… his brother arrived under arrest and had been destroyed by his [Atahualpa's] people; and that he had been told that he [Atahualpa] had ordered that wherever they found him on the way, they were to kill him; that under no circumstances should he do so because such things were a disservice to Our Lord God and would be so to the Emperor as well; that once [Huáscar] arrived, depositions would be taken from both of them to determine whose was the lordship of the land, and he [Pizarro] would administer justice and there would be peace and harmony between them. This was not to his [Atahualpa's] liking because, a few days later, news of his brother's death reached him and he excused himself by saying that he had not ordered his death and that those who were responsible did it on their own. …

(Noticia del Perú 1918:26; emphasis added)

The description of Atahualpa's behavior is not only interesting but also closer to the relationship described by Mena and somewhat more detailed. It is also significant that the author of Noticia del Perú uses the name Huáscar (Noticia 1918:26), which was not known to and had never been mentioned by the other chroniclers who were in Cajamarca, including Xerez, Hernando Pizarro, and the author of the chronicle attributed to Mena. This could be one reason to believe that the text attributed to Estete was written at a later date; not even Pedro Sancho, a chronicler who served as Pizarro's secretary after Xerez's trip to Spain and who went with Pizarro to Cuzco mentions Huáscar's name. He is even doubtful about the name Huayna Cápac (viz. Sancho 1962).

In most of the chronicles mentioned, the basis for the description of Atahualpa's behavior as fickle and treacherous was his formation of an army to fight the Spaniards. Since cruelty (always more visible in the Other than in oneself) needed to be added, the author of Noticia del Perú would later recount that when Pizarro and Father Valverde admonished Atahualpa for having ordered Huáscar's murder, Atahualpa stated that

… it was something that ordinarily he [Atahualpa] was used to doing to his brothers, for which he received no reprimand because, as he himself said, he had killed many others of them who had been followers of his brother, including one whom he saw [who was coming to him?] with a message from his brother, he had flayed him in front of him, and he drank from his brother's head garnished with gold; this he did the day of his undoing.

(Noticia del Perú 1918:26)

Only years later, when better information was available to chroniclers, would the complete version take shape. The omission of Huáscar's execution in Xerez's Verdadera relación becomes interesting given that his chronicle is frequently described as unquestionably a defense of Pizarro in response to the accusations of the Sevillian anonymous text attributed to Mena (Porras Barrenechea 1937). But the subject takes on new dimensions with subsequent authors, such as Pedro de Cieza de León and Juan de Betanzos, who wrote and published their works in the 1550s. Full editions of their works have only recently become available, and only now do we have their complete versions of the events at Cajamarca.³ Combining their works with the Historia del descubrimiento y conquista del Perú, by Pizarro's accountant, Agustín de Zárate, who published his work in 1555, significantly broadens the discussion of the stereotype.

The full third part of Cieza de León's Crónica del Perú, together with the complete version of Betanzos's Suma y narración de los Incas, confirms the cruelty engaged in by Atahualpa's generals and followers in Cuzco on his orders. Cieza de León goes so far as to affirm that Atahualpa “employed great cruelty and abuses …” (Cieza de León 1987: vol. 3, 113), adding that those who took Huáscar prisoner to Cajamarca determined “… to remain loyal [to] Atabalipa and betray him [Huáscar] …” (Cieza de León 1987: vol. 3, 143). Later on, he specifies that it was made known to Atahualpa, held prisoner in Cajamarca, that Huáscar was near the city and his captors wished to know what Atahualpa ordered

… because Guáscara [sic] showed a great desire to be in the hands of the Christians, his [Atahualpa's] enemies. When this messenger arrived, he spoke at length with Atabalipa; since he was so prudent and clever, he [Atahualpa] felt that it did not suit him to have his brother come or appear before the Christians, because they held him in higher esteem for he was the natural lord; but he did not dare order him killed out of fear of Pizarro, who had asked about him on many occasions. And in order to find out if his death weighed on him [Pizarro] or if he was compelled to order him brought alive, he feigned great passion and pain, so much so that Pizarro found out and came to console him, asking him why he was so grieved. Atabalipa pretending even more grief, told him that he knew that he should know that at the time when he arrived at Caxamalca with the Christians, a war was being waged between his brother Guáscar and himself; and that after many battles had taken place between them, he had remained in Caxamalca, having entrusted the business of war to his captains, who had taken Huáscar prisoner and were bringing him to where he was without having touched him, and that they had killed him on the way, according to the news he had received, which was the reason he was so angry. …

(Cieza de León 1987: vol. 3, 144; emphasis added)

Betanzos's brief account of this episode does not provide as much detail as Cieza de León, but it states more clearly Atahualpa's moral responsibility:

… it seemed to Atahualpa that if Huáscar arrived alive there in Caxamalca and those “Viracochas” were to see him [Guáscar] and similarly, he would see him [Atahualpa] prisoner, Guáscar would say to the “Viracochas” that he would give them much more gold than he and thus they would make him Lord [Huáscar] and would kill him [Atahualpa]. …

(Betanzos 1987:280)

There is a direct relationship between this last statement by Betanzos and the one quoted previously in the anonymous work attributed to Mena. Its author had Huáscar saying that he would give more gold to the Spaniards, although he added that Pizarro himself had indicated to Atahualpa that he did not order Huáscar killed.

Thus, beginning with the 1534 versions, the text attributed to Mena, the second version of the Noticia del Perú, and in the 1550s in the chronicles of Cieza de León and Betanzos, emphasis was increasingly placed on the image of a lying Atahualpa, who feigned emotion to manipulate Pizarro to act as suited him. The moral condemnation of Atahualpa for Huáscar's death is announced. The stereotype of a cheating, treacherous Atahualpa becomes gradually more precise, and his cruelty is conveniently portrayed. Atahualpa's tyranny had already been indicated, but the Inca's malicious and treacherous astuteness appears more clearly in the accounts by Cieza de León and Betanzos. Huáscar, described by Cieza de León as the “natural lord,” eliminated any possible aspiration by Atahualpa himself to natural lordship. Thus, Atahualpa was fratricidal and regicidal, obviously a tyrant, cheater, and traitor. He had dared to trick the Spaniards by trying to confuse Pizarro, informing him of Huáscar's death before it was true. He had thus taken advantage of Pizarro's natural goodness and generosity. His felony was obvious.

The issue of natural lordship is connected to the argument used later by Las Casas and his followers. Here Cieza de León, as did Betanzos, limits the frame of reference: He alludes to Huáscar's natural lordship but grants before his death a basis for the right claimed by the Spaniards to see that justice is done by killing Atahualpa and that the natural lordship is returned to an “heir” designated by Pizarro himself from among the sons of the Inca Huayna Cápac. Thus, even before the actual event Pizarro's conduct was being justified.

There is some confusion here as to who the heir was. Xerez does not indicate his name clearly and further confuses matters by calling him Atabalipa (Xerez 1534:33). The 1534 anonymous Sevillian work mentions that “… everyone rejoiced in the death of this cacique; they could not believe he was dead …” (1534:11). This interpretation was widely contradicted by later Andean tradition, which honors Atahualpa⁴ and recalls that “the lord governor elevated the Old Cuzco's older son to the rank of lord of that land, under the condition that he and all his people remain as vassals of the emperor …” (1534:11). In 1550 Betanzos had more information and could affirm that the heir named was Topa Gualpa “… a son of Guayna Cápac …” (but did not indicate that he was the eldest), whose death in Jauja made possible the eventual naming of Manco Inca (Betanzos 1987:287, 290).

The version of Atahualpa's reprehensible attitude was thus definitively fixed. It is not surprising that an author such as Zárate, who got his information before the defeat of Gonzalo Pizarro, included in his Historia an account that was both broad and detailed. Although Zárate published only in 1555, after the death of Cieza de León in Seville in 1554 (cf. Maticorena 1955) and the possible completion of Betanzos's work in 1551, it cannot be assumed that he read them. It is well known that not even the manuscript of Betanzos's Suma y narración circulated in Spain, and it is doubtful that Zárate, who was having personal problems and may have been in jail, could have had access to the third, unpublished portion of Cieza de León's work, even though it had other readers in Spain at that time.⁵ Nonetheless, the general argument is the same: Atahualpa is defined as a shrewd and deceptive person. However, Zárate integrates into the work a new reference to the issue of natural lordship. In Zárate's account Huáscar says before dying, “I have been lord of the land for a short time, and my brother, by whose orders I die, will be so for less time, as I am his natural lord …” (Zárate 1944:64). This allowed Zárate to advance the idea that the Andean people believed that Huáscar was the son of the sun, since he was able to predict the imminent death of Atahualpa.⁶

Each account confirms the stereotype defined by the standard Spanish version. Atahualpa was a shrewd, felonious, and cruel murderer, fratricidal and regicidal, even murdering children. He had usurped power to displace Huáscar and was not, in any case, a natural lord. Thus, despite the influence of Las Casas in Cieza de León's account, the revised accounts reflect a gradually growing coherence that not only leads to a specific description of the stereotype of Atahualpa—a violent usurper and tyrant who deceived the Spaniards—but also provides the justification for the war.

Thus, the Inca fulfills accusations that had been made since the chroniclers' earliest versions about the Andean people—and even earlier about other Americans: Their natural character was treacherous. From the earliest accounts of contacts with the Andean people, the Spaniards had been victims of betrayals. This was what happened, for example, on Puná Island, before the Spaniards actually reached the Andean mainland. Its inhabitants plotted betrayal to eliminate the Spaniards, who had been received “… with much joy and warmth as well as with basic foodstuffs which they took out to the road, and with various musical instruments that the natives have for their entertainment …” (Xerez 1534:4). However, later “… the cacique had called a meeting of all the warriors, and … for many days now he understood nothing but the making of weapons …” to fight the Spaniards (Xerez 1534:4). This betrayal justified the war. This style of pointing out the warm initial welcome and its subsequent betrayal is itself a convention that can be traced back to writings of Columbus's time (see, for example, Todorov 1982). It then was generalized from the Antilles to the Andes, passing, of course, through Mexico.

THE SPANIARDS AS GODS

A second stereotype is that the Andean people identified the Spaniards as gods returning to earth. It has become commonplace to compare the accounts found in Mexico with those of the Andes, although the route of the information has not been identified. I have stated that the early chroniclers did not seem to be in a position to have enough information available to them about the Andean people. This circumstance is important when attempting to analyze this type of information.⁷ This is also the reason that the first authors, who wrote during the 1530s, were cautious about the information they provided about the Andeans' perception of the Spaniards while offering stereotyped or superficial information about the inhabitants of the Andes.

The standard version is that Andean men confused the Spaniards with Viracocha and his attendants, children, or companions, who returned to the world from the sea. The suggestion is found more clearly in the chroniclers of the early 1550s—Betanzos and Cieza de León—and became more prevalent and more complex during the first part of the seventeenth century, as in Guaman Poma's Nueva corónica.

Four authors present the basic elements for a standard version of the myth of Viracocha: Cieza de León (1550), Betanzos (1551), Sarmiento de Gamboa (La historia general llamada Indica, 1572), and Cristóbal de Molina (Fábulas y ritos de los Incas, 1575). All four gathered their information in Cuzco, but the latter two did so many years later. Sarmiento obtained his information during the government of the viceroy Francisco de Toledo (1569-81), who protected him and used his services.⁸ Molina wrote a history, since lost, of the Incas at an earlier date than that specified; he later wrote a “summary” that has survived and contains repeated references to the lost chronicle. All other authors who provide additional information to the versions of these four chroniclers use as their sources the works previously mentioned, elaborated in an oral context, sometimes adding specific local information.

The information about Cuzco used by Cieza de León, Betanzos, Sarmiento, and Molina has frequently been considered closer to the oral tradition. Not all of it was, although in the case of Betanzos, who was married to an Andean woman and knew Quechua, the oral tradition probably did predominate. A document written by the descendants of Tupa Inca Yupanqui and containing a detailed account of the conquests of this Cuzco ruler was recently discovered. Upon its publication, Rowe noted that the information it contains could well have been used by authors such as Sarmiento de Gamboa or Padre Miguel Cabello Balboa.⁹ The existence of this type of document opens up a basic line of research, since it is expected that similar texts of great importance also will be found.

Betanzos recounted that Atahualpa received

… three Tallanes Indian messengers, “yngas” from Tangarala, who told him: Only Lord, you should know that some white, bearded men have come to our village of Tangarala, and they bring a sort of sheep on which they come, and they walk, and they are very big, bigger than ours, there are many of them, and these people come dressed in such a manner that only the skin of the hands and of the face shows, and of this last one, only half because the other half is covered by a beard growing out of it and these people have certain bands tied around them on top of their clothes and from these bands they have hanging a certain piece of silver that resembles those sticks that women put in their looms to tighten what they weave and the length of these pieces that they bring is almost an arm's length and they said this because of the swords and the Ynga told them and these people what are their names, they said they did not know, but that they called them Viracocha cuna which means Gods [emphasis added] and the Ynga told them: why have you called them Viracocha; they told him that because in olden times the Contiti Viracocha, who created the people once he had made them, had gone into the water through that sea further on and that he had not returned again according to what their aged elders told them and that certain people had come and had news that in past years certain peoples of those had come to Payta in a guambo, which they call ship which guambo was very large and that they had turned back from there. …

(Betanzos 1987:235)¹⁰

The text continues with a series of descriptions of what the Spaniards did and how they were dressed.

The Tallanes, inhabitants of the northern coast of Peru, were questioned on a second occasion by the Inca, after mention was made of the capito, “… the Inca wanting to pronounce captain …” (Betanzos 1987:254). Next, mention is made that despite the news, Atahualpa, whom Betanzos always calls “Ynga,”

suspecting what later was to happen to him because of the fear of what he was hearing from the messengers he wanted to leave there to go into the Chachapoyas where it's called Lebando and his people told him that it was not something he should do until he saw what kind of people they were, whether they were gods or men like them, and whether they did good or evil and what new thing he should do until he could see this, and his having seen it himself would determine what they should do in such a case if they were “runaquicacha,” which means destroyers of people,¹¹ in which case, not being able to resist them, they would flee from them, and if they were “Viracocha cuna allichac” which means benevolent gods of the people, that in that case they should not flee from them, and as the Ynga saw this opinion of his captains, he drew back from the fear that he had taken and said that he was happy that during his lifetime gods would come to his land who could not keep from doing something good and then he ordered the Tallanes Indian messengers to return and tell the great captain Viracocha that he was pleased with their arrival. …”

(Betanzos 1987:255; emphasis added)

This sequence in the Betanzos text may be interpreted as follows: The Tallanes Indians are the first to affirm the possibility of the Spaniards being gods, which Betanzos himself alluded to in the first part of his work (Betanzos 1987:15). The chronicler puts the rationale in the words of the Tallanes and the Inca's captains. The former choice is surprising, because the northernmost version known that speaks about Viracocha (even though it refers to a local divinity) is contained in the texts collected by Francisco de Avila in the early seventeenth century in the much more southern region of Huarochiri.¹²

Betanzos applies a broad meaning to the term Viracocha: “… they call them Viracocha cuna, which means Gods …”; thus, it loses the nominal individual sense and suggests a generic one. The chronicler presents a dialogue in which the speakers seek to distinguish whether the Spaniards were “‘runaquiçaca,’ which means destroyers of people” or “‘Viracocha cuna allichac,’ which means benevolent gods of the people” (Betanzos 1987:255). In fact, the dichotomy suggests that Viracocha was identified also as a benevolent rather than destructive divinity. This would cause a problem if the more modern identification of the Viracochas as harmful beings is recalled; in fact, much later they are sometimes identified with pishtaco, who extracts the fat from its victims (cf. Fioravanti 1987). The identification originates from the commonplace explanation, already mentioned in the chronicles, of wira as fat. In any case, Betanzos's argument would not support such an identification for the 1550s, since the chronicler's account leads to the conclusion that the Viracochas are benefactors of the people. At another point Betanzos's text again refers to the Spaniards as Viracochas; being in Cuzco or near it, Cuxi Yupanqui, a messenger from Atahualpa, declared that Atahualpa wished to make a new Cuzco and thus had to vacate the original one and relocate the survivors to the northern region. He then reiterates:

… and moreover, I inform you that since the Ynga was in the “guaca” of Guamachuco from whence I came, two Tallanes came from Tangarala and brought them news of how the Viracocha had come out of the ocean and many other Viracochas with him and it is believed that they must be the ancient Viracochas that made the people and with this news, he was flattered, and as they told him that they had left by that part, the Inca wants to return on the same route he followed to Quito and meet up with them on the way in order to see what they say to do which is the order that [the captains] will give for his preservation. Hearing this, the captains were astonished at such news and thinking that it was like Cuxi Yupanqui told them that they were gods and the Maker and that success would come to their lord from this, they were glad and gave thanks to the Maker that they call Viracocha and to the sun in the place of the Ynga. …

(Betanzos 1987:262; emphasis added)

By recounting all this information in detail, Betanzos seems to want to correct the error of an earlier interpretation. Later on, Cinquichara, an orejón (notable) from Xaquixaguana who had met with Pizarro in Tangaralá and had been sent by him to Atahualpa, tells Atahualpa:

… I have tried to learn what people they were in order to see if it was the Contiti Viracocha and the Viracochas who in olden times came … and I understood from them that they are men like us and do not make any miracles nor do they make hills or flatten them nor make people or produce rivers or springs in places where water is needed because crossing through sterile parts from here they carry water with them in jugs and gourds and the Viracocha who made the world before did everything that I have said. …

(Betanzos 1987:264; for a similar text, see Titu Cusi Yupanqui 1985:26a)

The final image is clearer. Viracocha made the world, leveled hills, produced rivers and springs, and created people. Betanzos's version of divinity is somewhat more complex, since this divinity created people only after having arranged the heavens and the earth and sending the sun and the moon to the sky (Betanzos 1987:11). The Spaniards were not gods; they could not be identified with them nor did they fit the gods' image. The chronicler's work itself thus corrects the information presented earlier.

In chapter 2 of his work Betanzos had included the description of the creation of humans by Viracocha and his attendants. He recounts only one “miracle”—when the god makes fire pour from the sky and run down along a hillside toward the inhabitants (Betanzos 1987:14). The only one who levels hills in Cuzco mythology is Ayar Cachi with his sling; he “… took out his sling and placed a stone in it and shot it at a tall hill and with its blow, knocked down the hill and made a creek in it …” (Betanzos 1987:18). This and other unruly acts led his brothers to shut him up in a cave. Andean myths collected today attribute the ability to knock down hills, as well as the ability to produce water, to Incarri.¹³

The chronicler's account begins to broaden, providing information about how Andeans perceived the Spaniards once they realize they are not Viracochas:

… I have seen that they [the Spaniards] take a liking to everything they see, and that they think it fine to take for themselves young women and golden and silver glasses and fine clothing which they remake for themselves into breastplates and whips and metal ropes which mean shackled Indians tied together who carry their loads and the baskets which hold their belongings and wherever they go they do not leave anything they have not looted and they take it so easily as if it were their own. …

(Betanzos 1987:164)

He adds: “It seems to me these people must be quitas pumarangra, which means lordless people who ransack and loot …” (Betanzos 1987:146; emphasis added). The same informant from Atahualpa “… told him I do not call them Viracocha but rather supai cuna, which means demons and the Ynga then asked him ‘Who calls them Viracocha?’ And the Indian responded the beasts of the Yungas call them that, thinking they were gods …” (Bentanzos 1987:264; emphasis added). These descriptions coincide with that of “destroyers of people” attributed previously to the Spaniards¹⁴ and could be related to the earlier phrase from the anonymous Sevillian work of 1534, which describes the Spaniards as devils (cf. note 11). The duality that Betanzos's information consistently maintains is interesting. On the one hand, Viracocha is considered to be a benevolent divinity. On the other hand, passages such as the previous one describe the Spaniards as “destroyers” and “a lordless people”; this latter notion does not coincide with the description of the invaders as Viracochas. Moreover, in his text Betanzos prefers to make the Yungas people responsible for identifying the Spaniards with Viracocha (the Yungas people are “beastial,” which will remind the reader of phrases in Guaman Poma).

As Fioravanti says, one explanation for the link made between Viracocha and the Spaniards can be found in the statement by Cieza de León that Huáscar invoked Viracocha's help against Atahualpa.¹⁵ This could explain why Huáscar's followers could have identified the Christians with that god. Although this is an intriguing line of reasoning, it does not explain why this version was not disseminated until the beginning of the 1550s, when both Cieza de Léon and Betanzos were writing. In any case, the first generation of chroniclers did not have access to sufficient information.

Thus the authors writing at the beginning of the 1550s or later established the relationship between the myth of Viracocha and the arrival of the Spaniards and disseminated this myth. Viracocha had arranged the world, positioning himself “with his back toward the sunrise” and looking westward; Collasuyu was behind him and Chinchaysuyu faced him. His assistants had carried out the arrangements in the two other regions, Antisuyu and Cuntisuyu, while Viracocha carried out his organizing task, traveling from east to west, following the path of the sun and later losing himself in the sea (Pease 1986:220-230).

The chroniclers' versions thus identified the arrival of the Spaniards with the return of Viracocha. All seem to be based on the myth collected by Cieza de León as well as by Betanzos. The Spaniards would arrive at the same spot where the god disappeared.

Once the Spaniards identified themselves with the gods or messengers from the gods, their supernatural self-categorization in accordance with their providential mission was complete. Endeavoring to plant this image in the minds of the conquered produced the impression that the Incas were especially open to the supernatural, here manifested in a false belief taught by the demons with whom they spoke. The most curious aspect of attributing to the Andeans the notion that the Spaniards were gods is that this reasoning entails an accusation of idolatry where in fact no accusation seems to figure in the known trials to extirpate Andean idolatry during the first half of the seventeenth century.

Imposing a stereotype of this kind and disseminating it among the Andean villagers could be understood as another form of violence exercised by the Conquest—convincing the natives that the new arrivals were supernatural and invincible. The consequences of this imposed image could have even resulted in the need of later indigenous authors to annul the trauma of the Conquest, as when Guaman Poma affirms that Huáscar “donated” Tawantinsuyu to the king of Spain.¹⁶ Titu Cusi Yupanqui would reason during the 1570s that “… the Spaniards are a people who undoubtedly cannot be less than viracochas …” (1985:3). Later, however, his text sets forth another idea more in line with that in Betanzos's text:

… and look, they—the Spaniards—deceive with good words and afterwards do not follow through with what they say; that thus, as you have seen, they did to me, telling me that they were children of Viracocha and showed me at the beginning a great amiability and much love and then did to me what you see, if they were children of the Viracocha as they claimed they would not have done what they did, because the Viracha [sic] can level hills, produce water, create hills where there are none, do no harm to anyone, and this is not what we see they have done, rather, instead of doing good to us they did bad. …

(Titu Cusi Yupanqui 1985:26)

The images here are close to those of Betanzos—the Spaniards walk on silver feet, know how to read and write, and so forth. Certainly, this description does not correspond to Viracocha in the Cuzco myths. This may very well be an interpretation imposed by Fray Marcos García, who wrote the Instrucción of Titu Cusi Yupanqui. However, it must be noted here that modern oral versions collected in the Andes say that Atahualpa died because he did not know how to read (Flores 1973:321). The violence of the Conquest is seen not only in acts of war, which the authors who were in Cajamarca represented clearly, but also in the design of a version showing the definitive inferiority of the conquered and justifying their defeat, in what were purported to be their own words, in accordance with their beliefs.

But there is another issue to be explored. The first Spanish evangelicals, showing a tendency that could be extended to the chroniclers, sought to identify one Andean creator-god (defining “creation” in the biblical sense only, while the corresponding Andean idea is an “ordering” of the world) that was comparable to the Christian God. The initial translations of “god” as Pachacama, Pachayachachi, Wiraqocha (Viracocha), and so forth, are thus logical. This urge to discover an Andean equivalent to God could be related to the significance that Cieza de León or Betanzos granted the myth of Cuzco origin that presents Viracocha as a maker, an orderer of the world. Possibly this imposition of a creator-god concept also figured in the first bilingual primers developed by friars of various orders in the early days of evangelical work. The Councils of Lima ordered these primers destroyed and replaced by official versions in Quechua and Aymará of the Christian Doctrine, printed in 1584. These no longer translated the term “God,” but rather integrated it as a neologism into the Andean languages. Some chroniclers (Cieza de León, for example) were particularly critical of identifying Viracocha as an apostle of Christ, although the version was soon widespread, accepted by Cieza de León himself, that Viracocha was a white and even a bearded god. Years later, Guaman Poma would say that the Inca Viracocha was white and bearded (1615:197; 1980: vol. 1, 77), adding that “… he prayed often to Ticze Viracocha and they say that he wanted to burn all the idols and burials of the kingdom … he believed more in Ticse Viracocha … and believed that there was another world in other kingdoms of Viracocha, which they thus called it, which he would come to reign …” (1615:48; 1980: vol. 1, 38). Nevertheless, the matter of the beards requires a broader analysis, for they figure in the drawing of the sun in the Incas' “coat of arms” (Guaman Poma 1615:79; 1980: vol. 1, 56).

The Spaniards and the Andeans perceived each other differently. The Spaniards' assumption of easy communication with the Andeans is widespread throughout the early and subsequent chronicles. According to them, from the time of the landing, particularly in Cajamarca, there was fluid communication. However, the Tragedia del fin de Atawallpa (Lara 1957) presents a later Andean perception: The Spaniards do not talk, they only move their lips; their speech is thunderous but incomprehensible.

Europeans “recognized” in America not only the imperial Roman design of Tawantinsuyu but also the “primitive” belief that the Spaniards were gods and the negative descriptions of Atahualpa. All would serve as justification for the Conquest and would be extended as time went on, as happened with the “illegitimacy” of Atahualpa, which was later generalized to all Incas and even all Andean authorities (for example, the curacas or community chiefs). The stereotypes thus generated had a diverse life. Atahualpa, denigrated by the chroniclers, is celebrated as a hero in the Andean tradition, while the image of the Spaniards as Viracochas seems to have developed differently. While Betanzos discusses whether the Spaniards were “destroyers of people” or Viracocha benefactors, recent scholars note that the notion of Viracochas applies to foreigners, Spaniards in particular, and even as a negative categorization that can be generalized to any group of human strangers.

Notes

1. A stereotyped vision of the past originates in the acceptance of a fixed, standardized characterization of other people and processes in which those who hold the stereotypes assume themselves to be the only important products of the past. In the final analysis, this is ethnocentrism of a universal kind, valid not only for very different cultures—for example, Americans and Asians. The conception of the Other also includes the enemy (traditional or occasional); in that sense it is mutually applicable to the Spanish and the English, for example, who are stereotyped by each other in each's standard versions. The easiest way to define one's identity is in contrast with another.

2. The text attributed to Mena and Xerez's Verdadera relación were printed in Seville in 1534, when the authors had just arrived in Seville from Peru. The former was published anonymously; Raúl Porras dated it to 1535 and attributed it to Capt. Cristóbal de Mena (Porras presented his work to the Twenty-sixth International Congress of Americanists at Seville in 1935, whose proceedings were not published until 1948 [Porras 1986:601 and ff.; Porras 1937]). [Others, such as Veda, an editor of the early Peruvian chroniclers, had thought that the author could have been Xerez himself.] John H. Rowe has recently reviewed the question of the author of the Sevillian anonymous work of 1534; he reaches the conclusion that Mena could not have written it (Rowe, pers. com.).

   Xerez's version was considered a response to the attacks on Pizarro by the anonymous publication of 1534; Xerez was Pizarro's secretary, and his chronicle was seen as an ardent defense of his master. His rebuttal deserves more study.

   Miguel de Estete was a soldier in Cajamarca; Xerez included in his work the text Estete wrote on the trip that Hernando Pizarro made to Pachacama. When the text of the Noticia del Perú came to light in modern times, it was attributed to Estete on the basis of statements by Jiménez de la Espada (1879:ix); the text had previously been used as an anonymous work by Prescott. Upon its publication Larrea followed the criteria of Jiménez de la Espada (Larrea 1918). There were several men named Miguel de Estete among the first Spaniards in Peru; Larrea had assumed so (1919:8), but Porras offered more information. Porras differed from Larrea in identifying Estete after the events of Cajamarca and his return to Spain; he stated that the author of Noticia del Perú remained on the peninsula and did not return to Peru at least until 1550, appearing as a witness in various judicial files and personal resumés between 1535 and 1550 (Porras 1986:597-598).

   It is generally believed that Noticia del Perú was written about the same time as the works of Hernando Pizarro, Mena, and Xerez. The Noticia includes certain information, however, that makes it highly improbable that it could be that early a work; rather, it corresponds to another type of information. For example, the Noticia is the only text mentioned that used Huáscar's name without any hesitation, while others speak about the “cacique,” the “lord,” or the “cuzco” (the “old Cuzco” was Huayna Capác). The only one named in these is Atahualpa. The Noticia also was the first to use the term “Inca”—“Inga, which means king” (1918:34)—which was not used by the other authors of the 1530s.

   Another fact should be mentioned. The Historia by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés included statements by Diego de Molina, who was in Santo Domingo en route from the Andes at the same time as Hernando Pizarro. Molina's text is not found in the initial editions of Oviedo's work, which must be considered his summary of an account that he heard from Molina. In the 1851-55 edition and in the 1959 edition of Oviedo's Historia, the text attributed to Molina does not appear in quotes, as does the letter of Hernando Pizarro (Oviedo 1959: vol. 5, 84-93). In Oviedo's work, Molina's testimony uses “Guascara,” the same term (with identical spelling) used in the third part of Cieza de León's Crónica del Perú, where he mentions “Guascara” for the first time. Oviedo writes, “I do not want to waste time nor stop writing what I heard Molina say” (Oviedo 1959: vol. 5, 91; emphasis added). Possibly Oviedo was able to reconstruct Molina's testimony from subsequent documents. Later phrases by Oviedo would strengthen the hypothesis of an oral version by Molina.

3. The recent discovery of new manuscripts corresponding to the second and third part of Cieza de León's Crónica del Perú, found in the Vatican Library by Francesca Cantú, and the appearance in Spain of a complete text of the Suma y narración de los Incas, by Juan de Betanzos, are important events in the story of Andean history. Cantú has edited Cieza de León's texts (cf. Cieza de León 1979, 1985, and 1987); Betanzos's text was published by Martín Rubio (1987).

4. The Andean version can be traced in texts collected and published in recent years. The most important of these has been Tragedia del fin de Atawallpa, edited by Lara (1957), of which there are different versions (cf. Meneses 1983), and other similar texts (Iriate et al. 1985; Burga 1988). The versions of the myth of Incarrí recall Atahualpa (see Arguedas 1964:228), thus distinguishing the generations before and after Atahualpa; all the known versions mention this myth.

   Atahualpa maintained his prestige among the colonial Andean population, as can be seen in other known texts. Despite pointing out his “illegitimacy,” Guaman Poma describes him as Inca (1980: vol. 1, 275, 176, 277, passim). Paintings such as the “Execution of Don Juan Ataguallpa in Cajamarca,” at the Museum of the University of Cuzco, are also known. The name Juan Atahualpa appears on a list of those imprisoned in the seventeenth century as a result of subversive movements (Pease 1982). During the uprising led by Juan Santos Atahualpa in the eastern region of the Andes, it was said in Cuzco that the Inca Atahualpa ruled in the Andes of Jauja, while his brother (that is, his first cousin) Huáscar ruled in the Paititi (Esquivel and Navia 1980: vol. 2, 277-278).

5. After Cieza de León's death in 1554, his manuscripts were passed from hand to hand among Spanish bureaucrats and official chroniclers. Ultimately, Antonio de Herrera copied them and incorporated a good part of the third volume of the Crónica del Perú into his well-known work; see Sáenz de Santa María (1976), Cantú (1979, 1987), and Pease (1984a, 1984b).

6. The attribution is at the very least a glaring error by Zárate. It is based on the concept, already prevalent at the time Zárate was writing, that the Inca was the son of the sun and had prophetic capabilities. Zárate left for Panama in 1545, ten years before the publication of his Historia. Porras believed that he wrote his work during his period of disgrace and probable imprisonment, using drafts that he had taken from Peru. In 1554 he went to England with Philip II, who ordered him to print his Historia (Porras 1986:217-218). Thus toward the beginning of the second half of the 1540s the idea of Huáscar's legitimacy had been clarified, having already been set forth by some of the authors of Cajamarca. The Inca was already known as the son of the sun, thus allowing Zárate to reaffirm the title with respect to Huáscar. It is necessary to study more closely the omens and other predictions among the Andean populations and compare them with those existing among the Spanish. The Andeans have a different notion of the future; for them the future must be preimagined within a cyclical conception of time.

7. It has been said that the Andean interpreters, recruited by the Spaniards on earlier trips, made translation possible during the course of the invasion. I do not doubt they could have learned colloquial Spanish, but it would have been insufficient for fluent translation. They lived among Spaniards (ships' crews, servants, and the like) whose vocabulary could not have been particularly sophisticated. It is difficult to believe that they were able to translate a complicated language such as that used in legal-theological documents like the Requerimento; see Solano (1975) and Rivarola (1985, especially 14ff.). In fact, the chroniclers generally described early Spanish days in the Andes in the context of fluid dialogue between the invaders and those being invaded. However, later Andean versions, originally accepted in their oral versions, show a striking lack of communication. The versions known are those that relate to the celebrations of the Inca's death, which commemorate the death of Atahualpa in Cajamarca. When the Tragedia del fin de Atawallpa was published in 1957, it was dated to colonial times. It specified that while the Inca and the Andean people, including the interpreters, “talk,” Pizarro and Almagro “only move their lips.” At some point in the dialogue, an emissary of the Inca exclaims that it is impossible for him to decipher the enemy's language and understand his “thunderous tongue” (Lara 1957:131; cf. Iriarte et al. 1985; Burga 1988 offers new data).

8. Sarmiento de Gamboa led a wanderer's life. A cosmographer and navigator, he was persecuted by the Inquisition for witchcraft. He worked under the orders of Viceroy Toledo in a survey conducted among the elite of Cuzco. He also participated in the expedition that discovered the Solomon Islands and attempted to colonize and fortify the Magellan Straits. In 1572, during the Toledo government, he completed the second and only surviving part of his Historia general llamada Indica.

9. The document published by Rowe (1985) is of the utmost importance; although it deals with a bureaucratic file and is consequently translated into bureaucratic language, it gives a more specific idea of the type of information used by the chroniclers. It is an excellent primary source.

10. The image provided by the text assumes an attribution to the Other; the text is written from a European perspective, and the chronicler appears to be delighted that the Andean townspeople “called them Viracocha cuna which means Gods.” Betanzos also pointed out that the swords were confused with wooden sticks used for weaving. Compare this description with the one Guaman Poma would make years later:

    Atahualpa Inca and the main lords and captains and other Indians were appalled when they heard about the lifestyle of the Spaniards, they were appalled that the Christians did not sleep, or so they said because they kept vigils, and that they ate silver and gold, they as well as their horses, and that they wore silver sandals, they spoke of the bridles and horseshoes and the iron weaponry, and red plumes, and that they talked through the day and night with their papers—“quilca”—each one with his own, and that they all wore shrouds, their entire face covered with wool with only their eyes showing, and on their head they wore colored bowls—“arimanca and suriuayta”—and that they had their very long penises hanging from the back, they said of the swords, and that they were all wearing fine silver, and that they did not have a senior lord, they all looked like brothers in their clothes and way of speaking and conversing and dressing, and only one face seemed to be that of a senior lord who had a dark face, and white teeth and eyes, that he alone talked a lot with the rest; hearing this news, the Inga was appalled and said to him: what news you bring, evil messenger; they were all shocked with the news that had never been heard and thus Atahaulpa Inga ordered that they provide them and their horses with the service of women; because they laughed about the penis of the Christians, of the sword, Atagyalpa Inga ordered that the Indian women that laughed to be killed and turned around and offered again other Indian women and service. …

    (Guaman Poma 1980: vol. 1, 276-277)

    The reference to the penis is defined in Covarrubias as “the small bulb of a child, coming from the Greek name fons, because it is the source from which he urinates” (Covarrubias 1987:870b). Other texts similarly refer to the beards as wool: “… and in the jaw they showed off / totally red beards, similar / to long skeins of wool …” (Lara 1957:87).

11. In a passage that refers to a different messenger, the recounting in La conquista del Perú, attributed to Cristóbal de Mena, points out that

    … one day before we arrived at Atabalipa's army camp, one of his messengers came and brought many cooked sheep and corn bread and corn liquor urns as gifts. And since the governor had sent an Indian while he was traveling, this Indian was cacique of the villages in which the Christians were spread out and were great friends of the Christians. This cacique went to Atabalipa's army camp and his guards prevented him from arriving there; they first asked where the messenger of the devils [emphasis added] was coming from, of those who had traveled through so much territory without having been killed. …

    (1534:23)

    I would like to thank Luis Rebaza for pointing out this text to me. The author's attribution emphasizes that the Andeans consider the Spaniards to be devils. The concept of supay, usually translated as “demon,” is discussed by Taylor (1980).

12. The texts collected by Avila refer to Cuniraya Viracocha; cf. Taylor (1987:53 and ff.).

13. Cf. Arguedas (1964:228) and Pease (1982:215-216, 221, 227). In different contexts the Inca can make rocks move and become walls by command. He can also make water come from the subsoil and frequently figures as the grantor of corn.

14. Supra estrager, translated in the essay as “destroy,” is defined by Covarrubias (1611) as “to ruin, erase, vandalize, decompose.” The image of Viracocha is multifaceted, as has been frequently pointed out (Pease 1973; MacCormack 1988:981). The ordering divinity of the world can certainly be destructive, but the texts from Betanzos specify a benevolent image. It is important to discuss, of course, the image of Viracocha as “a black sun”; a period of the black sun would precede a new pachacuti, as Fioravanti, who sees the Spanish invasion as such, indicates (1987:80-81). On first analysis this interpretation is correct, but it is more important to verify a distinction between the formation or expression of the Andean belief and the design of the stereotype in the chronicles, which does not necessarily reflect the former.

15. The statement comes from Cieza de León (1985:11) and takes into account the observation (taken from Zuidema by Fioravanti) that the native population of Cuzco adored Viracocha. Huáscar's identification with the urin sector, affirmed in Betanzos, is interesting:

    … and then [Huáscar] ordered that nobody take him to be from Hanan Cuzco, because Atagualpa was from Hanan Cuzco and from the line of Ynga Yupangue, that he would not like to be from that line and that if he did come from it, then he would affirm that he did not come from it but from Hurin Cuzco, because those people from the town from which he, Guascar, was born, bore the last name Hurin Cuzco, which he, similarly, was and that from then on they should call him from Hurin Cuzco because he intended to kill Atagualpa and all his kinsmen and those from his lineage which was Hanan Cuzco, and re-make the lineage of Hurin Cuzco. …

    (1987:210, 211)

16. Guaman Poma relates, for example, that Huáscar sent his “ambassador” Martín Guaman Malqui de Ayala (obviously an ancestor of the chronicler) to meet with the “Ambassador of the Emperor and the King of Castilla” (that is, Pizarro); the two and Almagro “offered each other peace” (Guaman Poma 1980: vol. 1, 275, cf. 85, 118, passim; see also my prologue to Guaman Poma 1980:lxiii).

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