The Jesuit and the Incas: The Extraordinary Life of Padre Blas Valera, S.J. (review)

Hyland's thought-provoking biography of Father Blas Valera, S.J., is the heart of a story of intrigue and mystery that touches on the authenticity of such ubiquitous bases of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Andean history as the Nueva crónica y buen gobierno and the accuracy of the traditionally-accepted king-list presented by Juan de Betanzos and other chroniclers. As such it is a "must-read" by all serious scholars of native Andean history. The story, told in ten chapters, is inserted within a context of the debates over the legitimacy of the Iberian rule of America and over the character of Inca rule and civilization and Andean religion. After a straightforward introduction, she reconstructs Valera's early life in Chachapoyas and Trujillo (Chap. 2); his career as a Jesuit missionary in Huarochirí (early 1570's), Santiago del Cercado (outside of Lima) (1573), Cuzco (1576), Potosí (1576), and Juli (1577) (Chap. 3); and his writings (Chap. 4). The next three chapters summarize Valera's view of native history and particularly the list of over ninety pre-Inca rulers, a dynasty that Fernando de Montesinos also discusses; Valera's theories about the Quechua language and writing systems; and Valera's understanding of Inca religion. After a chapter on the events that incarcerated this mestizo Jesuit (1583–1594), Hyland assesses the "Naples Documents" and their implication for the story.

Her best chapters reconstruct his intellectual biography by tracing the people who influenced him, including native noblemen who recited their traditions before him as a school boy; Fray Melchior Hernandez, the author of Anotaciones on Inca religious history; José de Acosta, who shared his pro-native leanings but contested many of his ideas on native religion; Father Onofre Esteban, a native Chachapoyan sympathetic to natives; Bishop Luis López de Soliz, an outspoken critic of the encomenderos for their abuses of the natives; Francisco Falcon, whose work Apologia pro Indis is now lost; the members of the Nombre de Jesús confraternity in Cuzco; and the learned native men (quipucamayos) of Quito, Cajamarca, Huamachuco, Pachacamac, Tarama, Sacsahuana, Chincha, Cuntisuyu, and Collasuyu (p. 93). The knowledge he gleaned from these sources resulted in four works: an account of the conversion of the natives; a history, written in Latin that, in part, became an important source for Garcilaso de la Vega's writing; a vocabulary that later informed Giovanni Anello Oliva; and a description of Andean customs, probably written in 1594 while he recuperated from an illness in Quito on his way to Spain. In this body of work he expressed opinions, such as that the Inca god Viracocha was Christ (p. 193); that Quechua was as expressive as Latin; that Inca rule was legitimate and moral; and that the Spanish conquest was unjust. His Jesuit superiors judged these ideas and others as heretical and moved to suppress them. Hence, his subsequent status as an incarcerated political prisoner and, ultimately, a resolution banning all mestizos from the Society. Hyland concludes that Valera was not imprisoned by the Inquisition for fornication (as some have thought), but by the Jesuits themselves for teaching grammar (Quechua) and religion in an unorthodox way.

Her analysis of the Naples Documents and summary of the controversy are equally intriguing. They contain claims that Valera's death was faked; that he returned to Peru in June of 1598 and remained there for twenty more years before returning to Spain (in 1618) to die (in 1619); that Valera wrote the Nueva crónica; and that Pizarro used poisoned wine to trick and subdue Atahualpa and his attendants. Based on a content analysis, a comparison of Valera's known signatures, and technical tests of the paper, ink, wax, and metal, Hyland concludes that the documents are seventeenth- and eighteenth-century forgeries, that, in part, confirm facts about Valera and, in part, are lies (e.g...