Hierarchy, Commerce, and Fraud in Bourbon Spanish America: A Postal Inspector's Expose

2. Defacing a Bourbon Legend: Pedro, Pardo, Paulino, and Perulero

   71 Chapter 2 Defacing a Bourbon Legend: Pedro, Pardo, Paulino, and Perulero I n the witty anecdote that wraps up El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes, the inspector sets the scene for the mock trial by explaining that a Spaniard from Guatemala played a practical joke on several Spaniards from Peru at the archbishop of Guatemala’s palace, back when “two most illustrious lords, Araújo and Pardo, peruleros, were governing that Kingdom.” He then clarifies the meaning of peruleros , before he takes his readers into the trial of wits, and the peruleros present the first solution to the riddle of the 4Ps from Lima. At this point, the Spaniard from Guatemala politely rejects the solution offered by the peruleros. He recounts that it was he who tacked the riddle to the doors of the archbishop’s palace and argues that his riddle must be given the solution that befits Guatemala, not Lima: No puedo negar que los Señores Limeños se explicaron en todo el sentido que se da en su Patria a mis quatro P.P.P.P. pero quisiera preguntar a estos Señores, si me tienen por tan fatuo para preguntarles una cosa tan notoria? No hay por ventura otras quatro P.P.P.P. en el mundo? ��������������������������������� Yo hablo en Guatemala, y en esta Ciudad debian estos Caballeros buscarlas, y sobretodo, en la misma Casa del Señor Arzobispo, a cuya principal Puerta las fixe. Los Chapetones se volbieron a alvorotar, y Segunda vez sonó la Campanilla el Sr. Arzobispo, y el Gachupín dixo que las quatro P.P.P.P. de su Enigma significaban: Pedro, Pardo, Paulino y Perulero que eran los quatro connotados del Sr. Arzobispo. ������������ (1775, n.p.) [I do not deny that the Liman Gentlemen fully explained the meaning that is given to my four Ps in their Homeland, but I would like to ask these Sires if they think I am foolish enough to ask them something so obvious? Are there not, by chance, other 4Ps in the world? I speak in Guatemala, and in this City these Gentlemen should search for them, and first and foremost at the very House of the Distinguished Archbishop, on whose front Door I posted them. The Chapetones got all riled again, and the Archbishop rang his Bell a Second time, and the Gachupín said that the 4Ps in his Riddle stood for Pedro, Pardo, 72   Hierarchy, Commerce, and Fraud in Bourbon Spanish America Paulino and Perulero, which were the four nicknames/associates/relatives of the Distinguished Archbishop.] This second solution to the riddle transforms apparent details of the anecdote —that not just men born in Peru but all men who resided there were treated as peruleros, that two peruleros named Pardo and Araújo were governing the Kingdom of Guatemala—into the moral of the story: Lima’s social networks in the first half of the eighteenth century created the conditions necessary for popular chicanery and official malfeasance to flourish in the second. The formation of hybrid elite clans (or roscas) in the viceregal capitals goes a long way toward explaining the persistence of old regime social practices in ostensibly modern, or enlightened, urban cultures. Correctly deciphered, Pedro, Pardo, Paulino, and Perulero alludes to historical continuities between the first half of the eighteenth century and the second, which analyses that are rooted in the middle period model fail to address. The witty Guatemalan tale is a confabulation in which verisimilitude (or probability ) is achieved so completely that Alonso Carrió de Lavandera has had critics over an interpretative barrel for more than two centuries. Competing interpretations abound. Emilio Carilla’s edition of El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes suggested that “Pedro, Pardo, Paulino y Perulero” (Carrió 1973, 473) referred to known and unknown postal officials whose last names began with the letter P, whereas Antonio Lorente Medina’s edition deformed Carrió’s original text, changing “Pedro, Pardo, Paulino y Perulero” into “Pedro, Paulo, Paulino y Perulero” (Carrió 1985, 227). More recently, Mónica Klien-Samanez has suggested that the second solution was a pun on “Padre Pasante Presentado Predicador,” the title by which Franciscan preachers and instructors of native languages were known within that religious community (2000, 143). I am convinced that the four terms of the second solution stand for Archbishop Pedro Pardo de Figueroa, member of the Order of Minims of St. Francis de Paul (Mínimo + San Francisco de Paula = Paulino) and longtime resident of Peru (Perulero). It is entirely...