Reading Inca History

1. Introduction

Introduction The nobles tell very great stories about Inca Yupanqui and Topa Inca, his son, and Huayna Capac, his grandson, because these were the rulers who proved themselves to be the most valiant. Those who would read about their deeds should know that I put less in my account than I knew and that I did not add anything, because I do not have any other sources for what I write than what these Indians tell me. And for myself, I believe what they say and more because of the traces and signs left by these kings and because of their great power, which is an indication that what I write is nothing compared to what actually happened, the memory of which will endure for as long as there are native Andean people. Muy grandes cosas quentan los orejones deste Ynga Yupangue e de Topa Ynga, su hijo, e Guaynacapa, su nieto porque éstos fueron los que se mostraron más valerosos. Los que fueren leyendo sus acaeçimientos crean que yo quito antes de lo que supe que no añadir nada, y que, para afir[marlo por çierto], fuera menester verlo, ques causa que yo no afirme más de que lo escrivo por relaçión destos yndios; y para mí, creo esto y más por los rastros y señales que dexaron de sus pisadas estos reyes y por el su mucho poder, que da muestra de no ser nada esto que yo escrivo para lo que pasó, la qual memoria durará en el Perú mientras oviere honbres de los naturales. (Cieza de León [1553], chap. 48; 1986:140) Pedro de Cieza de León wrote in the early 1550s and was one of the first Spaniards to write about the Inca past in any detail. He was a soldier, but he took upon himself the task of recording what had gone on before he arrived in Peru. Most of what he wrote was about fighting among Spanish factions, but one part of his much longer work was a narrative of the Inca past, beginning with the origins of a group of siblings from a cave at Pacaritambo and extending to the time of the Spanish arrival in Cuzco, twelve generations later. The narrative tells the story of the Inca imperial expansion. Structured by the genealogy of the dynastic line, it is peopled by the Inca rulers and their 1 close kin. Cieza says he took all of his material from native sources. Obviously he translated—with the aid of translators—what he was told by particular individuals, since the Incas had no form of writing, and other forms of recording were unintelligible to the Spaniards. Cieza names one Inca informant , Cayo Topa ([1553], chap. 6; 1986:38), and he occasionally indicates divergent stories, so he talked to others while he was in the Andes. They could have been eyewitnesses to some of the events Cieza wrote about, but no one living could have a memory of the period before the last two, or possibly three, generations. Cieza recovered some kind of material from oral historical genres. Like other Spaniards who wrote narratives structured by the genealogy of the Inca dynastic descent group, he collected this material from Inca sources. Like other Spaniards, he assumed that the material reflected a knowledge of the Inca past. He had firsthand acquaintance with the landscape of the Inca empire and could convince himself of the truth of the story he told. The story Cieza told explained the rise of Inca power—a power which was then still obvious . Like other Spaniards, Cieza did not refer to his sources except in a general way. Because of the filters of language and culture, even if he transcribed what he was told, the content was irrevocably altered. By making the stories he was told intelligible to another audience and by writing them down in a manuscript, both the meanings associated with the original genre or genres and the context of their transmission were lost. Something may remain, but whether aspects of the underlying original can be recovered depends on how Cieza worked. Did he retell what he was told by informants who were transmitting material from Inca genres, injecting his own comments or interpretations at its margins? Or did he do “history” as we do it, taking material from whatever sources he had, reworking and reconceptualizing it to craft a narrative that fulfilled his own canons...