Allies at Odds: The Andean Church and Its Indigenous Agents, 1583-1671 (review)

Allies at Odds fleshes out a largely understudied yet important group of indigenous agents which specialized scholars will have to address from now on: local native church assistants in the territory of the Archbishopric of Lima, Peru. It studies cases from ecclesiastic courts filed between 1583 and 1671—dates set, respectively, by the Third Lima Provincial Ecclesiastic Council and the end of the tenure of archbishop Pedro de Villagómez, a staunch supporter of the campaigns to extirpate idolatries from indigenous communities (the equivalent of inquisitorial processes for Indians). Although their existence was known to specialized scholars, the book is the only sustained attempt at fleshing out and shedding some light on this previously largely anonymous group that played the role of intermediaries between the Spanish clergy and native peoples. While Charles often uses the same sources that studies of resistance to Spanish colonialism and religious conversion do (extirpation records), he situates his analysis in contrast to those studies' well-known frame: Indians vs. Spaniards. He recognizes that in some "extreme cases" (8) such a frame characterizes religious dynamics, but argues that most often conflicts were more complex, even heterogeneous: a number of indigenous and Spanish actors allied and confronted each other along lines other than ethnoracial ones. Drawing on studies that put forward the key role of mediators in the everyday works of Spanish colonialism,¹ Charles calls for the need to adopt "a single framework of analysis" (10) that does away with the model of the two repúblicas that Spanish administrators strived to enforce and specialized scholars have, either explicitly or implicitly, often adopted. The trials, he claims, show that "shared religious interests and political commitments" created "elastic ties and discontinuities between all colonial participants" (194), which short-circuited colonial boundaries as they have so often been conceived.

The material the book presents is also relevant beyond the field of Andean religious studies. It offers an almost unique window into the peers and contemporaries of some of the most well-known indigenous intellectuals in the Americas, like Guaman Poma de Ayala or Pachacute Yamqui Salcamaygua. These flesh-and-bone literate Indians found throughout the Andes are also relevant to scholarly debates about writing and colonialism. Their use of literacy and legal language against their masters' ends makes clear that there was no abyss separating indigenous peoples and the "lettered city," be it in terms of the medium of expression (the oral vs. written model) or in terms of the social milieu and concepts used.

The structure of Allies at Odds resembles that of social history studies in two ways. First, the interpretive effort focuses on a "broader context" (12) that is always social; although several of the fascinating quotations immediately triggered memories of The Cheese and the Worms in this reader's mind, there is no in-depth cultural analysis. Second, the study cuts a large, synchronically constructed object into largely autonomous slices; there is neither an argument that unfolds throughout the text nor diachrony. The archival material is generously present in all chapters.

Chapter one centers on literacy. It shows that local Andean intermediaries (alcaldes, alguaciles, sacristanes, cantores, maestrescuelas, etc.) were highly literate and connected individuals: they owned ink, books, even libraries, and shared books with priests, and/or circulated books among themselves. Although the degree of literacy was higher on the coast than in the sierra, the overall picture challenges the "tyranny of the alphabet" (15) argument posed, implicitly or explicitly, by many specialized studies.

Chapter two focuses on the language proficiency of rural priests. Using debates among Spaniards regarding the best language for religious conversion to frame indigenous complaints against rural priests, Charles suggests that the...