The First New Chronicle and Good Government : On the history of the world and the Incas up to 1615

Introduction

Introduction Roland Hamilton One of the most fascinating books on pre-Columbian and early colonial Peru was written by a Peruvian Indian named Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.This book, The First New Chronicle and Good Government, covers the pre-Inca times, various aspects of Inca culture, the Spanish conquest, and colonial times up to around 1615, when the manuscript was finished. The original manuscript, located in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark, has 1,189 pages and can be viewed on the Internet on the Royal Library’s official Web site along with a transcription prepared by John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno for their 1980 edition of the work and updated with the collaboration of Ivan Boserup of the Royal Library in 2004 (www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en /frontpage.htm).The main text is accompanied by 398 full-page drawings, which are the most accurate graphic depiction of Inca and colonial Peruvian material culture ever done. This translation goes up to page 369 of the original manuscript and has 146 full-page illustrations. It describes pre-Inca and Inca times, with many comments on the colonial period. The original title has been retained. Although , strictly speaking, Guaman Poma’s comments on good government appear more fully in the last part on colonial times, he also discusses this topic in the section translated here. One of Guaman Poma’s basic objectives was to expose the exploitation of the Indians by the Spanish colonial government. He argues that the indigenous governments treated their subjects far better than their Spanish overlords. Apparently in order to qualify as an advocate of Indian rights and appeal directly to the king, Guaman Poma calls himself a prince, glorifies his ancestors, insists on his orthodox Catholic beliefs, and states that pre-Inca Indians were Christians (see MS p. 73). Guaman Poma also has unkind words for mestizos, considering them inferior to both Indians and Spaniards (see MS p. 215). However, he made an exception for Martín de Ayala, whom he identifies as his half-brother and praises as an exemplary Christian (see MS xviii Introduction pp. 17–18). Guaman Poma implies that the king should appoint native Indians like himself to positions of authority in the colonial government in order to improve the administration and provide just treatment of the Indian masses. In a letter to King Philip III of Spain dated 14 February 1615, Guaman Poma says that he has written a “coronica o historia general,” and evidently he hoped that the work would be published in Spain. Though there is no documentary evidence, the manuscript must have been sent to Spain, and from there made its way to the Royal Library of Denmark in Copenhagen, where it remains to this day.Though the handwriting of the letter is more refined than that of the manuscript, the signatures and flourishes are exactly the same (see Adorno, Guaman Poma, pp. 81–83, and the original manuscript, p. 10). The manuscript is written in a careful and generally uniform script, and Guaman Poma’s desire to publish it is reflected in his imitation of the printing conventions of his time. His lettering is similar to that of books printed in Spanish in the 1500s. He numbered each page, rather than each folio, and placed at the bottom right corner of each page the first word of the next page. Headings are in very large letters, and occasionally in the text there will be a line in large print. Nevertheless, Guaman Poma’s book was not printed until 1936, when a facsimile edition was published in Paris (see Adorno, Guaman Poma, pp. 13–15, 19–22). Guaman Poma’s manuscript does have some apparently unique features, with each section continuous, no paragraph headings, and no capital letters at the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun. There are no periods or commas, only hyphens (-), in the original manuscript. Guaman Poma’s approach to each subject starts with a full-page drawing and captions. The following text describes the drawing in detail. In the introductory material, Guaman Poma includes letters to the pope and the king of Spain, along with comments on the great value of his book. These letters follow the style of Spanish authors. For instance, the letter attributed to Guaman Poma’s father closely follows an introductory letter written by Martín de Murúa for his book on the Incas (see the introduction to the Codex Murúa by Ossio...