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

Notes on the Translation and Organization

Notes on the Translation and Organization All references to Guaman Poma’s chronicle come from the online facsimile of the manuscript housed at the Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen, and the transcription with notes completed under the direction of Rolena Adorno. This transcription was based on the original manuscript and the edition by John Murra and Rolena Adorno, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1980). Most of the critical comments below derive from introductory material and notes in these editions . The classical study by the late John Howland Rowe, Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest (1946), was also used extensively. In this translation the page numbers of the original manuscript are enclosed in brackets. The original pagination contains an error after page 155, with the next page numbered 154.The following pages in this translation have both the original page number (in brackets) and the corrected page number in parentheses; for example, [154 (156)]. This continues up to page 367/369, the end of this translation. The original title page reads: “The First New Chronicle and Good Government / composed by Don Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, lord and prince / Holy Catholic Royal Majesty / Your Holiness / Ayala, prince / The Kingdom of the Indies / Five hundred ninety seven leaves—5979 folios / One hundred forty six sheets—146 [8 pages per sheet equals a total of 1168 pages, first estimate].” I have abbreviated the title in translation for the sake of brevity. The references to the king of Spain and the pope are captions to Guaman Poma’s drawing. In her notes and introduction to El primer nueva corónica (1980), Rolena Adorno discusses her analysis of the manuscript held in the Royal Library of Denmark, which is the holograph by Guaman Poma. She discovered that it contains many important details that were added after the original had been written. To the title page Guaman Poma added the word prencipe under his xxvi Notes on the Translation and Organization name and the notes on the number of leaves. The number “5979” is an error; it should read 579 leaves, which amounts to 1,158 pages. The second number, 146 sheets, amounts to 1,168 pages because each sheet has eight pages.The last number, 1,168, is Poma’s estimate of the total number of pages. In the part of his book translated here, Guaman Poma included 147 drawings . These are the most accurate images of Andean life in the early colonial period, and his style resembles the engravings of the time. However, since he never left Peru, he depicts what he saw in books and observations of provinces where he lived, including the region of Huamanga (Ayacucho), or to which he traveled, especially from Cuzco to Lima. A few Andean features crept into his biblical scenes. Illustration 22 has Adam using an Andean foot plow, and Illustration 24 of Noah shows a llama on board the ark. Nevertheless, Guaman Poma has left a monumental book with the most accurate illustrations and descriptions of pre-Inca, Inca, and colonial life in Peru. It will provide both Andean scholars and the general public with a treasury of insights into everyday life in the Andean world up to 1615. ...