University of Kentucky UKnowledge Latin American History History 1968 The Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru Pablo Joseph de Arriaga L. Clark Keating University of Kentucky Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation de Arriaga, Pablo Joseph and Keating, L. Clark, "The Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru" (1968). Latin American History. 5. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_latin_american_history/5 THE EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY IN PERU This page intentionally left blank THE EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY IN PERU by FaFather Pablo Joseph de Arriaga Transluted und Edited by L. CLARK KEATING UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PRESS Copyright @ 1968 by the University of Kentucky Press Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 68-12964 The publication of this book has been made possible partly through a grant from the Margaret Voorhies Haggin Twt, established in memoy of her husband, James Ben Ali Haggin. PREFACE THE PROBLEMS of translation-the transfer to a second lan- guage of the message, mood, and flavor of the first-have an inevitable fascination for most students of foreign languages. It was with some eagerness, therefore, that I undertook to translate Father Arriaga's book on the religion of the Incas. It soon became obvious as the work progressed that a fund of knowledge other than linguistic would be required, and so I had to draw constantly on what knowledge of Peru I had acquired when I lived there from 1960 to 1962. Much other miscellaneous information was also needed, and for this I relied on colleagues and friends. Father Joseph cannot be called a difEcult writer. In his book there are few obscure passages. He usually said what he meant and said it simply. He should be easy to read, but he is not always so easy as he looks. Despite the fact that he was a teacher of rhetoric he has, by modem standards, some conspicuous defects of style. One of these is a habit of stringing together many disparate ideas in a single sentence. He overworked his few conjunctions not only in the middle of a sentence but at the beginning. The Spanish equivalents of but, and, and for are ever present. To retain them all would result in bad English. To eliminate them all would be not to translate but to rewrite Father Arriaga, a temptation a trans- lator must stoutly resist. There is also the matter of active and passive voice. Spanish uses the active more frequently than English does, and when it wants an impersonal passive it relies on its handy reflexive. Here again the translator must strike a happy medium. With the exception of this sort of change, the usual ground rules have been observed: no rewriting merely to "improve" the style. The translator who does otherwise deserves to have applied to him the well-known Italian maxim, traduttore, traditore, which means that to translate is to betray. For these reasons I have left Father vi PREFACE Arriaga pretty much as I found him: an unskilled writer whose sincerity and piety were his chief assets." The text followed here is that of the edition published in Lima in 1920, edited by Horacio H. Urteaga. I have compared this edition with that of 1621, and except in those places where Urteaga corrected an obvious error on Father Arriaga's part I have followed the spelling of the earlier edition when the two have not agreed. The footnotes of the 1920 edition have been translated but are essentially unchanged, although the citations of published materials have been modernized somewhat. These footnotes are designated by numbers. Foot- notes added by the translator are designated by letters and follow after the notes of the Spanish edition. Comments and emendations by the translator have been placed in brackets. Father Arriaga himself compiled a short list of Quechua words that he had not defined in the text. His glossary has been expanded in this translation to include all Quechua words and their definitions. There has been no such full listing of the Quechua terms and their meanings in any edition of Arriaga's book; in the 1920 edition, information concerning the etymology of words as well as their meanings was provided by the editor, but only in a sporadic fashion in the notes. All such information, whether provided in the original text or added by editors, is scattered and usually offered only once, despite the fact that many of these words were used more than once, in widely separated parts of the book. The reader will find, therefore, that a central glossary that pulls this information together in one place far surpasses a system of cross-references between notes-an approach attempted but not by any means comprehensively done by the Spanish editor. This glossary, which is on pp. 175-85, should save the reader no small amount of effort. The Quechua words are italicized only on their first use in the text; thereafter, they appear in roman type. In the foot- 0 Readers interested in the problems, practical as well as theoretical, which beset the translator may read the excellent book, On Translation, edited by Reuben Brower (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). PREFACE vii notes, both those of the Spanish edition of 1920 and of the translator, words are italicized whenever they are themselves the subject of discussion; translations, either from Spanish or Quechua to English or the reverse, are enclosed in double quotes. The word huaca, which assumes in this text the status of a loan word in both English and Spanish, is therefore never italicized. It appears frequently in the text and it refers to a sacred object or idol. It is first explained in the Spanish text on p. 15, n. 2, which in this text is p. 20, n. 17. A fuller definition of the word is found in the glossary. The translator's gratitude is hereby expressed to the Associa- tion of American University Presses, whose generous grant has made possible the translation of this book. Lexington, Kentucky October 1967 This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS PREFACE V INTRODUcrION xi Father Pablo Joseph de Arriuga xvii THE EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRY IN PERU To the King Our Lord in His Royal Council of the Zndies 3 PREFACE. TOthe Reader 5 CHAPTER ONE. HOW Idolatry Came to Be Discmered in the Archbishopric of Lima 9 CHAPTER TWO. What the Indians Worship Today and of What Their Idolatry Consists 22 CHAPTER THREE. Concerning the Ministers of Zdolat y 32 CHAPTER FOUR. What Is Offered in Their Sacrifices and in What Manner 41 CHAPTER FIVE. The Festivals Celebrated for the Huacas 46 CHAPTER SIX. The Abuses and Superstitions of the Indians 52 CHAPTER SEVEN. Concerning the Roots and Causes of the Idolatry That Is Found among the Indians Today 60 CHAPTER EIGHT. Other Causes of the Idolatry of the Indians 67 CHAPTER NINE. Proving That in the Provinces Not Yet Visited Much Idolatry Remains 74 X CONTENTS CHAPTER TEN. Showing That in the Provinces That Have Been Visited Many Roots of Idolatry Remain CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Means of Uprooting Idolaty CHAPTER TWELVE. What Sort of Visitor Is Needed for the Extirpation of Idolatry CHAPTER THIRTEEN. What a Visitor Should Do upon Reaching a Town, Distribution of Time and Sermons CHAPTER FOURTEEN. HOW a Visit Should Be Begun CHAPTER FIFTEEN. HOW a Sorcerer or Any Other Indian Who Reveals or Gives Information about Huacas Is to Be Examined CHAPTER SIXTEEN. HOW a Visit Is to Be Conducted CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. Conclusion and Summary of Every- thing That Has Been Said CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. Remedies for the Extirpation of Idolaty in This Archbishopric and How They Now Stand at the Beginning of Lent, 1621 CHAPTER NINETEEN. The State of Christianity outside This Archbishopric and in the Rest of Peru CHAPTER TWENTY. Of the Importance of Missions An Edict against Idolatry Regulations to Be Left by the Visitor in the Towns as a Remedy for the Extirpation of Idolatry APPENDIX. Quechua Glossary INTRODUCTION SPAIN AND PERU. In picturing the country with which our author is concerned, we must remember that geographically Peru was for him a vaguely defined territory which included at least as much as all of present-day Ecuador, all of Bolivia, and the northern half of Chile, as well as what is now called Peru. From the early Spanish point of view, which does not differ greatly from that of the non-Indian tourist of today, greater Peru was a grim, inhospitable land of impassable mountains and chasms and airless, treeless plateaus. Only by settling on the coast have newcomers found the land habitable. Only by trusting themselves to narrow rock ledges called roads, or by pitting man and airplane against winds and peaks second only to those of the Himalayas, does man from other continents venture today into the fastnesses where the Incas chose to live. This was the country in which the tough, tireless, and zealous monks of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries walked and rode horseback, visiting and revisiting remote Indian villages, founding churches and missions, preaching, catechizing, and confessing. No easy generalization about these men of religion should be attempted. We know from history, and we can infer from the preachments of our author against unworthy priests, that many of them were just that: unworthy priests, more anxious for their fortune than for the good of the Indians, hankering more after the fleshpots than after righteousness.