Peruvian Mail

CHASQUI PERUVIAN MAIL Year 7, number 14 Cultural Bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs September 2009 . Francisco Gonzáles Gamarra. Oil on canvas, 1959. Gonzáles Gamarra. Oil on canvas, . Francisco Inca Garcilaso INCA GARCILASO AND THE BIRTH OF MESTIZO CULTURE IN THE AMERICAS AFRICAN AND ASIAN MIGRATION / FORESTS OF PERU THE CUISINE OF AREQUIPA INCA GARCILASO AND HIS ERA Carmen Bernand* In 1609, a book that would forge new dreams and utopias and create a new understanding of the most famous monarchs of ancient Peru appeared in Lisbon: The Comentarios Reales [published in English as The Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru]. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, a writer and historian of mestizo [Spanish and indigenous] origins, took the greatest effort in this work to appreciate and integrate the two worlds he belonged to: the west and the Andes. The Comentarios Reales, full of nostalgic exaltation, subterranean conflicts, and dramatic tensions, marked the course of the new mestizo culture of the Americas and made its author the first canonical writer in the western hemisphere. Life, art, memory, and aspirations are all nurtured and projected in this extraordinary adventure. n 1539, the son of conquistador father’s feats at the court of Felipe II, Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega, Goméz Suárez settled in Montilla, at Iscion of a minor branch of a his uncle Alonso de Vargas’ house, powerful family of Spanish nobles, where he would live for the next thirty and Princess Chimpu Ocllo, niece of years. For a time, he shared his quarters the Inca Emperor Huayna Cápac, was with Luis de Góngora, the famous poet born in Cuzco and baptized Gómez and playwright, who was the nephew Suárez de Figueroa. On his father’s of Luisa Ponce de León, Alonso de side, he was related to such illustrious Vargas’ wife. names as Zafra, Feria, and Garci Pérez, as well as two of the greatest A warrior and a scholar Spanish poets, Jorge Manrique (his After an incursion into military life great-grandfather’s cousin) and the as part of the campaign against the Renaissance master Garcilaso de Moorish remnants in Alpeujarras la Vega (his great-grandmother’s (1569-1570) which earned him the cousin.) On his mother’s side, he was rank of Captain, Garcilaso decided to linked to the members of the highest devote himself to his two great passions: nobility, in particular the aristocratic horseback riding and literature. In faction led by Túpac Inca Yupanqui. Montilla, which he described as his “corner of poverty and loneliness,” A childhood in Cuzco he was nevertheless able to acquire a Gómez Suárez de Figueroa spent broad knowledge of classical culture his childhood at his father’s dwelling through the Priego library and his in Cusco. Chaos reigned in the links to the Jesuits and other Cordoba city, which was shaken by civil wars de Montilla/Ministry Affairs/ courtesyPicture PUCP Cultural of Ayuntamiento Center. of Foreign based men and women of letters. One between partisans of the Encomienda such man was Ambrosio de Morales, system, in which those who had led of the Order of Saint Jeronimo, who the conquest of Peru were given felt great esteem for the Inca. Morales large landholdings in return for was a highly influential and respected evangelizing the Indians who lived on figure, as well as an erudite linguist said lands (led in rebellion by Gonzalo and an expert in archeology. As an Pizarro), and troops loyal to the official historian, he was given the Spanish Crown. The first few years of mission of increasing the El Escorial Gómez’s life were marked by a lack of Library’s funds, which gave him access basic foodstuffs, fear of attacks, and Façade of Garcilaso’s house in Montilla. to a plethora of manuscripts, including the absence of his father, enlisted with that of Cieza de León on the Incas Pizarro’s troops and branded a traitor Suárez remained in his father’s home, “Because with his death fell a bastion of Peru. Morales also encouraged the by the Crown. He shared this painful and slowly became concious of his of Christianity, the departed was.....the surveying of Spanish towns, which was experience with his mother and Inca fragile status as the mestizo son of his father of this nation, tireless supporter also undertaken in the Americas and relatives, his governess, and the other father’s previous relationship despite of the poor, friend to the good, enemy later published as Relaciones Geográficas children of the household, including the strong bonds of affection between of the wicked, and, finally, the refuge de Indias [Geographical Relations of the his half sister Francisca de la Vega, the father and son. of all that are natural.” (H VIII). Indies]. daughter of palla or Inca Concubine “There were too few schools and too The captain left his mestizo son the María Pilcosisa. “Children, whether of many arms,” writes Garcilaso(FI, 27). sum of four thousand pesos to travel to A chosen people Inca nobility or the common people, Along with other young mestizos, also Spain and complete his studies. Towards Archeology and references to the regardless of social distinction, would the children of powerful conquistadors, the end of 1559, at the age of twenty, classical age are the theoretical cry out strangely upon receiving even Gómez Suárez attended Latin, grammar, Gómez Suárez left his native land, never framework that Garcilaso used to or- slightest gift”. (RC IV-12). and music classes taught by the expert to return. Prior to his departure, Mayor ganize his materials. The neoplatonic While Gonzalo Pizarro was taken Juan de Cuéllar. Cuéllar strongly Polo de Ondegardo took the young philosophy of León Hebreo offered a prisoner, found guilty of fomenting and encouraged his students to pursue their traveler to see the mummified bodies model to reinterpret the Incas’ sun leading the rebellion, and executed in studies in Salamanca, Spain. of the Incan Emperors, which he had worship as a from of monotheism Cuzco in 1548, Captain Garcilaso just discovered. The subsequent voyage and precursor to Christianity. The de la Vega was left unpunished and Departure took him from Cuzco to Lima and from Temple of the Sun appears as the was, in fact, appointed mayor of the Captain Sebastián Garcilaso de la Lima to the isthmus of Panama, where Western Hemisphere replica of Solo- city. Like many of his conquistador Vega died of “departure” in Cuzco in he embarked at Port Nombre de Dios mon’s Temple, and Cuzco as a South counterparts, he was required to 1559. At the end of his life, his son for Europe. Weather conditions made American New Jerusalem. The Incas marry a Spanish woman, in his case transcribed the eulogy read in his for a difficult crossing. He disembarked are presented as a chosen people that Luisa Martel. Princess Chumpu honor, in a style that recalls that of in Lisbon and from there went to Spain. follows divine commandments. “In Ocllo, baptized Isabel, was given in Jorge Manrique’s Coplas por la muerte de After a short stay in Madrid, where he addition to worshiping the Sun as a marriage to Juan Pedroche. Gómez su padre [Couplets on his father’s death]. attempted to win recognition for his visible god...the Inca Emperors and CHASQUI 2 their amautas, who were the empire’s Inca society as political model philosophers, traced the illuminated «...I went to the lodge of the educated Polo de Ondegardo The description of the Inca form of path to the true God and Our Lord, [...] who was mayor of that fair city [Cuzco,] so that I might government became part of the then who created heaven and Earth... ongoing debate in Europe regarding which they called Pachacámac... kiss his hands and bid him farewell before my journey. The political models, and Inca Garcilaso which means he who gives life to former, between other favors he granted, told me, “Since became interested in the subject the whole universe...he who gives you go to Spain, enter these chambers, you shall see some of through the works of Tomás Moro, the universe life gives it to the body Guicciardini, and Jean Bodin. In his as well.” (RC II-2). yours who I have brought to the light of day, that you might work Tratado de las Repúblicas del “And so, that they might see the bring something to speak of there.” In the chamber, I found Mundo [Treatise on the Republics of love that, like his own sons, he had five bodies of the Inca Kings [...] I remember when I came to the World] (1575), Jerónimo Román for them, he made it so that they and touch a finger of Huayna Capac’s hand; it was like a statue, y Zamora provided an example of a their descendants would always be Platonic republic based on virtue. called Incas (CR I-23). “The Sun had strong and hard [...] They would be carried wrapped in Classical Latin works in Garcilaso’s sent them to Earth to uplift men from white sheets; on squares and streets the Indians would kneel library led him to compare the first the miserable life that they lived” (RC before them; paying reverence with tears and wailing, and Inca emperors and the first Roman II- 19). Before his death, Manco Cápac kings. The Inca government described gathered his sons and “told them that many Spaniards would take off their hats, as these were the in The Royal Commentaries of the like him they must keep his laws and bodies of Kings» (RC V-29).

Load more