I feel joyed and jolted when reading Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru by Garcilaso de la Vega. Garcilaso is of Inca lineage, born 8 years after the Spanish arrived and adapted culture. He was brought up in an Indian society full of reminiscent for the empire lost, “the greatness and prosperity of the past” (p.52). A voice of objective reverence is projected in this text as he relays the creation story beginning with Capa Inca, the descendent of father Sun. The arrival of this divine man to the mortals engages the dynamic of savagery which is not agreed upon by the Peruvian I shared lunch with today.
So many aspects of this transubstantiation of oral accounts into written text strike me. It reads in a completely different tone to the tensions of Guaman Poma replicating the story of Genesis in his plea to Christianity and the Crown; Garcilaso de la Vega, based in Spain at the time of writing, tries to touch the truth tragically missed and misunderstood by previous chronicles. His claim of Incan connection is conveyed in the plotting out of foundational features of the Inca, a colonised society as well as a colonising empire.
So firstly, to that point, on Inca as a colonising empire: in a basic more material sense, the Inca colonised entire regions of pre-Inca societies. It claims to have done so in a radically different way to how that act is understood in contemporary context. Garcilaso describes a benevolence in the territorial subduction and the civilising mission, a “royal liberation.” Colonisation as liberation? I want to try to share how the incredible depictions of empire are colliding my notions of the colonial.
Central to the Inca was a commitment to THE COMMONS. A realm practically unknown to the Spanish inquisitions, which lead to revolutions and repression. A grouping specifically for exploitation and extraction in neocolonial relations. The commons were the life force of expansion, in productive ability, and are best leveraged through cooperative relations, and for this all food was kept in common. The royals, descendants of Capa Inca, would supply open-air meals to crowds almost driven by hunger (p.72).
To the relatives of Garcilaso imparting their memories, guiding principles of maintenance are rooted in affection. REASON, JUSTICE, MERCY, CLEMENCY, MILDNESS. Cacique (leaders) were merited for being “most attached to the common good” (p.78) But what constitutes the common good? Kindness towards the kingdom’s kin kept crops growing.
But really, potatoes root and maiz reach da las fuerzas de naturaleza: sunlight and water. The affect that afforded ABUNDANCE: idolatry/adoration of Father Sun and Grandmother Moon, the chief deities who “sent down their children to them, to deliver the from the savage life they had led and bring them the advantages of human existence which they now enjoyed” (p.62). Again, it’s arguable to denote savage life to the very embedded cultures who preceded. In the Inca’s case, understanding of natural forces is knowledge applicable to agricultural advances, here equating to worship of the supreme cosmic bodies. {~I will note that chief-chief deity is the Sun, the masculine lineage privileged, all subjects Intip Churin (children of the sun), I hope to investigate the feminine role and representation soon~}.
I’m curious how this love and adoration for the Sun, builds this benevolent, father-like, provider persona of colonisers. Again, what is common good, or who is deciding the good? Something in me does not want to contemplate the colonial context, sensing that the experiences of society connected to (super)natural forces should not be tainted by anthropocentric rhetoric of power (known primarily as power over). I ask the people I meet, in this sacred dessert mountain valley, about Capa Inca, about Father Sun, and believing in the life forces who never die, I eat plantain able to be of the all connected under what Sun energy has provided…
Sun’s speech in Garcilaso’s chapter The New World and its Inhabitant:
“I take care and go round the world once a day to observe the wants that exists in the world and to fill the supply them as the sustainer and benefactor of men” (p. 55).
Steller photo by: Jasmine Choi @ Parque Arqueológico Pisac
"Colonisation as liberation? I want to try to share how the incredible depictions of empire are colliding my notions of the colonial." We are all together in this process of questioning knowledge and concepts that we have had for a long time, some of them very deep-rooted. I really like that you also include the importance of affect in this path. Thank you for maintaining an open and dialogic attitude with the environment in which we live.