Guaman Poma’s letter to the king is very detailed in explaining the history and the life of the Inca people, defining roles and the differences among the race and status of the people. The author of Guaman Poma de Ayala provides a lot of anecdotes to help the reader have a better understanding of Guaman Poma’s thoughts with their own perspective and understanding. I personally found it helpful though it made the text seem extra heavy and harder to take in at times. 

In “Ordinances of the Inca” Poma lists decrees that he states in first person using either “I” or “We” meant to help better the lives of the people while still conserving some Inca culture yet obeying catholic views. In some of the decrees we can clearly see that the women have much restriction in their lives, yet a reoccurring theme that later continues to be mentioned is the issue of rape and the penalty. This is clearly an issue to which he brings up the consequences and how it is tied with the arrival of the Spaniards. 

His opinions towards the Spaniards are very strong, in one text stating “See here, you poor, foolish, and incompetent Spaniards, who are as proud as Lucifer…” indicating how their behaviour is to that of a fallen angel, in which their behaviours is not close with god or Christian religion anymore. Most of his arguments are of how greed from the Spaniards essentially poisoned the Incas and brought the downfall of the kingdom. He even argues, “All the bad things—adultery and other mortal sins—were brought in by those Christians, who, under the cover of  teaching catechism, deflowered“all the maidens; because of this, many mestizos are born in this kingdom.” Guaman Poma describes all this to the king in a manner to help the king visualize how and why the Incas are the way are “presently”, and need for more order to be in place for the people. He describes the creation of mestizo children and relationship of different raced couples causing a division to occur within the communities and a decrease in pure Inca bloodlines. He even mentions how some mestizo become to be a part of tearing the community because of their actions, possibly because of how they were kept ostracized from the rest of the Inca community. This makes me wonder if Guaman Poma didn’t see himself as a mestizo since he never clearly stated if he was. Perhaps because of his higher status he believes there is no need for the king to define who he is only that of his power and that he follows the catholic religion. 

Guaman Poma integrates much of catholic religion into the text, ending or starting some parts of his text with a prayer, relating biblical events to events in Incan culture, and having a strong emphasis on how there are many things the Incas do that make them naturally Christian despite the few times that almost veered from the path. In some parts it feels as though he is trying to make the reader aware of even convince them that certain events that had happened in the Inca history timeline were in line with what was stated in the bible, and their worships were inline with praising god but in a different perspective. His direct messages to “Christians” were rather critical, in which most felt like they should be warned and realize the terrible events that have occurred in Peru because of them. This makes me  wonder if the is trying to create a define line between the king and a Christian individual, for if the king were reading this and saw himself as the Christian reader he may be offended. 

He goes into so much depth about the life of the Incas and their expected role throughout their life, along with the history that he knows of makes me wonder why he felt this was appropriate for a “letter”. In all respect I feel like it is more of a book, where it is even titled as Chronicles. However as a reader I can tell he is determined for this to make to to the king, so he proves plenty explanations for why Peru needs help and a change with the rulings. Aside from this however, I feel that this is something to long that the king would find “boring” (if the king didn’t care that much for feedback coming back from one of his colonies), to long to finish reading or even listen to in that manner (if he had someone read the letter out to him).

One interesting that I noticed when reading the decrees was that he had two decrees about how people should not bury their dead within their homes. In one decree he states that they should be buried in vaults and with the deceased belongings, while the other mentions how the person who buried them should be banished. Were people burying their dead in there homes as a tradition, was it because people were poor and could not afford a vault, was this action seen as sin in Inca culture, or was this stated so that people have “proper” burials that were similar to that of Christians?

The Popol Vuh was a great book to read, offering insights on the mayan gods and an interpretation from a “mayans perspective” of the creation of life on earth. I feel that the second half of the book described more about the importance of animals, along with the gods’ definition of what makes humans “human”. In the readers companion, we see that the author offers their own interpretation of the mayan myths and reflects on how some of the text contrasts to the bible. I found it rather interesting that this portion of the text reverts back to being in thick paragraphs, main thoughts separated by a little design for the paragraph break, in contrast to the single and spaced out lines in the earlier parts. 

The animals played important roles with the twins’ ability to succeed, from interfering with their chore work, helping them get through the trials, to building a fake head for Hunahpu. Community and teamwork appear to be centered around the animals, where they tend to work together in a lot of the scenarios. Such as the animals who came to deliver the message from Xibalba to the twins. Although they each tried to eat each other, in the end if they hadn’t done so the message might not have reached the twins in time. It also felt that this scenario also demonstrated the animals to be easily persuaded by food, a primitive instinct for survival or desire. This is shown through the louse and the frog, giving rise to the development of a food chain. There is also the event when the twins give the jaguars bones to eat in the Jaguar house trial so they would not eat them. 

I found it particularly interesting on page 124 how the text was set up to describe the animals who participated in making the fields full of trees and bushes. It looks as though each line was like a stanza in a poem, carefully matching the animals mentioned by their appearances or behaviour, such as the “puma and the jaguar” and “the deer and the rabbit”. Similar formatting can be seen in later pages in part 3, listing out descriptions that would be deemed as lengthy if it were kept in a single paragraph. Perhaps this was done to not only make the text easier to read and at a faster pace, but to create some voice inside the readers heads as they read the lines. I feel when words are listed apart in a story there is more emphasis given to the subjects mentioned, with a unique serious narrative. 

Another thing I found rather compelling was the mention of why falcons eat snakes and the reason for the whipowhirl’s gaping mouth. I feel like the narrator found these random bits of information stand out and necessary to write down as part of what led to the creation of life they now knew. Furthermore the way the facts were told made the stories seem more of myth, where the whipowhirls transformation felt something out of a fantasy. 

Going back to my first blog entry for Popol Vuh, I mention how the gods or demigods have a strong sense of pride that lead to their demise. To complement this, they also lacked na’wik,  the “capacity to notice, understand, and perceive”. This is the human side, differentiating humans from gods and the first creation of wooden humans. I notice that this doesn’t imply that this is what is defined as “good” traits but what just is according to the book. The only thing this influences is their judgment, to which the gods decide to keep the humans eyes shrouded so they don’t see all like a god. This makes me wonder if it is something that should not be questioned since this is a trait that the gods designed humans to have and without it they would be inhuman or too much of it deemed as something as a god. 

While reading Popol Vuh from pages 1 – 120,  I felt it was written almost like a storybook, telling of the “tales” of the gods and heroes. I also found that there was a great emphasis on pride along with what seemed to be the best actions to “please” the gods. 

The first story relates to the beginning of how people and animals came to be. Animals were created as a new form of life but because they could not praise the gods their flesh would be eaten, almost like a punishment which they would live with forever. In this case the struggle to live in the world came down to eat or be eaten, and to serve the humans which could praise the gods. The creation of the humans was ultimelty to praise the gods and stroke their ego of being “all powerful”. However the first humans created were deemed greedy and ungrateful so they were destroyed by the forces of the gods. This sort of reminded me of the story of Noah’s Arc from the bible, in which god sends a flood to wash away the evils of the earth to start over. Lady Blood’s desire for the fruit also relates back to the story of Adam and Eve to which both women are tempted to reach out to the fruit and are cursed because of their actions.

In the later stories one may notice that having too much pride leads to a downfall in other powerful beings. Zipacna and Cabracan were very prideful and met their demise because of their pride. Zipacana death was ironic since the “maker of mountains” was crushed by a mountain, and Cabracan paid no attention to the danger that he was with the twins who killed his brother, even trusting the food they gave him which ultimately killed him. The lords of Xibalaba’s greediness and pride make them easily to fool when Lady Blood sends a fake heart to them to which they are bind and believe it is a real heart. Then there are the older brothers of the twins who climb the trees to prove they are better and are turned into monkeys. To be turned into monkeys or animals may relate to how the twins did not see them as worthy to continue to have a human life. A passage from Popol Vah, “pride swelled into evil” reminds me alot of how the bible tries to warn those of the various evils from pride which can lead to jealousy and greed. The lords of Xibalba also reminded me of the bible’s seven deadly sins. This makes me wonder if the indigenous stories were translated or written in a manner that were influenced by Chrisitan view. So did the K’iche’ origin stories actually have this great emphasis on pride with the gods and demigods, and what exactly were their definitions of evils? 

A few other things that also caught my attention was the choice of words. In the line of which Seven Macaw describe his pain to his wife, “Two maniacs shot me and dislocated my jaw!” sort of surprised me at first. I am not used to seeing the word “maniac” in a lot of texts and did not expect to see it here. I looked into the origin of the word and it started being used within the 1500s. Perhaps this word was in the original text or perhaps this word was closest or even a more simple word that was used for translation. 

Hello, my name is Isabella! I am a fourth year student at UBC currently majoring in Biology. I will be graduating this coming May, and afterwards I will decide on wether I want to pursue medicine or become a medical illustrator. Two very different things, but reason being I have strong passions in the arts which I don’t want to let go yet! This includes dancing, animating, and baking! I have a pretty active schedule, which includes training for dance performances, working part time at a biotech company, and studying. A fun fact about me is that I have a pet lovebird named George.

I joined this class because part of my heritage goes back to Central America, and I want to learn more about indigenous cultures in Latin America and have a stronger  understanding of the history.

I found the first lecture rather interesting because the land acknowledgements aren’t really discussed at UBC. My only experience in which I had to think carefully and incorporate my personal land acknowledgement was during my time as a first year orientation leader at UBC. The lecture made me think of all my past experiences with indigenous cultures being integrated as part of my curriculum growing up in Canada, and how there were many times that I felt that the culture wasn’t being properly conveyed or the values weren’t as special. In elementary school I remember that the culture was introduced to students by telling us their legends such as “Raven: A tricksters tale from the Pacific Northwest” by Gerald McDermott, and how we did arts and crafts that would symbolize parts of the legend. While in highschool were learned more about indigenous struggles and genocide, however nothing about what is being done in present day to preserve their cultures. The one thing that hasn’t changed is a land acknowledgement that was presented before every assembly or course introduction. I feel like this is a small way to have the indigenous voices heard or their presence made to have us aware yet it doesn’t give the impact or impression that it should. In other words, the acknowledgement can be quickly overlooked for both someone who is familiar with the acknowledgements or not familiar.