week3—Cain the City-Founder; Adaptation for the Andes—
reading blog #4 – Guaman Poma’s “The First New Chronicle and Good Government”
Saints and sainthood really confuses me. I think these past few texts have really been challenging me on what I thought I knew about Christianity and religion. I previously thought I knew a lot, given that I’ve gone to church my entire life, my mom is a Children’s Ministry Pastor, and my brother just graduated with a master’s in Christian Arts, but as I go along further, I’m realizing I don’t know all that much. To me, the worship and praise of saints—especially during Corpus Christi—was kind of contradictory to the belief, specifically in terms of the rules against worshipping idols.
Guaman Poma’s middle-stance writing on the historical account of Inca peoples and Spaniard conquest plays on so many contradictory parallels. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly feels off to me, perhaps it is the whole of it.
The first thing that really struck me was Part 1 (The Ages of the World: The First Generation of the World), where Poma very clearly subscribes to the (European) interpretation of black people being descendants of Cain. With Poma being Quechua, this was not something I expected to be reading about. Perhaps, it makes sense… given that Poma is nobility and this text is addressed to the king, but it still shocked me. Cain being the ancestor of Black people is especially problematic because Cain is attributed as being the brother rejected by God and being the first murderer on earth—this belief then fueled the justification of slavery of Black people by Europeans. Sometimes, I really don’t understand where Poma is writing from, because in the footnotes after this mention, it says that “elsewhere, he writes sensitively about the harsh lives of enslaved black men and women” (15).
The mention of Cain is also interesting to me because of the colonial context in which this text exists. In the Bible, Cain is cursed by God with being forever transient, but in revenge, Cain built the first city without the presence of God, east of Eden in the land of Nod. So, even though the European interpretation of Cain is an association with Black people, the Europeans at this time are the ones ‘building cities’, and according to Poma, they are doing so without the presence of God or just behaviour. It’s fascinating to see these layers of contradictions pile on one another, and to see the justifications (or lack thereof) that subsequently follow.
Also, Poma uses King James Version, which I personally do not like at all, but given the historical time I will let it slide.
I think the thing that helped me to understand this depiction of faith and Spanish conquest in the Andes was Dean’s description of adaptation of religious figures into Andean context. (I.e., Pan as a pastoral and shepherd figure, Apollo as the Sun and the Incan weight of the Sun’s divine presence…). In this way, Poma’s adaptation of Biblical origins onto Andean environment/context started to click for me. It absolutely does not make sense until it just does. (This is not a very coherent sentence, but it’s making sense to me in this moment, so I am leaving it as is).
My question for you all then is this: did you notice any other forms of adaptation in Poma’s writing? Did you notice any contradictions that stood out to you?
4 replies on “week3—Cain the City-Founder; Adaptation for the Andes—”
Hi Jasmine! This post is awesome and I think it was the one you were writing next to me earlier on the terrace? If so, I’m so proud of you for finishing it. I like how much you emphasize the contradictions within the colonial project, especially regarding the Catholic justifications (or explanations) for conquest and subjugation. I didn’t pick up on the footnote where Guaman Poma is described as writing sensitively about enslaved Black people, which is fantastically ironic. By the way, I also ranted a bit about the Catholic Church.
Hi Jasmine! You bring a valuable perspective about the text and I think your questions and concerns are valid as there are some confusing aspects. One aspect that I found contradictory is how Poma mentioned how the chronicle can be used to amend the Indigenous peoples’ “erroneous ways”, yet there are numerous mentions of ways that other people can learn from their practices. In the grand scheme of things, the overall perception of “Indians” in the book is of lower stature than the Spaniards, however, the beginning of the book definitely presented a very uncharitable view of the indigenous people.
“Sometimes, I really don’t understand where Poma is writing from(.)” I agree. And for me, it is what makes this book fascinating. When reading it for the first time it breaks with the expectations of what an “anticolonial(?)/decolonial(?)” text would be (I take all these precautions because I am increasingly skeptical of certain terminology in which authors like Guamán Poma would not recognize themselves). I don’t want to dwell too much on the issue of theoretical labels… not for now, at least. But I do want to warn against the assumption of strategic solidarities that exist in our present that were not activated for the Old Regime.
Hi Jasmine, I really enjoyed reading your post and your reflections on the text! 🙂 I think you touch on something really important…which is the unlearning that can come with learning or just the realization that there is so much to learn…I also agree that it’s hard to see exactly where Poma is writing from and to pinpoint exactly what it is that feels off about the text, it is the whole of it, perhaps it’s the meshing of contradictions in one body (in the body of text, perhaps in Poma himself…)