I was very surprised by the first 50 pages of Guaman Poma’s First New Chronicle and Good Government. As a person of Andean descent who was taught the language (and possibly the traditional beliefs) of his people, I was shocked to read about his support of the Catholic faith, and colonial practices more broadly. Why would a person that was raised within his own community adopt the beliefs of another? Further, how can Guaman Poma, who was displaced from his own land after multiple attempts to reclaim it, whole-heartedly pledge allegiance as a loyal subject of the offending nation? The following passage describes a small part of Guaman’s experience with his colonizers: “After several turns in his case (brief losses, briefer wins) between 1594 and 1600, Guaman Poma himself was finally given the humiliating punishment of a public whipping followed by confiscation of all his property and a banishment from the vicinity of Huamanga” (p.xii). His possessions, power, and privilege were stripped away, and his reaction was to dedicate decades of his life to research and study in order to author a book containing nearly 1200 pages and 600 images to recount the ‘true history’ of the pre-colonial Andean communities. I can’t tell if these writings reflect Guaman’s genuine beliefs, or if the motivation of this massive undertaking is strategic in nature.
This line of questioning was sparked by today’s earlier class discussion regarding progress and technological advancement and the notion that they are not linear in nature but rather different based on the particular needs of the group. When we were having this discussion I recalled an introductory biology class and the topic of evolution. There is often a misconception that the species that exist today are ‘more advanced’ than those from which we have evolved. In fact, evolutionary adaptation is based on what unique skills and features are adaptive in the current environmental climate, which means that we are not ‘more’ evolved but uniquely evolved. Distinct from biological evolution – which can take many thousands/millions of years – are social and/or cultural evolution. These concepts highlight the need for individuals and communities to adapt to changes in their current environmental or social climate in order to increase their chances of survival. So I can’t help but wonder about the motivations behind Guaman Poma’s activities. Did he truly endorse the Catholic faith and colonial practices? Or were his behaviors more calculated with the hope of achieving a self-serving goal? And, perhaps more interesting, was he conscious of the motivations that drove his behavior?
2 replies on “Guaman Poma: Motivation and Behavior”
Hi Andree! I really enjoyed reading your critical analysis of The New Chronicle and Good Government. I think it is important to think about the intentions behind the writing so we are not taking the information for granted and can be cognizant of the biases.
“Did he truly endorse the Catholic faith and colonial practices? Or were his behaviors more calculated with the hope of achieving a self-serving goal?” It doesn’t seem to me that they are exclusive. Each text responds to a communicative need, and is constructed both from the author’s particular intention and from the enunciative conditions from which he can speak. In reality you have entered into a very complex problem… that is what those of us who study this type of literature dedicate ourselves to. Guamán Poma speaks from his cultural horizon, as we all do. But I was even more interested in your question about behavior. Does the discussion change if instead of calling it that way we call it habitus?