When reading Guaman Poma, I was struck – which I have been often, it seems – by his theory and justification for a new, or different, form of Spanish colonialism. His ‘Catholicization’ of the Andean Indigenous cosmic vision was a very (morbidly) interesting method of colonial imposition. I was expecting a more ‘direct’ form of erasure, such as the forcing of Catholic belief onto the Indigenous population while also regulating, banning, or destroying their unique worldviews. This is only sort of the case; instead, Guaman Poma sort of canonized the Indigenous worldview (broadly speaking) within a Biblical framework. By including them as descendants of Noah, for example, he doesn’t actually alienate the Indigenous and their beliefs from the Catholic world. He basically just calls them confused, misguided, idolatrous, but still somewhat admirable as worshippers of ‘the divine’. This is a Catholic generalization; assuming that the Indigenous Andeans considered their worship practices ‘otherworldly’ could be far from correct. Also, this somewhat sympathetic depiction of Indigenous Andeans is still an oppressive, imposing account that justifies colonialism. In other words, different means to the same end. Still, the lack of at least direct ‘otherization’ regarding the Indigenous Andeans felt rather unique. Further, I’m really curious as to how Indigenous forms of Catholicism have developed in the Andes. Are there Indigenous worldviews imbued within Catholic beliefs? How do people who would identify with Andean Indigeneity feel about Catholicism now? Granted, being ‘curious’ about the effects of a culture’s worldviews being imposed upon and eroded by colonialism feels insensitive. Curious, but deeply saddened, feels like a much better way to say it. In fact, much of the reading and experience we’ve done, while so fascinating, makes me really sad. Grace brought up a very validating point a few hours ago about how sad this Guaman Poma reading is. Leaving his positionality out of the question, he is sort of writing on behalf of Indigenous Andeans, defending their capability of converting while critiquing the cruelty of Spanish colonialism. Cruelly, the reality of what the Spanish were doing to Indigenous Andeans was far different than the plan Guaman Poma so painstakingly laid out. As has been mentioned, his writing never reached the Crown. It is worth wondering if he would have had any sway in that sphere, but I very much doubt it. Much of Guaman Poma’s feelings toward the Indigenous Andeans, while deeply contaminated with Catholicism, are informed (apparently) by his lived experience. Obviously, this is not the case regarding the members of Spanish royalty. I forgot which Spanish king it was that never visited ‘the Indies’; or maybe it was none of them? What a bunch of evil fuckers.
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Guaman Poma’s brand of colonialism
3 replies on “Guaman Poma’s brand of colonialism”
I too was left with many of the same questions after reading Poma’s work. I was pretty struck by his heavily religious based text. Despite being incorrect in his views of Indigenous peoples being “misguided” in their worship, I very much wonder what pushed Poma to obtain such Catholic beliefs being an Indigenous person himself
Hi Julian, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Guaman Poma. I think we always have to read these texts through the lens of the time and context they were written. While we see its effect now as you mention above as a sympathization with the colonial regime, its intent may have more earnest. But alas, I suppose we can’t really know and that’s why people spend years studying the merit of these texts. To answer your question about syncretism, I am not sure about the effect of Andean cosmovision on Catholicism as a whole but Catholicism has been traditionally very “flexible” with incorporating “pagan” ideologies (see Christmas trees, voodoo in the West Indies etc)
“This is a Catholic generalization(.)” Continuing in line with what Morgan already commented, we must remember that the first Evangelization in Latin America did not focus so much on destroying indigenous religiosity but rather on obsessively searching for similarities between Christianity and forms of beliefs unknown to them. Many of the Catholic priests even came to accept that Christianity had already been preached before in the “New World” and that it was only necessary to reorient existing religiosity. (It is a fascinating topic that we unfortunately cannot go into detail about.) It is true: Catholics manipulate discourse and practices by adopting what suits them. But they are not the only ones who can play that game, for their own interest.