Sexism, Racism, the Bible and MORE

Reading Blog 4

In reading Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s The First New Chronicle and Good Government, I was struck by his retelling of bible stories that he linked with pre-Inca cultures in Peru. Now, I am no expert on Mama Waco, the story of Cain and Abel, or early Incan histories, so this is just my interpretation of the undertones of the text itself with historical context. 

There are some classic biblical, and just historical, sexist and racist tropes sprinkled into Guaman Poma’s writing, such as in his description of Cain as the ascendant of “the stock of blacks” (15). Attributing Cain as the ascendant of black people, as a justification for slavery, is prevalent in history, so reading this from an early 17th Century author isn’t unsurprising, but it is certainly thought-provoking given that our author is a Quechua nobleman in a Spanish colony. I know that the Transatlantic African slave trade reached Latin America and Peru specifically of course, but I am personally unsure if news of the enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean by the Spanish reached the author in the Andes. Either way, the presence of that racist attribution from Guaman Poma makes me wonder about his views on the enslavement of Africans, and of Indigenous peoples. 

I noticed the common sexist trope of the old-woman-is-a-witch (or bruja) in Mama Waco. She is described as “a great deceiver, idolater, and sorceress, who spoke with the demons of hell and who performed ceremonies and sorcery” (32). He essentially describes her as promiscuous, sleeping with “every man she wanted to in the whole pueblo,” which Guaman Poma describes as a “fraud” (32). Her magic and connection with the land is attributed to her communicating with demons, and the tone of the passage is disapproving of her being made queen of Cusco “because the Indians saw it as a miraculous thing for a woman to be able to talk with stones and

cliffs and mountains” (32). He says she was able to “make stones and cliffs and sticks and hills talk, because the demons replied to her” (32). His statements about her keeping “[the Indians] deceived and submissive” using these magical powers have clear sexist undertones, that it is immoral for her to dominate and share wisdom (32). It reminds me of a lot of similar rhetoric from this time regarding accusations of witchcraft lobbed towards female community leaders and healers, specifically during the Inquisition era, which had already passed its height at the time of writing (by about 80 years or so), but was certainly not over and extremely culturally influential on later generations.

Anyways, that’s just my take!