By the will of fate, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega may be considered as the most famous chronicler of the New World. As the son of an Inca princess and conquistador, he had a truly unique opportunity to learn the details of the history of pre-Hispanic Peru first-hand from numerous maternal relatives.
He repeatedly mentions that in order to clarify certain circumstances of the past, he had multiple conversations with them. His Royal Commentaries were published in the early 17th century and quickly gained popularity in many countries (Polar). Until the first half of the 20th century, when several hitherto unpublished chronicles were discovered in the archives at once, Garcilaso’s work was considered the main source for the Inca state.
It seems reasonable to claim that Commentaries has not lost its significance even today – Inca’s book contains plenty of crucial characteristics of the mestiza chronicle. This paper aims to investigate the way in which the mestizaje is formulated in the work of the Inca, referring to the examples from the text.
Commentaries might be perceived as quite a complex text to get acquainted with from a linguistic perspective. The language that Garcilaso uses in the work is unique and significant (Brading 3). The author emphasizes several critical points in this regard at the very beginning of Commentaries – in Preface to the Reader. De la Vega states that – given his descent – he aspires to use original Indian expressions not typical to the Spanish language and their proper interpretation as there was misinterpretation within his contemporaries-historians’ works (1168).
He argues that his “purpose is … to furnish a commentary and gloss, and to interpret many Indian expressions which they, as strangers to the tongue, have rendered inappropriately” (1168). The prominent example and de la Vega’s arguing in the framework of this issue is, again, at the beginning of Commentaries – Notes on the General Language of the Indians of Peru. Here, he explains the crucial differences between the Indian and Spanish languages within the scope of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary that might cause the mentioned misinterpretation. Later, in the 19th chapter of the first book, he again puts an emphasis on linguistic issues caused by language complexity.
In order to avoid the latter, de la Vega says that he will write a number of confusing words like an Indian, giving an exhaustive explanation further, as well as referring to authors who utilized these words wrongly. For instance, the second chapter of the second book is dedicated to the Incas’ way to “the true God, our Lord,” as well as to the word “Pachacámac.”
Its fullest sense is “him who does the universe what the soul does to the body” (de la Vega 2306). The author notes that many Spaniards interpreted this word inappropriately as they could not analyze its linguistic peculiarities and background sufficiently. What is more, here, de la Vega provides a thesis about the prerequisites for the transition of the Indians to monotheism, which depicted them from the perspective of potential religious development (Duviols and Velen 40).
Furthermore, the chronicler reveals the beauty that is the poetry of Inca philosophers and poets. In the 27th chapter of the second book, de la Vega shows the mentioned artists have their own significant style that differs from the Spanish, Latin, and other ones (3385). By exploring this cultural aspect of the Incas life, he aims to point out they are not savages without any intelligence.
To this purpose, after citing Padre Blas Valera’s passage regarding the Indians’ rituals of sacrificing, de la Vega states that there were other Indians less cruel in their sacrifices (1664). They used either human blood without murdering, animals, or food. De la Vega does his best to show that the Incas had certain traits of the civilizing process.
The latter statement might also be supported by the fact that he constantly draws parallels with the Spanish cultural world that he considers highly developed. For example, in De la Vega’s story on how he obtained information from his uncle regarding the origin of the Inca kings of Peru, the following was stated. This uncle said that despite the Incas did not have writings to preserve the memory of past events like Spaniards, they listened to the tales of the ancestors and kept them in heart (de la Vega 1801).
It might be assumed that the chronicler clearly sees the seeds of a civilized state of mind within the Incas, which many of them develop with the flow of time. De la Vega pays a lot of attention to the fact that the Incas respect their history and descent, which is especially visible from the 40th chapter of the ninth book.
It should be noticed that the discussed de la Vega’s work has always been praised for its consistency and coherency. However, despite his apparent and noble attempts to advocate both worlds – Inca and Hispanic, – some scholars claim that, by bringing such a great extent of Spaniards’ cultural significance, he supported their colonial aspirations (Fiengo-Warn 126). Nevertheless, there is still a historical accuracy that only a native Inca historian could provide true evaluation due to linguistic and cultural inclusion.
Works Cited
Brading, David. “The Incas and the Renaissance: The Royal Commentaries of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.” Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1986, pp. 1-23.
de la Vega, Garcilaso el Inca. Royal Commentaries of the Incas. University of Texas Press, 2014.
Duviols, Pierre, and Victor A. Velen. “The Inca Garcilaso De La Vega Humanist Interpreter of the Inca Religion.” Diogenes, vol. 12, no. 47, 1964, pp. 36-52.
Fiengo-Warn, Aurora. “Reconciling the Divided Self: Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s Royal Commentaries and His Platonic View of the Conquest of Perú.” Revista de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica, vol. 29, no. 1, 2003, pp. 119-127.
Polar, Antonio Cornejo. “Garcilaso Inca de la Vega.” Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Web.