Description
In the spirit of justice Blas Valera broke the entire rules-and paid together with his life. Hundreds of years later, his ghost has returned to haunt the official story. But is it the truth, and will it set the record straight?
This is the tale of Father Blas Valera, the child of a native Incan woman and Spanish father, caught between the ancient world of the Incas and the conquistadors of Spain. Valera, a Jesuit in sixteenth-century Peru, believed in what to his superiors used to be pure heresy: that the Incan culture, religion, and language were equal to their Christian counterparts.
As punishment for his beliefs he used to be imprisoned, beaten, and, in the end, exiled to Spain, where he died by the hands of English pirates in 1597.
Four centuries later, this Incan chronicler had been all but forgotten, until an Italian anthropologist came upon some startling documents in a private Neapolitan collection. The documents claimed, among other things, that Valera’s death had been faked by the Jesuits; that he had returned to Peru; and, intriguingly, at the same time as there had taught his followers that the Incas used a secret phonetic quipu-a record-keeping device of the Inca empire-to record history.
Far from settling anything, the documents created an international sensation among scholars and led to bitter disputes over how they will have to be assessed. Are they forgeries, authentic documents, or something in between? If genuine, they are going to radically reform our view of Inca culture and Valera. The writer insightfully examines the evidence, showing how fact and fiction intertwine, and brings the dimly understood history of this writer-priest to light.
This is the tale of Father Blas Valera, the child of a native Incan woman and Spanish father, caught between the ancient world of the Incas and the conquistadors of Spain. Valera, a Jesuit in sixteenth-century Peru, believed in what to his superiors used to be pure heresy: that the Incan culture, religion, and language were equal to their Christian counterparts.
As punishment for his beliefs he used to be imprisoned, beaten, and, in the end, exiled to Spain, where he died by the hands of English pirates in 1597.
Four centuries later, this Incan chronicler had been all but forgotten, until an Italian anthropologist came upon some startling documents in a private Neapolitan collection. The documents claimed, among other things, that Valera’s death had been faked by the Jesuits; that he had returned to Peru; and, intriguingly, at the same time as there had taught his followers that the Incas used a secret phonetic quipu-a record-keeping device of the Inca empire-to record history.
Far from settling anything, the documents created an international sensation among scholars and led to bitter disputes over how they will have to be assessed. Are they forgeries, authentic documents, or something in between? If genuine, they are going to radically reform our view of Inca culture and Valera. The writer insightfully examines the evidence, showing how fact and fiction intertwine, and brings the dimly understood history of this writer-priest to light.
Sabine Hyland is Co-director of a multidisciplinary project studying the Chanka people of Peru. She holds a doctoral degree in anthropology from Yale, and is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at St. Norbert College.
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