Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Andes

Abstract

The formation of the colonial state in the Andes was a daunting task for the Spanish administrators, who encountered an empire with its own unique set of administrative processes, rules, and sense of pride. The Incas were not easily subjugated and were often up to the challenge of meeting the new directives with their own agenda. What the Incas did not have was a writing system based on letters. However, the noble class quickly realized that in order to survive and protect their property and rights of inheritance, they had to adapt to rather than reject the new administration and learn new skills. It may come as a surprise to some that the Incas proved to be quick learners, and manipulators in some cases, as they responded to new legal demands and the often overwhelming documentary, contractual, and legalistic systems brought by the Spanish.In Beyond the Lettered City, the authors examine how the imposition of letters and visual strategies impacted indigenous groups in the Northern Andes and how crucial these strategies were to the advancement of the political agendas of conquered and conquerors. The title of the book refers to the work of Angel Rama, one of Latin America’s most respected theorists, whose groundbreaking study The Lettered City (1996, originally published in 1984) presented an overview of the power of the written word in the formation of society. His “lettered city” was a social constellation built on the written language and the construction of the urban landscape. In his analysis of colonial rule, Rama introduced the elite group of literate men called letrados. In Beyond the Lettered City, the authors expand the strict definition posited by Rama, in which alphabetic inscription is regarded as the sole means by which much was accomplished, with the introduction, or further elucidation, of other ways that literacy was crucial through imagery, mapping, heraldry, performance, and spatial order. They also remove the elitism of Rama’s letra-dos by introducing ordinary men who were unfamiliar with either the alphabet or pictorial representation, but learned new technologies and to understand that what was represented was not embodied in the image, but referred to something outside of it — deferred referentiality. Such accomplishments pay tribute to a tenacious group of men determined to succeed in a new world order. To tell their story, the authors go beyond the written word to focus on a selection of documents, images, and case studies, and to consider the history of documentation and its ability to manipulate the past, present, and future.Rather than tackle the entire Inca Empire and the more familiar sociopolitical structures in Cusco dominated by its nobility, they chose to follow the remarkable case of Don Diego de Torres, the hereditary chief or cacique of the Muisca town of Turme-qué, near Bogotá, who produced innumerable legal petitions in support of his rights and those of his community. This highly educated and literate mestizo enriched his documents with maps and other examples of visual symbolic techniques. His fascinating and admirable life serves as the basis for the introduction of a number of subjects and represents the eloquence of the colonial indigenous voice, through local caciques, not noble lords. Within the contours of literacy described in the book, the obvious significance of alphabetic writing for the granting of titles and registering of wills, contracts, and territory is further expanded into the visual, which included new symbolic systems, including manuscript illumination, portraiture, religious imagery in painting and sculpture, murals, weaving, genealogies, and heraldry.One of the most interesting chapters, “The King’s Quillica and the Rituality of Literacy,” tells how the majority of the indigenous population, not educated or literate, participated in the colonial literate world. The authors focus on performative practices that place literacy on display as an action or gesture. This includes the king’s signature, the royal seal, the ritual kiss, placing of documents on the head, and quillica, an ambiguous word that is used in the Andes to invoke the secular ritual pertaining to a real provision. Literacy, whether alphabetic or visual, is seen as an intimately physical practice that involves the human body in a series of learned activities. Thus, spatial order is brought to intersect with the order of the word and further expand the discussion. The study of the indigenous lettered city must go beyond city plans and the words of letrados to include a far more expansive indigenous audience and the newly arrived Spaniards who become part of their future.Beyond the Lettered City reveals the complexity of Andean society, the challenges of new administrative procedures, and the interaction between Spaniards and the indigenous peoples who were able to become their own advocates.