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In the second half of the First Chronicle and Good Government we see a drastic shift in tone. If the first half was an attempt to endear himself to the Spanish king, the second half is a reprimand of the Spanish state and people, and Guaman Poma isn’t pulling his punches. In so many cases […] read full post >>

The second half of Guaman Poma’s letter to the king was a lot less historical than the the first half and was a lot more of his opinion and him trying to convince his audience as he detailed things like Spanish abuses. By the way he writes it often seems that Guaman Poma is trying […] read full post >>

What is most interesting to me as we wrap up the entirety of “The First New Chronicle and Good Government” is the intended effect and audience of this piece of writing. While Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala addresses “Good Christians”, “Bad Christians”, and Christians of every other kind, his main audience is the Spanish […] read full post >>

Week 5: The First New Chronicle and Good Government (PT 2)For me, the second half of Guaman Poma's chronicle had a much clearer critique of the Spanish rule in Peru, although still a bit contradictory, and I thought that the ways in which he makes this... read full post >>

Week 5: The First New Chronicle and Good Government (PT 2)For me, the second half of Guaman Poma's chronicle had a much clearer critique of the Spanish rule in Peru, although still a bit contradictory, and I thought that the ways in which he makes this... read full post >>

Guaman Poma de Ayala’s The First New Chronicle and Good Government is an extremely derisive text on the balance of traditional Inca beliefs and devout Christianity, however, one can’t help but wonder if one hasn’t steamrollered the other. In some ways, there is a loss to be mourned here, that this text and not others […] read full post >>

I found this work fun, but disorienting. Given that this work, unlike the Popol Vuh is written for a non-Indigenous audience, I feel Poma de Ayala does a good job of contextualizing a lot of the information he presents, correlating them temporally to events his Spanish audience would have understood. Speaking o audience, however, Poma […] read full post >>

Going into this reading, I knew to expect the perspective of a colonizer from the context we had about the book. The first few sentences, however, were more startling than I was expecting. The Incan people were referred to almost immediately in terms of their “idiolatries and errors,” and Guaman Poma made no effort to […] read full post >>

The way that Guaman Poma wrote was a bit confusing at times. He would add in details, like the names of popes, that were not really needed or would repeat himself a bit. I had to re-read a couple times to clear up my confusion but overall it was fine. I found it very interesting […] read full post >>

Guaman Poma’s letter to the king is very detailed in explaining the history and the life of the Inca people, defining roles and the differences among the race and status of the people. The author of Guaman Poma de Ayala provides a lot of anecdotes to help the reader have a better understanding of Guaman […] read full post >>