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| May 05, 2010 04:05PM |
This article discusses the problems of trying to sort out Quechua words and other words that later had Spanish influence.
Now here you have information from some of the first Spanish to come into Peru, and from indigenous writers such as Garcilaso de la Vega. He writing is especially important as his mother was a member of the Incan royalty and his father a Spanish. His writings are considered by most Andeanists to be the most accurate accounting.
Alternative writers and followers always say that we should ask the people themselves about their history. I've often replied that they do! Here, in this case, we have one of the most accurate writers about Andean pre-Columbian history and the conquest, the son of two people who lived during the conquest; and he says that the chicken was the first animal introduced by the Spanish.
Of the chroniclers only Acosta thought that the chicken was indigenous, but he arrived in Peru very late when compared to the other chroniclers, and he was Spanish. The indigenous writers all agree that the chicken was introduced.
Kat
Ma'at Moderator
Founder and Director of The Hall of Ma'at
Contributing author to Archaeological Fantasies:
How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public
"If you panic, you're lost" -- W. T. 'Watertight' Southard
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2010 06:38PM by Katherine Reece.
Quote
...but we can use the vital oral
traditions among contemporary Quechua speakers, travelogues, chronicles,
and administrative documents from the colonial period, and the archaeological
record to isolate possible definitions for particularly crucial or revealing
categories of thought. Wallpa, the chicken, is one such category; it refers to an
animal imported from Europe but is laden with multiple and complex connotations
that evidently predate the arrival of the Spaniards. This paradox impelled
early chroniclers, among them Acosta (I977 [I590]), Cobo (I956
[I653]), Garcilaso de la Vega (I960 [I609]) and Santacruz Pachacuti (I968
[I6I3]), to engage in convoluted arguments on how the Quechua word wallpa
came to denote the chicken. I will show in this article that the Quechua-speaking people elaborated a unique indigenous concept based upon the
physical attributes of the chicken and the coincidence of its introduction to
the New World with cataclysmic disruptions of the old social order.
[...]
Acosta (I977 [1590]: z8o-86) believed the chicken to be indigenous to the
New World, but few shared his belief. Cobo (1956 [1653]: 154), who followed
both Acosta and Polo de Ondegardo in much of his interpretation of
Inca natural history, discusses at length the problem of determining whether
or not certain plants and animals were indigenous to the New World. The
existence of native words for particular plants or animals constituted only
partial proof for him that they were indigenous: "It could be that the Indians
gave it such a name because of some similarity or affinity it had with something
that really signified that name." This was the notorious case of the
chicken: "It is known they [these things] did not exist in this land before the
Spaniardsp opulated it; like the chicken, atahualpa. .. because it first signifies
an Inca king."
According to Garcilaso de la Vega (I960 [I609]: 363-65), the chicken
was the first animal introduced to Peru. Wallpa came to mean chicken
in Quechua because the crowing rooster seemed to be repeating the Inca
Atahualpa's name. Garcilaso adds that Atahualpa's enemies interpreted the
rooster's crowing as a mockery of Atahualpa, while his allies believed the
rooster crowed to keep alive the memory of Atahualpa's name. Thus the
nameless chicken was labeled as wallpa.
The Chicken in Andean History and Myth: The Quechua Concept of Wallpa Linda J. Seligmann Ethnohistory, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Spring, 1987), pp. 139-170
Now here you have information from some of the first Spanish to come into Peru, and from indigenous writers such as Garcilaso de la Vega. He writing is especially important as his mother was a member of the Incan royalty and his father a Spanish. His writings are considered by most Andeanists to be the most accurate accounting.
Alternative writers and followers always say that we should ask the people themselves about their history. I've often replied that they do! Here, in this case, we have one of the most accurate writers about Andean pre-Columbian history and the conquest, the son of two people who lived during the conquest; and he says that the chicken was the first animal introduced by the Spanish.
Of the chroniclers only Acosta thought that the chicken was indigenous, but he arrived in Peru very late when compared to the other chroniclers, and he was Spanish. The indigenous writers all agree that the chicken was introduced.
Kat
Ma'at Moderator
Founder and Director of The Hall of Ma'at
Contributing author to Archaeological Fantasies:
How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public
"If you panic, you're lost" -- W. T. 'Watertight' Southard
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2010 06:38PM by Katherine Reece.
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