Untranslatable Huacas: The Languages of Cultural Appropriation in Early Modern Spanish Chronicles in Peru (1550-1615)

This article examines a series of chronicles in Spanish written in the second half of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries by focusing on the untranslatability of the Quechua term w'aka. I explore a corpus of texts that present different interpretations of the word, which is transc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The sixteenth century journal
Main Author: Aristondo, Miguel Ibáñez (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc. 2021
In: The sixteenth century journal
Year: 2021, Volume: 52, Issue: 3, Pages: 629-646
RelBib Classification:AF Geography of religion
CD Christianity and Culture
FD Contextual theology
KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history
KBH Iberian Peninsula
KBR Latin America
Further subjects:B HISTORICAL source material
B CULTURAL appropriation
B PERUVIAN history, 1548-1820
B HUACAS
B QUECHUA (South American people)
B QUECHUA language
B TRANSLATING & interpreting
B Catholic missions
B Spanish colonies
Description
Summary:This article examines a series of chronicles in Spanish written in the second half of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries by focusing on the untranslatability of the Quechua term w'aka. I explore a corpus of texts that present different interpretations of the word, which is transcribed as huaca or guaca in Spanish sources. The article examines the untranslatability of the word in the writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas, José de Acosta, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, and the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Moreover, the article provides an interpretation about how the practice of untranslatability from indigenous languages to Spanish reveals mechanisms of cultural domination. After examining how writers incorporated the term huaca into their chronicles, I argue that the untranslatability of the native word reflects specific dynamics of appropriation that writers grappled with as they negotiated the terms of Spanish cultural domination in Peru.
ISSN:2326-0726
Contains:Enthalten in: The sixteenth century journal