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It's such a shame that the coding system used by quipus was lost for so long. I bet a lot of quipus were just thrown away because nobody could read them anymore.
The quipu conventions used by the quipucamayocs, the Incan IRS, are still lost.
The Qhapaq Simi language used by the Inca nobility is lost forever too.
Wasn't this intentional (i.e. systematic destruction of records, and suppression of use) ?
> The Council banned and ordered the burning of all Quipus in 1583 because they were used to record offerings to non-Christian gods and were therefore considered idolatrous objects and an obstacle to religious conversion.
OK, I'll be going a little meta with this comment and thread, so hopefully dang will allow me some leeway.
The value of Huamán Poma's chronicle is not just the historical account per se, but the fact that it appeals to the arguments, values and institutions that justified the colonization of his country.
Obviously, whatever arguments he presented, even if they had reached the Spanish court, would have been discarded by the political necessities of the moment. Multiple times (e.g. Peace of Utrecht, Congress of Vienna, Berlin Conference) the great powers have used symbolic statements, forgotten treaties, obscure precedents... to legitimize the partition or annexation of a territory; or the independence or promoted status of some other territories perhaps sharing remarkable circumstances to the above-mentioned and now-divided territory. The point is, the legal reasoning comes after the political decision.
In this thread we've seen something similar. Multiple users have presented some of the arguments that one usually finds among a very particular political group in Spanish politics. "They were provinces, not colonies", "They were not conquered but liberated", "They died mostly of disease", "Spanish laws protected the new citizens". Those are staples of Spanish nationalism (particularly right-wing), aiming to defend the legitimacy of the decisions of XVIth century monarchs and ultimately to present an attractive national narrative.
Out of respect for this site and its rules, I will not engage those users, but... we find ourselves now in a similar situation of that of Huamán: should we contest those interpretations? Will otherwise internet archeologists from the XXXIst century conclude that those interpretations were common and shared among the societies of both Spain and Peru (because "el que calla otorga", i.e. silence gives consent)? From Huamán Poma's history we should conclude that contesting an argument, just "showing up" is in itself the most powerful argument, isn't it?
> From Huamán Poma's history we should conclude that contesting an argument, just "showing up" is in itself the most powerful argument, isn't it?
Absolutely. I long ago realised the futility of random arguments on the internet towards changing people's minds, but I keep going given I enjoy it too much.
But for everyone writing a comment, 10 other people are reading along. So I write for the lurkers... perhaps my reasonable and well-referenced comments are the ones they find the most persuasive.
And indeed, I've been contacted out of the blue by, eg religious parents who never cared enough to bother thinking about science much themselves and so accepted creationism just as a default, but whose kids have developed an interest and want to know about how one can both be a Christian and accept evolution. (Not as much anymore though, I've moved on to other areas.)
Likewise when I used to engage with an unreasonable relative,I was occasionally thanked privately by a stranger. There was no chance of changing the mind of the person I was arguing with, but many other people saw such things.
A note of warning: I'm afraid this topic brings many propagandists. Both in the "Spanish nationalist" side and in the "anti-Spanish" retoric.
The facts are there, search for information, but be aware that for many years the English language narrative of the History of Spain has been dominated by the Black Legend [1].
All in this topic had a political purpose since the start. Is pretty obvious.
We had heard this shit for years and is always the same thing. They even called us the "PIGS" not so long ago... The science and education and creation are quickly dismissed, appropriated by third parts or hidden and 'rediscovered' later. The bad parts are always stressed, appealing to emotion and throwing the logic by the window. Adult people that should use their brains, really seem to believe that each one in a bunch of Spaniards killed like 30 natives by minute for ten years, without stopping to sleep or dinner, 24 hours a day... and when are told a much more simple and logical explanation, they just dismiss it as false without thinking for a second.
My bet is that nothing in this book will radically change the history, and that the author of the review could expand their mind and benefit to a quick visit to one of the Spanish or American libraries that keep thousands of American manuscripts freely available to researchers about that age.
I'm aware also that suggesting some people to go to a library and open a real history book written by a real hispanist to verify the facts by themselves is losing my time.
Well, for some of them, it is a form of distraction:
See how the current president of Mexico (López Obrador) is making exagerated remarks about the Spanish conquest of Mexico, calling for reparations and asking for an official apology. Why now?
- Mexico is suffering poverty and a wave of killings related to "narcos".
- In Mexico there is a European-descendent oligarchy that controls the country.
- It is a form of keeping the country united and creating an official narrative.
What about the American conquest of Mexico? And the Mexican Empire where the French conquered the country?
On the other hand, it's also the narrative that British and Americans did nothing wrong, so again, it is a form of distraction. Or as Goebbles said "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth".
The poor natives in Peru were doomed once the Spanish discovered all of the silver present. I believe they basically enslaved the local indigenous population.
Ironically, all the gold and silver the Spanish extracted and transferred to Spain did the Spanish little good, as it simply resulted in inflation.
Like what we do today with fiat money.
The main losers of this were all the European nations which did not get the gold/silver influx, as they also got the same inflation but without the compensating revenue.
"did the Spanish little good" ?!? All of South America is now Spanish speaking.. how did that happen ? and their genetics are spread thoroughly.. I dont see 580 million people speaking the Dutch language (who were known as cooperators, traders, culturally respectful in many cases)
edit- respeito ao Brasil, lar da vuvuzela barulhenta
Correction: most of South America. Brazil was a Portuguese colony thanks to the Treaty of Tordesilhas from 1494 and therefore speaks Portuguese, not Spanish.
(Brazilian gold ended up in England, helping fuel the industrial revolution)
> I dont see 580 million people speaking the Dutch language (who were known as cooperators, traders, culturally respectful in many cases)
I don't mean to engage in a flame war like we saw above, but "cooperators, culturally respectful" does not apply to any European Empire, afaik:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/10/dutch-colonial-history-...
> the Dutch language (who were known as cooperators, traders, culturally respectful in many cases)
Really? The Dutch brutally enslaved large parts of Africa and Asia.
> All
Brazil, with the largest area, population, and economy doesn't count?
The US speaks English. Fat lot of good that did the colonial British :-)
Hey, the Spaniards fought the Ottomans and the French incessantly for quite a while using the silver from the Americas. ;) Also the Spanish defaulted on loans a few times during this period. So yeah, they kinda spent all their money on stuff that did more harm in the long run.
If this is what we did to other Homo sapiens, I have no doubts about the majority stakeholder* in the destruction of our related hominin populations.
Was he the one with all the beef?
Thanks for catching my faunatastic typo
Tangent: Bartholome de las Casas' 1552 work is especially enlightening.