The travels of Pedro de Cieza de Léon; part 2

by Pedro de Cieza de León

In the final decision of a question of this kind, it is always an advantage to have an able antagonist who will take the trouble to state all that can be said against the generally received opinion. In the present case the “Devil’s Advocate” is no less a person than General Don Bartolomé Mitré, the ex-President of the Argentine Republic. General Mitré maintains that the drama of Ollantay is entirely of Spanish origin, and that it was written in modern times.[47] His opinion is not to be despised; for he is evidently a man of extensive reading, and is possessed of critical insight of a high order. But his knowledge of the Quichua language and of the Spanish authors who wrote in the first century after the conquest of Peru is limited, as will presently appear. Nevertheless, the accomplished general and statesman would no doubt have proved his case if it had been possible. The facts, however, are too numerous, and too closely arrayed against him. His attack was well planned and gallantly delivered, but it has utterly failed.[48]

The General’s first assault is made upon the evidence of the existence of dramatic compositions among the Yncas. Garcilasso de la Vega is declared to be the sole authority, and he is unceremoniously set aside as unworthy of credit. Cieza de Leon and Acosta are then triumphantly referred to as being absolutely silent on the subject. But General Mitré had evidently only read the first part of Cieza de Leon, and was still ignorant of the contents of the present volume. He was equally ignorant of the work of Salcamayhua, where the names of four different kinds of dramatic compositions are given. There is, quite independently of the positive statement of Garcilasso, ample evidence of the existence of a drama of some kind in the time of the Yncas.

His next point is that Ollantay is throughout, in general form and minute details, a Christian and cavalieresque play de capa y espada, such as those of Lope de Vega and Calderon. Mr. Ticknor says that comedias de capa y espada excluded those dramas in which royal personages appear; their main and moving principle is gallantry; the story is almost always involved and intriguing; and accompanied with an underplot and parody on the characters and adventures of the principal parties, formed out of those of the servants and other inferior personages.[49] Ollantay is a historical play including royal personages; the main and moving principle is not gallantry of the capa y espada type, the story is simple and not intriguing, and it is not accompanied with an underplot. So that the Quichua drama is not only unlike a Spanish comedia de capa y espada, but it would be difficult to find two classes of compositions, both being dramatic, which are more completely distinct from each other.

Next, General Mitré objects that the sentiments prevailing in Ollantay are pride of caste, conjugal fidelity, military spirit, filial love, humanity to the vanquished, horror of polygamy, royal magnanimity, which are proper to European civilisation, but opposed to all that is known of Ynca social life. Yet pride of caste is described, by nearly all writers on the subject, as a noteworthy characteristic of the Ynca family. There are many touching stories told of conjugal fidelity and filial love among the Peruvians by writers contemporaneous with the conquest; and I am tempted to relate one of these stories at the end of the present critical notice. The military spirit was sedulously cultivated by the Yncas, who were always engaged in new conquests. The exercise of magnanimity and of humanity to the conquered was constantly inculcated, and was a part of the established policy of the Yncas, as we are told by nearly all the early writers. Polygamy is nowhere spoken of with horror in Ollantay. All the sentiments enumerated by General Mitré as peculiar to European civilisation, are those which went towards the formation of the best part of the Ynca character, and which would naturally be met with in a Quichua drama.

The next objection is that rebellion is approved in the drama of Ollantay, and that such countenance would be impossible at a despotic court like that of the Yncas. The remark applies equally to the court of Spain. It may be admitted that the encouragement of rebellion as a principle would not be tolerated unless it eventually redounded to the credit of the sovereign. Successful rebellion was not unknown in Ynca history, and Yupanqui Pachacutec himself, the sovereign of the play, deposed his brother Urco, according to Cieza de Leon. That story would not be heard with displeasure. Nor would that of Ollantay, where the rebel is subdued, and where the magnanimity of the sovereign is celebrated.

The whole of the arguments of the General, based on internal evidence afforded by words and passages in the play, may be set aside, because none of the words upon which he relies as evidence of Spanish origin are to be found in the true version. The true version must be considered as that which excludes all words and passages which are not common to all the older manuscripts. On this principle all the words relied upon by the General are corrupt readings which have crept in through the carelessness of copiers.[50]

General Mitré objects that the High Priest alludes to the broken thread of destiny, which is a strictly Greek image. He misunderstands the passage. The High Priest compares the consequence of the act, which will bring destruction on Ollantay, not with the thread of destiny entangled and severed, but with the wool and frame of a native weaving machine overturned and broken, a natural and indigenous figure suggested by things often before the speaker’s own eyes. The remainder of the General’s attack is occupied in efforts to find traces of old world ideas in Ollantay, most of his analogies being very far-fetched. There is a yaravi or song, describing the beauty of the heroine, which the General compares with the Song of Solomon. The only resemblance is that both describe personal beauty by comparisons with the beauties of nature, and this is common to nearly all poetry. But General Mitré, by using Zegarra’s somewhat free translation, attributes figures to the song which it does not contain, such as a “countenance white and transparent as alabaster, bosoms as white as pieces of ice, cheeks like roses fallen on snow, eyebrows like bows sending forth burning and slaughter-dealing arrows, fingers like bolls of opening cotton.” There is nothing of all this in the authentic text. In the real song all the similes are strictly and essentially Quichuan. Her forehead is compared to Quilla, the moon; her eyes, not to arrows, but to two suns; her eyebrows to rainbows, the insignia of the Yncas. Her tresses are black, mixed with gold, just as the plaited hair of an Ynca princess is represented in an ancient picture at Cuzco. The bloom of her cheek is compared with the achancaray, a red flower peculiar to Peru; her bosoms, not to snow, but to the utcu swelling out of the bolls, a simile which is also essentially Peruvian. These figures show that the yaravi could not possibly have been composed anywhere but in the land where the achancaray and the utcu flourish within sight of the snows of the Andes. General Mitré objects to a copper-coloured beauty being praised for her fairness, and to her skin being compared with snow. The Ynca princesses, as we know from some ancient pictures and descriptions, were naturally much fairer than the common people, and this striking difference would as naturally lead to fairness of skin being prized, celebrated, exaggerated, and, by a poetical licence, compared with the fairest thing in the Peruvian landscape.

Still referring to an erroneous reading, General Mitré objects that the Ynca says:—“Take this ring in thy hand, that thou mayest never forget that it is thy duty to show clemency to all. Rise, thou art a hero,”—which, he suggests, must be an idea taken from arming knights in the middle ages. Possibly; but the Ynca never makes such a speech in the authentic text[51] of Ollantay. He says:—“Receive this head dress, that thou mayest command my army, and this arrow, that I destine for you.” The presentation of a head-dress is a peculiarly Yncarial ceremony, and this passage is one among many which furnish strong internal proofs of the antiquity of the drama.

The critic then proceeds to refer to three more alleged anachronisms. The deceased Ynca is said to be spoken of as buried, when Yncas were always embalmed, and the bodies preserved in the temple; black is mentioned as the colour for mourning, when the Yncas used grey; and the city of Cuzco is said to have elected a new Ynca, though the Peruvian monarchy was hereditary. The replies are that the word pampasacta from pampani, to bury, is used, in the oldest songs, for interments of every kind; that the word for mourning, in the authentic version, is not yana (black), but ccica (grey); and that the great men of Cuzco, in the cases of this very Ynca Yupanqui (according to Cieza de Leon) and others, did select the sovereign under special circumstances.