Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. One quick
Speaker 1: note before we begin. Noble Blood is on Patreon. If
Speaker 1: you want to support the show, you can go to
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Noble Blood Tales. It's where I
Speaker 1: upload scripts and bonus episodes like I watch period pieces
Speaker 1: with my friends once a month and talk about everything
Speaker 1: they get right and wrong. And also a brand new feature,
Speaker 1: which is if you subscribe at a medium level, you
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Speaker 1: drop a new exclusive sticker just for Patreon subscribers, available
Speaker 1: nowhere else, and you just get a brand new sticker
Speaker 1: every season that like an amazing artist designs. They're very cool.
Speaker 1: I love stickers, which is why I did it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: support the Patreon for bonus episodes, scripts, stickers and more.
Speaker 1: But of course, course, as always, the best possible support
Speaker 1: is just that you're listening to the show, So thank
Speaker 1: you so much. In nineteen oh eight, a researcher was
Speaker 1: going through the archives in the Royal Library in Copenhagen.
Speaker 1: He was an anthropologist named Richard Peachman. But we don't
Speaker 1: actually know specifically what he was looking for in the
Speaker 1: library that day, but I think we can probably assume
Speaker 1: that he had spent a long time in the dusty
Speaker 1: aisles of the archives, hours, days, even weeks. His eyes
Speaker 1: were probably going bleary from ours, staring at narrow cursive script.
Speaker 1: I imagine his hands slivered with paper cuts and his
Speaker 1: mind wrecked with exhaustion, and then, perhaps snuck on the
Speaker 1: bottom of a shelf or hidden within a largefolio, Richard
Speaker 1: saw something strange, something that looked unfamiliar and out of place.
Speaker 1: The German anthropologist pulled the artifact from where it had
Speaker 1: sat for decades, and he brushed the dust away. It
Speaker 1: was twelve hundred pages, a document written halfway around the world,
Speaker 1: meant for the King of Spain. And the document had
Speaker 1: made a long and circuitous journey. It had been stuck
Speaker 1: unseen within library collections, been bought and sold and inherited,
Speaker 1: passed through the hands of historians and collectors without anyone
Speaker 1: truly understanding what they were looking at until it came here,
Speaker 1: the Royal Library in Copenhagen, of all places, where a
Speaker 1: German anthropologist stumbled upon it nearly five centuries after it
Speaker 1: had been written. The document, at nearly twelve hundred pages long,
Speaker 1: is really more of a ton than a document at all,
Speaker 1: and though it ended up in Denmark, it actually had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Denmark at all. It's called El
Speaker 1: premier Nueva Coronica ibuen Gobierno, or the First New Chronicle
Speaker 1: of Good Government, and it's one of the most important
Speaker 1: historical tools we have for understanding the culture of the
Speaker 1: Inca people in Peru and their lives both before and
Speaker 1: during the occupation of the Spanish conquistadores. Written by a
Speaker 1: man named Guaman Poma, the text is at once funny
Speaker 1: and deadly serious. He wrote it as a plead to
Speaker 1: the Spanish king so that he might understand the harm
Speaker 1: that the colonists had been doing and the abuses of
Speaker 1: power that the Catholic missionaries had been doing in the
Speaker 1: name of their god. Poma's missive likely never even reached
Speaker 1: his intended target, but now years later we can read
Speaker 1: his message through time and understand what he was saying
Speaker 1: in a way that King Philip never would have understood.
Speaker 1: I'm danishwartz and this is noble blood. Francisco Pizarro was
Speaker 1: on the expedition that crossed the Isthmus of Panama in
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century, making him one of the first Europeans
Speaker 1: to ever see the Pacific Ocean. He tried twice to
Speaker 1: invade and conquer Peru, and he succeeded on his third
Speaker 1: attempt in the name of his native Spain. There were
Speaker 1: two especially important factors working in Pizarro's favor, a war
Speaker 1: of succession happening at the time within the Inca Empire,
Speaker 1: and smallpox that the Europeans brought with them. In fifteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, Pizarro built the now Spanish capital of Peru
Speaker 1: at Lima, the center of his and Spain's imperial power
Speaker 1: in what was now a viceroyalty. Possibly that very same year,
Speaker 1: Guaman Poma was born. On both sides of his family tree,
Speaker 1: Pomo was noble. His mother was descended from Inca royalty,
Speaker 1: and his father was royal through a link to the
Speaker 1: dynasty that preceded the Incas. We don't know exactly when
Speaker 1: Pomo was born, but we know that he grew up
Speaker 1: in parallel with the Spanish invasion. His nation was literally
Speaker 1: being reformed from under him politically and spiritually. His older
Speaker 1: half brother became a priest and converted the family to Christianity.
Speaker 1: It's through that connection that Poma, who was a native
Speaker 1: speaker of the language Guetua, learned Spanish and also learned
Speaker 1: how to read and write. Poma became something between a
Speaker 1: friend and an assistant to the Friar Martin de Murua,
Speaker 1: a Spaniard who would end up writing the first illustrated
Speaker 1: history of Peru. It's likely from his time spent with
Speaker 1: Martin de Murua that Poma honed his own skills as
Speaker 1: an artist, although he was never formerly trained. But Poma's
Speaker 1: ability to speak multiple languages served him in adulthood when
Speaker 1: he began working as an administrator within the government of
Speaker 1: the Vice Royalty, at least until he got in political trouble.
Speaker 1: The details of the legal case are a little difficult
Speaker 1: to parse out, but in fifteen ninety four, Poma represented
Speaker 1: his family in a land dispute about a claim on
Speaker 1: a parcel of land outside the town of Huamanga, which
Speaker 1: would have been entitled to them given their noble lineage.
Speaker 1: The case became a legal quagmire, lasting for six years,
Speaker 1: coming back again and again with a verdict against Poma
Speaker 1: and his family. Eventually, Poma was accused of either misrepresenting
Speaker 1: or outright lying about his family's lineage in order to
Speaker 1: take the land illegally. As punishment, he was sentenced to
Speaker 1: two hundred lashes and two years of exile from the
Speaker 1: town of Huamanga. The experience, both the ordeal of the
Speaker 1: trial and the humiliating punishment affected Poma greatly. He felt
Speaker 1: that he had suffered a tremendous injustice, and he began
Speaker 1: working in his own way toward creating a more just world.
Speaker 1: He started by helping represent other indigenous people in lawsuits,
Speaker 1: and by traveling as a missionary with his friar friend
Speaker 1: Martine de Moras and helping to convert the native people
Speaker 1: of the Andes. Around this time, Poma also began writing
Speaker 1: his letter to the King of Spain, telling him the
Speaker 1: story of his people and explaining what the Spanish invaders
Speaker 1: had gotten right and what they had gotten very, very wrong.
Speaker 1: During his travels with Martin de Merua, Poma was helping
Speaker 1: him with his chronicles by providing some illustrations. But we
Speaker 1: know from Poma's own writings that even though he valued
Speaker 1: having access to the Friar's library, he had a miserable
Speaker 1: time doing that work. I imagine it's much the same
Speaker 1: for any creative person trying to work on an independent
Speaker 1: project when their boss is demanding that they spend their
Speaker 1: creative energy on something that they the boss will get
Speaker 1: all the credit for El premier Nueva Coronica ibuen Gobierno
Speaker 1: took nearly a decade and a half. For Guaman Poma,
Speaker 1: it was started in sixteen hundred and likely wasn't fully
Speaker 1: completed until sixteen teen fifteen, and boy, oh boy, is
Speaker 1: it a real tone. The open letter contains one thousand,
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty nine pages and three hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety eight drawings that were done in black and white
Speaker 1: in a simple style that would lend itself well to
Speaker 1: mass printing. The text, too, is formatted with the conventions
Speaker 1: of type setting. Poma had imagined that after King Philip
Speaker 1: the Third of Spain reddit he would want the Nueba
Speaker 1: Karonica widely distributed. Now, let's take a brief detour to
Speaker 1: talk about King Philip the Third of Spain. The historian J. H.
Speaker 1: Elliott gives us a particularly colorful quote, describing the monarch
Speaker 1: as quote a pallid, anonymous creature whose only virtue appeared
Speaker 1: to reside in a total absence of vice. I will
Speaker 1: say King Philip Up's looks weren't his fault. He was
Speaker 1: a Habsburg and he fulfills all of the stereotypes of
Speaker 1: inbreeding that go along with it. His father had been
Speaker 1: the son of two first cousins, and he married his
Speaker 1: own niece, who also had cousin parents. And surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: our Philip the third would also marry a first cousin,
Speaker 1: though once removed, at this point the family tree was
Speaker 1: resembling more of a tumbleweed. Ultimately, Philip the Third's grandson
Speaker 1: would be the end of the Spanish Habsburg line. That
Speaker 1: grandson would be deeply unwell in basically every regard and
Speaker 1: unable to procreate. His autopsy would memorably observe that, upon
Speaker 1: death quote, his heart was the size of a peppercorn,
Speaker 1: his lungs corroded, his intestines rotten and gangrenous, he had
Speaker 1: a single testicle black as coal, and his head was
Speaker 1: full of water. But that nightmare child was still years
Speaker 1: away during Philip the Third's reign, during which the biological
Speaker 1: potency of the Habsburgs and the power of Spain were
Speaker 1: both in decline. Though Philip did rule over the imperialistic
Speaker 1: boom of the Spanish Empire, and he did lead a
Speaker 1: few successful early campaigns. In the Thirty Years War, economic
Speaker 1: trouble would prove to be impossible to shake, and Spain's
Speaker 1: time as a global superpower would soon be drawing to
Speaker 1: a close. But for the time being, Spain was ruling
Speaker 1: over Peru and guaman Poma wanted to create a document
Speaker 1: that would serve both as a history of the Andean
Speaker 1: civilization that had been swallowed by the Spanish conquistadors, and
Speaker 1: also to explain the damage that Europeans were doing in
Speaker 1: the king's name and in the name of the Church.
Speaker 1: Guaman Poma was Christian, which meant that he was all
Speaker 1: too aware of the rampant abuses of power among missionaries
Speaker 1: and those in positions of power. The first two thirds
Speaker 1: of the thousand plus page home are an attempt to
Speaker 1: teach King Philip the Third that the Andean civilizations were complex, sophisticated,
Speaker 1: and elegant in their structures. The last third of the document,
Speaker 1: titled Buen Gobierno, would then explain how all of that
Speaker 1: was destroyed by the Spanish. The Nuebo Chronica is structurally
Speaker 1: an incredibly ambitious and complex document that blends a number
Speaker 1: of literary genres and styles of art, to say nothing
Speaker 1: of the way that it jumps between Spanish, Latin, and
Speaker 1: two languages of native Andean people, Quechua and Amara. The
Speaker 1: drawings are composed using European rules of representation and space,
Speaker 1: but with the sort of lines that evoke the way
Speaker 1: Inca decoration is done with abstract geometric shapes. The purpose
Speaker 1: of those juxtaposed styles wasn't to be slapdash. It was
Speaker 1: to make a clear evocative point about the merging and
Speaker 1: crashing of these two cultures, like tectonic plates meeting and
Speaker 1: creating fissures in the earth. Take, for instance, one of
Speaker 1: the illustrations of a map done in the style of
Speaker 1: the ones that were done in Europe in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 1: You can sort of picture it right, with Europe at
Speaker 1: the center of the map, the seas vast, and with
Speaker 1: fantastical monsters like dragons and unicorns along the edges. Poma's
Speaker 1: map has all of that too, but he has Peru
Speaker 1: at the center of the world, and the map is
Speaker 1: centered not on Lima, the capital of colonial Peru, but
Speaker 1: on Cuzco. The capital of the Inca Empire. The top
Speaker 1: of the map has the coats of arms of the
Speaker 1: Pope and the Spanish Kingdom. But above that, even high,
Speaker 1: are the deities of the Inca, the moon goddess and
Speaker 1: the sun god Inti. It's fascinating, but there is sort
Speaker 1: of a challenge when the message is meant to be
Speaker 1: filtered through both Inca and Spanish understanding of symbols. Almost
Speaker 1: no one in the sixteen hundreds would have been able
Speaker 1: to understand the full meaning of what Guamanpoma was trying
Speaker 1: to communicate, and almost no one would know all of
Speaker 1: the languages that would be required to read the whole book.
Speaker 1: But by speaking the Spaniards's language, both literally and in
Speaker 1: terms of the layout of the drawings and structures of
Speaker 1: the essays, Guamanpomo was using a tool that's fairly common
Speaker 1: in debate, meeting someone at their level in order to
Speaker 1: persuade them of something. He was acknowledging the basic premises
Speaker 1: of the Spanish worldview in order to point out their hypocrisies.
Speaker 1: It's a persuasive strategy, and Poma also uses another strategy humor.
Speaker 1: His book Wants You Understand the symbols is very funny.
Speaker 1: One of the drawings is basically a political cartoon in it,
Speaker 1: and Inca asks what the Spanish eat? The response gold.
Speaker 1: But the book is also a tremendously serious work of scholarship,
Speaker 1: and it's important to our academic understanding of what pre
Speaker 1: colonial inc In life was like. Even though Guaman Poma
Speaker 1: was writing a generation after Spanish arrival, and even though
Speaker 1: he had never really known life before they came to Peru,
Speaker 1: he is an invaluable source. The Inca had had an
Speaker 1: advanced recording system. It was written using notts on cords,
Speaker 1: but researchers still struggle to fully translate it. Guaman Poma's writing,
Speaker 1: even if it isn't exactly firsthand, is still an essential
Speaker 1: guide to pre colonial Inca culture. Some of that cultural
Speaker 1: information is incredibly basic. One of Poma's illustrations shows that
Speaker 1: both men and women were planting potatoes. We learned from
Speaker 1: that about their division of labor and that the planting
Speaker 1: season was in December, and he's also giving us important history.
Speaker 1: One illustration depicts the beheading of the Inca leader Sapa
Speaker 1: Inca Atualpa, who defeated his brother in civil war to
Speaker 1: claim the throne to the Inca Empire after the death
Speaker 1: of their father, but who was later than captured by Pizarro.
Speaker 1: Though Attahualpa converted to Christianity and a ransom was raised
Speaker 1: for his release, the Spaniards still executed him. Poma's drawing
Speaker 1: shows Attahualpa tied to a flat table, held down by
Speaker 1: multiple European men. A Spanish soldier holds a knife at
Speaker 1: the leader's neck, with a mallet in his other hand,
Speaker 1: ready to strike a fatal blow. Attahualpa clutches across in
Speaker 1: his hands. Below are the words Andian nobles lament the
Speaker 1: killing of their innocent lord. It was a clear indictment
Speaker 1: of the cruelty of the Spanish conquistadors, but unfortunately Poma's
Speaker 1: message likely never reached King Philip of Spain. The book
Speaker 1: would have circulated among the court in Lima before traveling
Speaker 1: to Spain, but it ended up forgotten somewhere in a
Speaker 1: collection of rare documents that was eventually traded or gifted
Speaker 1: to the library in Copenhagen. But still Guaman Poma's message
Speaker 1: reached us. We now know the stories and structures of
Speaker 1: the Inca before the Spanish arrived we can see the
Speaker 1: depictions of what the Spanish did. Guaman Poma did tell
Speaker 1: his story to the Western world. We just received it
Speaker 1: a few hundred years late. That's the story of Guaman
Speaker 1: Poma and the Nuebo Kronica. But keep listening after a
Speaker 1: brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the symbolism. In one of his drawings. There's a notion
Speaker 1: in Inca culture that towns are divided both physically and
Speaker 1: socially into two halves. There's the lower half and the
Speaker 1: upper half, known as Hurin and Hanan. Those halves are
Speaker 1: symbolically associated with left and right. In one of Guamenpoma's drawings,
Speaker 1: the Pope is standing on the left hand side of
Speaker 1: the page, with the King of Spain kneeling on the right.
Speaker 1: That was fairly confusing to me. The left side is
Speaker 1: considered the lower side, and Guaman Poma would have always
Speaker 1: believed that the church is higher than the king. The
Speaker 1: king would have believed that too, and in the drawing
Speaker 1: the king is kneeling, So why would the pope be
Speaker 1: on the left, Well, he is on the left the
Speaker 1: reader's left. But if you were in the picture looking
Speaker 1: out the Pope is standing on the right with the
Speaker 1: King kneeling to his left. It's another little element that
Speaker 1: needs to be decoded, and it's also a little inadvertent
Speaker 1: reminder that sometimes we need to change our perspectives around.
Speaker 1: There's another little easter egg in the drawing. Guaman Poma
Speaker 1: put himself in the drawing small as a figure smaller
Speaker 1: than the king and kneeling down below him. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking at it from the drawings perspective, Guaman Poma
Speaker 1: drew himself in the king's superior position to the king's right.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by
Speaker 1: me Dana Schwartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston,
Speaker 1: hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The
Speaker 1: show is produced by rima Il Kayali, with supervising producer
Speaker 1: Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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