Andalusia, Spain, around 1529. We do not know much about his early life,
although it is clear that he was ordained as a secular priest before traveling to
the New World. Within a year of his arrival in Peru in 1567, he became
involved in an ecclesiastical visita, inspecting parishes and investigating
native religious practices in Arequipa. He attended and probably testified at
two great provincial church councils—the Third Lima Council, in 1583, and
the Fourth Lima Council, in 1591. During his long career, he was accused of
taking goods from Indians on his anti-idolatry inspection tours. He was
cleared of all charges, and subsequently sought recognition for his work by
the award of a bishopric or archbishopric, to no avail. He is thought to have
died around 1610.
The principal work by Albornoz that pertains to the study of the Incas is a
document entitled Instrucción para descubrir todas las guacas del Pirú y sus
camayos y haziendas (Instruction for the Discovery of all the Huacas of Peru
and Their Keepers/Officials and Property”), which was probably written
between 1581 and 1585. This document describes different types of Andean
cults, the properties endowed to them, as well as the names of a great many
huacas, or sacred places, in and around Cuzco and southern Peru including
Arequipa and Ayacucho, as well as a few in northern Peru and as far north as
modern Ecuador. In its detailing of huacas, aside from those that pertained to
Cuzco’s Ceque system, as recorded in the chronicle of Bernabé Cobo,
Albornoz’s account provides us with insights into Andean concepts of the
“sacred” linked to places in the landscape beyond the Cuzco heartland.
Albornoz was also instrumental in persecuting native peoples involved in
the Taqui Oncoy (dancing sickness), an indigenous messianic movement that
swept through the southern highlands of Peru in the 1560s and early 1570s.
Adherents of the Taqui Oncoy sought to revive lagging respect and worship
of the huacas, calling for the expulsion of the Spaniards and a return to the
state of affairs under the Incas. The illustrated chronicle of Felipe Guaman
Poma de Ayala includes a drawing of Albornoz in the guise of an
ecclesiastical inspector, directing the capture of an adherent of Taqui Oncoy.
In ferreting out and documenting native religious practices of the early
Colonial period, Albornoz brings to our attention much of what are presumed
to be long-standing, preconquest religious beliefs and practices of common
people outside Cuzco.
Further Reading