saints came to underpin local Andean Christianities. As dis-
missive as the mestizo humanist El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
had found himself in thinking over the possible interpreta-
tive needs of colonial Indians in Chuquisaca, as noted above,
he did concoct a definition of the concept of huaca with con-
siderably more paths into emerging colonial understandings
than dead ends. At its center was a denial that people in
Incan times had understood huacas to be gods and a hint that
the appeal of Christian images and miracle stories to a native
Andean might follow on naturally (Garcilaso de la Vega
[1609] 1985, pp. 51–55, pp. 45–55; MacCormack, 1991,
pp. 335–338). Saints, like the extraordinary ancestral beings,
might be represented in forms, and stories of their deeds
might be conveyed, collected, and retold by special humans.
Luis Jerónimo de Oré, the experienced Franciscan Cre-
ole whom Diego de Ocaña had recruited to preach about the
Virgin of Guadalupe in Potosí in 1600, was a figure who ap-
proached such matters of possible congruence directly, in the
course of evangelization. Engraved images of the Virgin
begin and end his Symbolo Catholico Indiano of 1598, accom-
panied by words to guide contemplation. Mary was also a
principal concern in the book itself, as Oré translated her and
his faith through prayers and hymns, expounding doctrine
and mysteries for Quechua-speaking Christians (Oré, [1598]
1992). The so-called anonymous Jesuit of the late sixteenth
or early seventeenth century—possibly but not certainly the
mestizo Blas Valera (Jesuita Anónimo [c. 1594] 1968, BNS
ms. 3177; Urbano, 1992; Hyland, 2003), offers another rich
case in point. He was an author immersed in a project of in-
terpreting the Incan past as an ordered and moral anticipa-
tion for Catholic Christianity, particularly as directed by the
Jesuits in structured environments such as Lima’s resettled
enclosure for Indians, Santiago del Cercado. Yet he had also
had much else to say en route.
The Jesuit held, for instance, that the only mode of
entry into Christianity that was working for native Andeans
in his day amounted to self-Christianization sustained by a
regular experience of the sacraments. Certainly the people
benefited from priests fluent in the Quechuan language to
administer to them, and they required good examples to ex-
cite their faith, just as his contemporary Acosta insisted more
famously. “But when they lack someone to instruct them,”
the anonymous Jesuit added, “they look for ways to pick up
what is required and teach it to their children.” Like Oré, this
Jesuit believed that native Andeans were inclined toward
Catholic Christianity by their pre-Hispanic understandings
and that their depth in the faith depended most upon Chris-
tianity being enlivened by careful formulations in the
Quechuan language. Most Indian Christians were new and
vulnerable, in his view, but this did not make them any less
genuine additions to the fold. The arrival at a moment when
the pace and character of religious change would depend
upon the Indians’ own efforts and controls was already at
hand in some places, he implied, even if further work was
needed on communicating key aspects of the faith.
Near the heart of such further efforts, in this Jesuit’s
opinion, should be “historical narration and... personal
conversations in which the saints’ lives are told and matters
of virtue are treated.” Picking up on what his contemporaries
the Creole Oré and the peninsular Ocaña also believed and
were putting into action, the anonymous Jesuit wrote that
if an evangelizer’s skills were such that he could translate
Christian narratives into the Indians’ languages, then so too
could the articles of the faith, the commandments, the works
of mercy, and the sacraments be rendered, allowing the arriv-
ing religion, finally, to be deeply understood. His emphasis
upon the gains which might come from “conversaciones par-
ticulares” about the saints captures his understanding both
of the intimate and horizontal manner in which the cult of
the saints had already begun to enter the hearts and minds
of native Andeans, and of the way that self-Chris-
tianization—daily ritual activity, communication, and devel-
oping understandings among Indian women and men, with-
in families and lay sodalities, and between friends and ac-
quaintances—would see this process continue. Saints could
take on new Andean lives in Quechua. Only the older gener-
ation of Indians and their oral traditions seemed to present
an obstacle to this vision. But for this too, the Jesuit had a
suggestion. Indian children could begin “to sing before them
[the adults] so that in this way they forget the ancient songs”
(Jesuita Anónimo, [c.1594] 1968, pp. 80–81).The “ancient songs” stand in here for the huacas and,
in a certain sense, for the pre-Hispanic religious complex as
a whole. This Jesuit’s optimistic view of his colonial present
and his faithful glimpse into the future sees a gradual substi-
tution of one set of songs, beliefs and practices for another,
the old for the new. But students of these matters are not
obliged to think so instrumentally. The author’s acknowl-
edgment of what one might call a “creative tension” between
modes of religious understanding and ritual remembrance in
operation in the colonial Andes is more telling. He believes
that a fundamental Andean religious aptitude and enthusi-
asm for the saints, and for their hagiographic narratives and
edifying stories, had come from somewhere elastic and en-
during in native Andean cultural tradition. Evidence of the
survival of huaca cults, and their relationships and sacred his-
tories, exists into the eighteenth century and beyond and
suggests that he was correct. But what can be understood
about huacas should not stop just here, split off, as if the
study of pre-Hispanic phenomena, much less colonial “idola-
try,” can be separated from the culturally dialogic reality of
evangelization and response and from the emergence and
fruition of Andean Christianities. Huacas, with their multi-
ple personalities and translocality, provided Spanish and Hi-
spanicizing minds with ways of thinking and expressing reli-
gious relationships, and they provide colonial indigenous
people with ways of understanding the images of saints and
their “copies” as newly local repositories of beneficence and
power.8612 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS: INDIANS OF THE COLONIAL ANDES