Alphabetic Logic and the Amerindian Archive: the Huarochirí Manuscript

• In Event: Emergent Archives: the Phenomenon of the Colonial Text/Archive

Abstract

An important process in the construction of the colonial archive is the collection, transcription, translation, and re-presentation of Amerindian sources. At the same time, in gathering these sources into a normative archive, writers and editors needed to countenance profound epistemological differences. This paper argues that, in the case of the Huarochirí manuscript, compiled in late 16th-/early 17th-century Peru under the direction of Father Francisco de Avila, the traces of these epistemological divides are evident in the imposition of what I call “alphabetic logic” on the material and oral foundations of the content of the manuscript. The paper analyzes the incorporation of the oral and the material into an alphabetic logic in the Huarochirí manuscript through critical analysis of several of its features: first, it considers the preliminary description of alphabetic writing as a desideratum that structures the rest of the text. Next, it examines the grammatical features of the Quechua text that indicate a consolidation of veracity through the process of alphabetic recording. Finally, it considers the manipulation and contradiction of reported information through the marginalia and partial Spanish translation by Father Avila. By examining these features together, this paper offers a hypothesis on the idea of an alphabetic logic and its place in the colonial archive.

Author

• Caroline R Egan, Stanford University