The First New Chronicle and Good Government: On the History of the World and the Incas up to 1615

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala

ISBN 10: 1477323414 / ISBN 13: 9781477323410

Published by University of Texas Press, 2021

About this Item

2021. Annotated. Paperback. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9781477323410

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The First New Chronicle and Good Government: On the History of the World and the Incas up to 1615
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1477323414
• ISBN 13: 9781477323410
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

One of the most fascinating books on pre-Columbian and early colonial Peru was written by a Peruvian Indian named Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. This book, The First New Chronicle and Good Government, covers pre-Inca times, various aspects of Inca culture, the Spanish conquest, and colonial times up to around 1615 when the manuscript was finished. Now housed in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark, and viewable online at www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en/frontpage.htm, the original manuscript has 1,189 pages accompanied by 398 full-page drawings that constitute the most accurate graphic depiction of Inca and colonial Peruvian material culture ever done.

Working from the original manuscript and consulting with fellow Quechua- and Spanish-language experts, Roland Hamilton here provides the most complete and authoritative English translation of approximately the first third of The First New Chronicle and Good Government. The sections included in this volume (pages 1–369 of the manuscript) cover the history of Peru from the earliest times and the lives of each of the Inca rulers and their wives, as well as a wealth of information about ordinances, age grades, the calendar, idols, sorcerers, burials, punishments, jails, songs, palaces, roads, storage houses, and government officials. One hundred forty-six of Guaman Poma's detailed illustrations amplify the text.

About the Author

Roland Hamilton earned a Ph.D. in romance philology from the University of Madrid in 1973. He taught in the Department of Foreign Languages at San José State University for over thirty years before retiring. An authority on Peruvian culture centering on the Incas, he has also translated and edited History of the Inca Empire and Inca Religion and Customs by Father Bernabé Cobo and Narrative of the Incas by Juan de Betanzos. He lives in Los Gatos, California.