Cristóbal de Molina

Cristóbal de Molina, called «el Cusqueño» (from Cusco), (Baeza, Spain, circa 1529 - Cusco, 1585) was a Spanish colonial clergyman and chronicler who was very fluent in Quechua. He spent most of his life in Cusco, Peru and became a reputable reporter of the pre-Colonial Andean culture.

He was the author of the manuscript (Account of the fables and rites of the Incas), an invaluable source of information about the Incas and an in-depth report on Andean culture at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.

Life Nothing is known of Molina's childhood and youth. In his manuscript he states being born in Baeza, Spain, sometime before 1530, but reveals nothing more about his life prior to his arrival in Cusco where he settled in 1556 at the age of about 27. He was nicknamed "el Cusqueño" (the man from Cusco), to distinguish him from another chronicler, Cristóbal de Molina "el Chileno", generally referred to as "el Almagrista" (follower of Diego de Almagro).

Thanks to the years of living with the natives, he learned the Quechua language to the point of handling it with great skill. He was so fluent that the first modern researchers suggested that Molina might have been of mixed European and Andean descent. Subsequent documents showed that this was not the case.

Between 1568 and 1571 Cristóbal de Albornoz, general ecclesiastical visitor in Arequipa, was sent to Huamanga (today Ayacucho) in the Peruvian highlands to identify and destroy idolatry (the shrines of the Natives) and to punish the persons and communities who worshipped them. Because of his knowledge of ritual practices and of the native cultural and religious world, Molina and another Spanish clergy, Olivera, were required to collaborate with Albornoz in his fight against idolatry and against the Taki Unquy messianic movement, which broke out in the central Andes around 1564.

The king of Spain in the 1560s was worried about the fact that the killing of the last Inca by Pizarro could be interpreted as a violation the European tradition of the divine right of kings, and that this might in turn endanger the legitimate right for the king to rule on the Tawantinsuyu. For this reason he had appointed Francisco de Toledo as viceroy in 1569 and charged him (among other tasks) with producing the proof that the Incas were tyrants, conquered their territories by subjugation of the local people and were not legitimate rulers. When in Cusco between 1571 and 1572, Toledo ordered Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and, through the bishop, Cristóbal de Molina, to provide such proof. Molina, thanks to his good knowledge of the local language, carried out interviews among the Natives and wrote his work (History of the Incas) which he finished in March 1572. This manuscript was never retrieved.

When in 1573 Sebastián de Lartaun was named bishop of Cusco, Molina provided him with a manuscript titled (Account of the huacas and shrines of Cusco) about the sacred Inca symbols that were existing in and around the city of Cusco. This work is also lost.

In the following years, probably between 1573 and 1575, Molina was ordered by the bishop to provide an account about the idolatries of the Natives. This work will become the main and only known manuscript by Molina with the title of (Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas). It is known that while in Areqipa, the viceroy Toledo ordered a salary increase for Molina. In his decree he notes that Molina had collected information on the rites and ceremonies of the Incas.

The name of Molina appears again in January 1577 when he testified in Cusco at inquiries about the campaigns against idolatry by Cristóbal de Albornoz. He was simply introduced as a (cleric priest), and witnessed that he had known Albornoz for more than ten years and that the latter had successfully completed his service against idolatry in Huamanga (today Ayacucho).

The new archbishop of Lima, soon after being named in 1581, convened a Council of the ecclesiastical province of Lima. Known as the Third Lima Council, it opened on August 15, 1582. All the bishops from Spanish South America were summoned in it, along with notable theologians such as José de Acosta. The task was to settle issues of the church hierarchy and to provide support for the evangelistic activities in all the viceroyalty. The council lasted until 1583. This council was critical for the bishop of Cusco, Lartaun, since several charges had been filed against him from different officials, although he died in Lima on 9 October 1583, before the council ended, so that many of the charges were not resolved.

On 29 May 1585 Molina died in Cusco, at a supposed age of fifty-six.

Works His main work, and the only one preserved, is (Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas), possibly written between 1575 and 1576, and dedicated to Bishop Sebastián de Lartaun. A copy of the original manuscript was found in Francisco de Ávila's library after his death in 1647. It is now preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional de España (Spain National Library) in Madrid.

It was published for the first time in its English translation by the British scholar Clements R. Markham in 1873. The first edition in Spanish appeared in Chile in 1913 edited by the Chilean historian and paleographer Tomás Thayer Ojeda.

In his clear and direct style Molina cannot hide a certain distance or paternalism towards the Natives. In his work there is also a desire to fuse the classic oral stories of the Andean tradition with biblical writings, trying to blend them with a clearly catechetical purpose. Bernabé Cobo who finished his (General history of the Indies) in 1653 states that he used Molina's as a basis for his writings.

Editions of 1873 An account of the fables and rites of the Yncas''' In Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas. Translated from the original Spanish manuscripts and edited with notes and an introduction by Clements R. Markham. First series, no. 48: 1–64 - London - Hakluyt Society - Reprinted 1963, 1964, 1969, and 2001. 1913 Relacion de las fabulas y ritos de los incas Edited by Tomas Thayer Ojeda - Revista chilena de historia y geografía (Santiago) 3(5): 117–190. The work was, by mistake, attributed by Thayer Ojeda to Cristóbal de Molina el Almagrista 1916 Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los incas. Annotations and concordances by Horacio H. Urteaga, biographical and bibliographical information by Carlos A. Romero - Coleccion de Libros y Documentos Referentes a la Historia del Peru, fi rst series, 1: 1–103 - Sanmarti - Lima 1943 Fábulas y ritos de los incas. In "Las crónicas de los Molinas". Bio92 bibliographical prologue by Carlos A. Romero, bibliographical epilogue by Rau l Porras Barrenechea, annotations and short commentaries by Francisco A. Loayza. Los Pequenos Grandes Libros de Historia Americana 1(4): 5–84 - Libreria e Imprenta D. Miranda - Lima 1947 Ritos y fábulas de los incas. Prologue by Ernesto Morales - Coleccion Eurindia, no. 2 - Editorial Futura - Buenos Aires 1989 Relación de las fábulas i ritos de los ingas. In Fábulas y mitos de los incas, edited by Henrique Urbano and Pierre Duviols. Cronicas de America 48: 47–134 - Historia 16 - Madrid 2008 Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los incas. Edited, with commentary and notes by Julio Calvo Perez and Henrique Urbano - Universidad de San Martin de Porres Press -Lima. 2010 Cristóbal de Molina Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los incas. Critical edition by Paloma Jimenez del Campo - Paleographic transcription by Paloma Cuenca Munoz. editor Esperanza Lopez Parada- Vervuert - Iberoamericana, 2010 - 2011 Account of the Fables and Rites of the Incas by Cristóbal de Molina ''. Edited by Brian S. Bauer; Vania Smith-Oka; Gabriel E. Cantarutti. With an introduction by Brian S. Bauer - University of Texas Press -