Identity, Kinship, and Inheritance in Viceregal Peru During the Late 16th and Early 17th Century: The World of Francisco Guaman, A Cacique of Chota

Abstract

Since Nathan Wachtel’s pioneering The Vision of the Vanquished: The Spanish Conquest of Peru through Indian Eyes, 1530-1570 (1977), culture change during Spanish rule in Peru has gained topicality. Thanks to Karoline Noack’s (2001: 191-204) and Kerstin Nowack’s most recent approach (2006: 51-77), anthropology-based historiography has veered towards the study of testamentos de Indios, the natives’ last wills, which is also relevant to discussions of cultural change in Peru during colonial times. Th us, new areas of study, such as kinship-centered thematics, have come into prominence. Drawing upon these areas of study, I focus on the analysis of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century nuncupative testaments from Cajamarca’s Archives, which provide a wealth of information on daily life and interaction between relatives and kin living in the República de los Indios. Consequently, I delineate the depth of cultural change in the very private group of kinship.