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The Extirpation of Idolatry refers to a series of campaigns in the late 16th and early 17th centuries to uncover hidden idolatry in Andean communities as described by Father Pablo José de Arriaga in Extirpacion de l’Idolatria en el Perú (1621). The Extirpation was the institutional replacement for the Inquisition in eradicating traditional Andean religious practices and establishing a Catholic hegemony in Peru.

Background
In the decades following the Spanish conquest and colonization of Peru, the Roman Catholic Church was engaged in stamping out traditional religious practice in the Andes and enforcing a Catholic hegemony. At the same time in Europe, The Spanish Inquisition defined the world of the Roman Catholic priests charged with understanding and missionizing indigenous populations. The Spanish interpreted indigenous practices through the lens of European demonology, seeing a landscape manifest with evil spirits and peoples deceived by the Devil. In this interaction—much more than in the political struggle between the Inca and the Spanish—deeply old traditions locked horns as cosmologies which had developed separately for thousands of years came into direct conflict. The Catholic belief system, with its roots going back to the ancient Near East, struggled to supplant equally developed Andean customs and lore.

Andeans and Spanish alike attributed the dramatic sociopolitical upheavals of the past few decades to divine will. For the Spanish, fortune came as the natural consequence of following the true faith. As Father Pablo José de Arriaga expressed in a text addressing King Phillip III, their plunder was viewed as divinely warranted by their efforts to extinguish Andean traditions which had arisen as the result of Satan’s treachery:"My plan is to save souls held in the cruel slavery of the Devil, and to increase our Christian faith and religion in this kingdom. This is the true treasure sought by Your Majesty, through which and for which Our Lord adds unto us so much of the gold, silver, and pearls of this kingdom."The Spanish clergy assumed their antagonist was the Devil, who operated in diametric opposition to the Roman Catholic Church with indigenous peoples caught in the middle. In 1570, Philip II of Spain mandated that indigenous Andeans were not in the jurisdiction of inquisitorial tribunals since, in the legalistic terms of the Catholic Church, they were not heretics. A heretic denoted someone who had been taught the words of God yet refused to practice Christian doctrine faithfully; the term was thus unable to be applied to indigenous peoples lacking a Christian education. Early efforts to provide this education were failing. This was not for lack of interest amongst indigenous groups—many were initially enthusiastic about the adoption of Christianity. For some, Christians were apparently suffused with a self-validating power that allowed them to topple the Inca empire. Andean religious beliefs, however, were flexible, heterogenous, and deeply entangled in social structures and communal activities. The reflexive response to Christian teaching was to focus on elements that resonated with traditional practice and to incorporate these within local customs. Acquiescence to Spanish rule was thus embedded within traditional Andean cosmologies, which proved to be highly resilient. Beliefs involving a sentient landscape, whose most salient features such as snow-capped mountains were often seen as the cultural progenitors and ancestors of local communities, continued to be practiced in the form of ritual activity and reciprocal relations with the landscape and the dead.

The Spanish, likewise, failed to understand indigenous customs from outside their own Christian perspective. They struggled to discern exactly what Andean religion was, and they often confused themselves by assuming a cohesive and homogenous religious tradition. This was reinforced by the terminology used to define indigenous practices; words like secta (sect), ministros (ministers), and predicar (preach) had the effect of projecting the structure of the Catholic Church onto a diverse set of cultural, religious, and linguistic groups. This led to disoriented attempts by those involved in documenting local histories, such as Dr. Francisco de Avila, to construct a chronology that fit the linear religious-historical timeline of the Spanish. For example, Avila writes"In all the stories and fables of these people I have never been able to make out which came first, or in what order they should be placed, for they are all very ancient traditions. They relate that, a long time ago, the sun disappeared and the world was dark for a space of five days…This may have been the eclipse which occurred when our Redeemer died."The efforts by Francisco de Avila in the province of Huarochirí had shown that idolatrous practices—devil worship in the eyes of the Spanish—were extant in highland towns within the Archbishopric of Lima. In December of 1609, Avila carted loads of wak’as (supernatural objects of power) and centuries-old mummies for exhibition in an auto-da-fé in Lima’s cathedral square. Thousands of natives were in forced attendance as sermons were delivered, wak’a priests were tortured, music was performed, and ancestral mummies were burned “to the inconsolable grief of those who felt themselves orphaned.” A few days later, Avila was granted the title visitador (visitor) of idolatries.

The Visitors
After Avila’s efforts to exhibit the prevalence of idolatrous practice in Andean communities, a council was summoned by the Lord Viceroy Prince of Esquilache, attended by members of the Royal Audience and the Ecclesiastical Chapter. Three policies emerged from this meeting: 1) to construct a prison for sorcerers (meaning the principal perpetuaters of indigenous religious practice); 2) to create a school for the children of curacas (community heads), and 3) to send visitors to uncover “deeply rooted, well hidden, and all-but-invisible evil.”  This was the strategy of the Extirpation—to eliminate wak’as and their ministers and to re-educate high-status children. It was the role of the visitors to accomplish these tasks.

According to Arriaga, a visitor needed to be a man of intelligence with a zeal “for the good of the Indian.” It was important that they be able to speak the language of their target communities and be able to preach effectively within it. Further, as they relied heavily on voluntary confessions from indigenous locals, it was necessary that they be charismatic and establish a good reputation in the community. Towards this aim, Arriaga recommends that, upon entering a town, visitors start with children:"Usually when we enter a town for the first time the children run away from us, but after I gave them a dozen figs or a handful of raisins one day, not a one of them now stays away from us. And their mothers and fathers follow them…The only way to make the curacas and caciques behave is to begin at the beginning and instruct their children so that from childhood they may learn the Christian discipline and doctrine."Arriaga routinely emphasizes the importance of children in the dismantlement of indigenous traditions, and the establishment of a boarding school by Christian missionaries reflects later attempts in North America to eradicate indigeneity in the same way.

The main issues targeted in educational sermons involved indigenous ontologies that were incompatible with the Christian doctrine. This included, for example, the concept of pacarinas, or places of communal origin. These were caves, hills, springs, or other salient aspects of the landscape where certain lineage groups were supposed to have emerged independently of other humans—an idea that could not coexist with that of the first parents, Adam and Eve. There was also the issue of the distribution of agency—visitors must convince indigenous peoples that natural forces such as mountains (apus), lightning (Libiac), the earth (Pachamama), the sea (Mamacocha), or the sun (Inti) were not to be worshipped, as they were nothing more than static or mechanical creations of God. The single most important issue was the belief in wak’as and malquis. Wak’as were “any material thing that manifested the superhuman;" these could be landscape features, such as the confluence of two streams or a rocky outcrop, or any peculiar and potentially powerful object, like double-yolked eggs or an exceptionally beautiful flower. Malquis were mummified ancestors who resided in machays—burial places, usually caves or special houses—that remained active in social life, often being dressed, consulted, or brought out for festivities. Arriaga often expresses frustration with Andeans for exhuming the dead from churches to be brought to machays or for participation in ceremonies.

Parallel to the re-education of the young was the elimination of the old. All elderly community members were potential 'sorcerers' or 'ministers of idolatry,' as Arriaga called them. These included huacapvillacs, who care for wak’as and possess “the right to talk to it and to fabricate its replies to the town (although sometimes the Devil speaks to them through the stone." There was also the malquipvillac, who communed with the dead; the libiacpavillac, who spoke to lightning; or a great variety of diviners, who would interpret the movement of spiders, the meaning of dreams, or the entrails of guinea pigs. Rooting these sorcerers out was an essential part of a visit, as it was necessary to both punish them and use them to locate wak’as. Whereas the young sons of curacas may be sent to boarding schools, the elderly were threatened with incarceration at the Casa de Santa Cruz, where “all the dogmatizers and ministers of idolatry should be confined." These punishments were meted out equally regardless of sex; of the 413 individuals imprisoned at the Casa de Santa Cruz whose sex was recorded, 209 were women and 204 were men. Other punishments included whipping, shearing, and public shaming—these were designed to be insulting and spectacular rather than severe. The shearing of one’s hair and eyebrows was especially damaging to the pride and expression of identity amongst Andeans, and Arriaga expressed that the whole town should gather for the shearing to maximize the shame felt by sorcerers.

The visitors additionally recognized the importance of material culture in facilitating or restricting the expression of ideology. Wak’as and malquis were just a couple of semiotic indexers of indigeneity that required extirpation. The imposition of European material culture was thus essential in the colonization of the minds and memories of Andean peoples. Arriaga emphasized the importance of the “trappings of divine worship” in uprooting longstanding traditions, made manifest in the superimposition of crosses on the ruins of burned indigenous shrines. Additionally, other modes of social cohesion such as the consumption of chicha, or maize beer, became targets of extirpation."The principal offering, the best and most important part of Indian sacrifices, is chicha. By it and with it the festivals of the huacas begin. It is everything. For its use they have receptacles and tumblers of many forms and materials. It is a common saying with them that when they go to worship the huacas they are giving them a drink."Beyond chicha’s centrality in worship, sacrifice, and ceremony, it was an essential aspect of community organization and labor structures. Arriaga notes that “it is their custom to do everything by community effort and the common bond of such groups is to drink until they fall down." New laws punishing chicha consumption with fines, lashings, and exile were direct attacks on the foundations of social order, pushing the limits of colonization past the realm of religion. One of the final tasks of the visitor, before the parading of penanced sorcerers, was to round up all tumblers, pots, jars, and other containers by which chicha was carried or consumed, in addition to other media of identity expression like coca, drums, trumpets, horns, or ceremonial clothing—all to be burned in a great fire. The eradication of indigenous material culture, communal institutions, and other modes of expression of indigenous identity was the responsibility of the visitor.

The Visitor's Itinerary
According to Arriaga’s guide, visits were supposed to be made at least once a year, with the target populace informed in advance so that they might prepare. The morning after the visitor’s arrival began with mass and a sermon, during which an edict concerning idolatry was read and all curacas and sorcerers were summoned. A seven-step examination—the first part of an eight-part plan—was then to be conducted on each of these individuals, with the goal of rooting out unconfessed sorcerers or the locations of wak’as:"Our first goal is to win over some reasonable Indian by offering him rewards in secret and by telling him that no other living person will find out what he has said. He should be persuaded to tell about the town’s most important huaca and about the sorcerer who guards it, and everything else he knows about it."The next step involved finding “some apparently intelligent old Indian” for interrogation, keeping them physically separated from their friends and family and asking questions about how the Devil appears to them. Beyond information gathering, these methods were intended to create an atmosphere of fear and distrust; people were separated and encouraged to oust one another, and the only way to ensure one’s own safety was to take the side of the powerful visitor. The visitors were to be insistent with this individual—“be kind to him, give him something to eat, and then come back to the subject…urging him with more insistence.” The following steps involve more attempts to gather information through the manipulation of community roles and threats of excommunication, exile, incarceration at the Casa de Santa Cruz, etc., until a list of sorcerers who have not turned themselves in has been gathered. As this was being done, it was necessary for visitors to follow a well-defined etiquette to prevent the spreading of doubt in their supposed zeal for the wellbeing of the locals. Visitors were not to exhibit self-interest by taking from the townspeople. If items were to be taken, they should be publicly burned to display a lack of interest in their material value. Not every visitor adhered to this ideal—many (including Francisco de Avila) were accused of wak’a-hunting—using the Extirpation as a reason to plunder indigenous communities. It was also important for visitors to not allow their servants to harass locals. If this occurred, it was necessary to openly punish the servant to further position the visitor as taking the side of the natives. Building a positive relationship with a select group of locals—especially the curacas or their children—formed a crucial dimension to uncovering wak’as. By creating these relationships, visitors were able to divide communities based on who was friendly with the visitor and who was not; those who resisted the visitor would then always be at risk of being exposed by those who embraced the visitor and received his rewards. Despite this, Arriaga notes that an exhaustive search for wak’as and sorcerers was likely to require more clandestine ventures, as exemplified by the surreptitious endeavors of Francisco de Avila:"For what the Indians revealed to the visitor alone and in private they denied in public, until finally Dr. Avila, who was no less sagacious than industrious, painstaking, and effective, secretly placed two trustworthy Spaniards behind the bed in his room to listen to what the Indians would admit privately."Once the visitor felt that they had compiled a satisfactory list of sorcerers, these were to be examined. Arriaga outlines a series of thirty-six questions that should be put to each sorcerer after making it clear that they had been denounced and were known to be in league with the Devil. These questions were explicitly leading and did not allow room for the accused to redeem themselves:"Thirty-fourth. Ask the sorcerer what answers he gave the Indians after worshiping the huaca; ask how, when he pretended to talk to the huaca, he became mad. Ask whether it was because of the chicha he drank or the work of the devil."Upon the completion of these interrogations, the principal purpose of a visit could be executed. The sorcerers were required, along with a trustworthy witness, to retrieve all of the wak’as and malquis that had been described. Accomplishing this task often involved travel along difficult roads well outside of the town. Shrines encountered on such journeys were to be destroyed and symbolically inundated in the earth under a cross. The wak’as thus retrieved were meticulously compared to their descriptions to ensure that no deception was attempted. Once they had been acquired, a date would be proclaimed for their exhibition, and everyone in the community was to be made aware. The night before the appointed day, a call would be made for the deliverance of all ceremonial and festive goods—including chicha, coca, drums, tumblers, jars, animal skins, trumpets, horns, and cumbi, as well as wood for burning—to the visitor. The ringing of the church bell at dawn of the following day would summon all of the town to the main square, where the tax list would be read out to take attendance and beckon each individual to hand over their wak’as, malquis, and other idolatries. In a great fire, all would be burned.

A final ceremony at a later date would conclude the visit. After mass at the chosen hour, a procession would bear a large cross and sing the Litany of the Cross in the local language. In front of the procession marched the penitent sorcerers, bearing candles and wearing hairshirts with ropes around their necks. This conclusion had the effect of rebirthing the community after the destruction of all ceremonial items associated with indigenous tradition. Here was the new form of celebration, with Catholic themes and music, as the shamed adherents of indigenous practice marched pathetically in front. After this, the visitor could move on to the next community.

The Legacy of the Extirpation
Attempts to dismantle Andean religion required a complete deconstruction of communities, relationships, and identities. One of the most immediate effects of colonialism in Peru was social disintegration. For the sake of ease in taxation and controlling indigenous populations, people were relocated to consolidated towns—where communities of local populations were agglomerated—severing many from their ancestral ties to the landscape. Place was and remains to be an essential actor in the structure and development of Andean communities as the landscape becomes the map across which history, myth, and social life are distributed. By denying indigenous peoples their pacarinas, the Spanish were able to erase traditional memories and identities. Frequently, Andeans returned to their villages of origin, which the Spanish tried to combat by burning them down. This was another of the visitor’s tasks.

The pitching of indigenous peoples within communities against each other was another vicious component of the Extirpation. Deeper than the conflict between those on the side of the visitor and those against him, however, was the tension between the Catholic notion of sin and the Andean concept of ayni. Ayni referred to balance and reciprocity in relationships “between individuals, between individuals and society, between ancestors and descendants, and between society and the sanctified natural world." Irene Silverblatt describes the disruption of ayni as being a sort of Andean sin. Actions taken to uphold the traditional expectations of ayni, such as engaging in reciprocal relations with the landscape, were considered by the Spanish as active engagements with the Devil or demons inhabiting idols—as sin. This created stressful and spiritually violent conditions for Andean peoples, who could hardly act spiritually without sinning in the eyes of some in their community, or even themselves.

It is important to note that Spanish attempts to erase and reappropriate cultural beliefs and traditions in the Americas still inform racist and colonialist narratives of history in the present; Spanish depictions of the Andean culture hero Viracocha as a white, bearded, and robed man—even described by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa as holding a book —were attempts by the Spanish to justify their own colonial presence as superior, ‘civilizing’ beings. The modern application of these narratives reproduces the violence done to indigenous peoples and warps perceptions of history.

Ultimately, the Extirpation failed in its purpose to stamp out local traditions. The Huarochirí Manuscript, an account of indigenous histories and myths compiled by Francisco de Avila, was forged as weapon to aid in the destruction of Andean religion but has ironically become an enduring testament to indigenous traditions and ontologies. Further, the Catholic Church was unable to stop the reappropriation of Spanish beliefs in an Andean context. The Virgin Mary, for example, took many syncretic forms following her introduction to the Andes, often being integrated into the natural world in artistic representations that merge Christian and Andean cosmologies. In the end, the 1st century mother of Jesus from the Kingdom of Judea has become a wak’a.