• That day the Inca Atahualpa, head of an empire of several million extending from present-

day Ecuador to Chile, surrounded by his powerful army, was captured by 168 men.
• The attack took place after the exchange of a book and words in the middle of the plaza,
between the Inca and Fray Vicente de Valverde, head clergyman of the conquest party led by
Francisco Pizarro. The scene has been the object of much debate, both in the sixteenth
century, when it rapidly became part of Europeans’ colonial imagination, and in the present.
• the idea that native people mistook the Spaniards for a native god is in fact a late Spanish
invention and imposition (Pease 1991, 1995). That is why, it is said, early Spanish accounts
do not mention it—the Incas had no writing system, while late native and Spanish authors
do.
• The political goal and narrative strategy informing each source influence the way in which
the exchange between Valverde and Atahualpa is portrayed. MacCormack argues that what
had to be narrated changed across time: from the conquerors’ portrayal of a just, transparent
interaction, to its interrogation in the 1550s, to a “mythified” view in the 1570s, to the view
of end-of-century native authors who accept the mythification but stress Atahualpa’s proper
behavior, questioning the moral standing of the parties.
• All native chroniclers (Tito Cussi [1570]; Guaman Poma [1615]; Garcilaso [1617]) include
extraordinary, often flustering elements when they give people’s first images of the
Spaniards. They associate the New People with a native deity, Viracocha.
• According to Guaman Poma—a native intellectual who toward 1615 finished a political
letter of more than 1,000 pages to the Spanish king—the first news about the Spaniards was
bewildering.
• unexpected social behavior: not sleeping at night, no clear order in the group, no hierarchy
(i.e., all dress, behave, talk, and eat in the same way and place). These last two contrasted
markedly with Andean politics, particularly Andean high politics.
• uncanniness to do with the body: ate gold and silver, as did their “big sheep” (horses); they
had silver shoes, dresses; only a small part of their faces was visible, most being covered by
wool (Andeans had no facial hair). Wool suggests an analogy with animals that can be read
as a crossing-over of categories between animals and humans, and eating minerals signals
mixed matters and unnatural acts. Gold and silver in particular were high-status markers
associated with the Inca.
• Elements with no local parallels: horses described as big sheep, guns described as thunder
• they called the Spanish Viracochacuna (plural of Viracocha)— “that means the gods” —
because, as their elders had told them, “Con Titi Viracocha”, after having made the people,
went into the sea and did not return until a few years ago, when they saw some of them
(there were sparse contacts during Pizarro’s second trip). That is, facing eerie people coming
from where none were known to come—the sea—to reach a familiarizing conclusion,
experience and myths are used. … Some extraordinary beings had disappeared toward the
north by the sea, and some had appeared from there.
• rumors about the New People were spreading throughout the empire, reaching lords and
common people ((which native authors later recounted)). Although each rumor highlights
different details, there is a mix of unsettling elements, such as the New People’s unstoppable
violence and hunger for silver and gold.