Bibliographic Essay

There is an abundant bibliography on the conquests of Mexico and Peru. In the first case, of particular interest are the stories written at the time of the conquest itself by Spanish soldiers, such as captain Hernan Cortes's Letters from Mexico, ed.

We have far fewer contemporary chronicles for the Andes, although a notable exception is the history written by a native author of the early seventeenth century, Guaman Poma de Ayala's The First New Chronicle and Good Government: On the History of the World and the Incas up to 1615, trans. and ed. Roland Hamilton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009).

The best recent histories of the conquest of Mexico and Peru are Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico (London: Simon & Schuster, 1993) and John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970). A valuable survey of the importance of indigenous allies in the conquest of Mexico is found in Laura Matthew and Michel R. Oudijk (eds.), Indian Conquistadors. Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007); see also Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Regarding interpretations of the cultural transformations experienced by native societies after the Spanish conquest, the most prevalent school has been that of acculturation, which argues that Western culture was dominant and gradually replaced native cultural elements. This position has been most forcefully defended in recent times by Serge Gruzinski in his The Conquest of Mexico: The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World, i6th-i8th Centuries (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993) and Images at War: Mexico from Columbus to Blade Runner (1492-2019) (Durham, NJ: Duke University Press, 2001). The main proponents of the idea of a ‘culture of conquest', which included both Spaniards and Indians in a shared framework of reference, are G. M. Foster, Culture and Conquest: America's Spanish Heritage (New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, i960) and Arturo Warman, La danza de Moros y Cristianos (Mexico City: Sep Setentas, 1972).

The idea of intercultural emblems of the conquest is developed by Federico Navarrete Linares in ‘Beheadings and Massacres: Andean and Mesoamerican representations of the Spanish Conquest', Res: Aesthetics and Anthropology 53.4 (2008), 59-78.

The work of Michael Taussig on images as means of intercultural mediation is relevant for understanding the workings of colonial iconography, particularly his Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) and Mimesis and Alterity. A Particular History of the Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993).

Recent studies of the medieval iconography of Santiago include Jan Van Herwaarden, Between Saint James and Erasmus: Studies in Late-Medieval Religious Life: Devotion and Pilgrimage in the Netherlands (Lieden: Brill, 2003) and Nicolas Cabrillana, Santiago Matamoros, historia e imagen (Malaga: Diputaciòn Provincial de Malaga, 1999). Regarding the reception of Santiago in Mexico, see Louis Cardaillac, Santiago Apostol: El Santo De Los Dos Mundos (Zapopan, Mexico: El Colegio de Jalisco, 2002).

The iconography of the conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan has been analysed by Diana Magaloni-Kerpel, ‘Painting a New Era: Conquest, Prophecy, and the World to Come', in Rebecca P. Brienen and Margaret A. Jackson (eds.), Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2008). See also Maite Malaga, Cuerpos que se encuentran y hablan. El proceso de conquista y sus relaciones de poder vistos a traves del cuerpo (Mexico City: Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autònoma de Mexico, 2002).

Regarding Tlaxcala, see Federico Navarrete Linares, ‘La Malinche, la Virgen y la montana: el juego de la identidad en los còdices tlaxcaltecas', Revista Historia (UNESP) 26.2 (2008), 288-310. On the history of colonial Tlaxcala, see Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968).

The most comprehensive analysis of the colonial iconography of the Incas is found in Natalia Majluf et al., Los incas, reyes del Peru (Lima: Banco de Credito, 2005); see also Carolyn Dean, ‘The Renewal of Old World Images and the Creation of Colonial Peruvian Visual Culture', in D. Fane (ed.), Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America (New York: Abrams, 1996).

One of the best surveys of the contradictions in Andean native societies in colonial times and beyond is the articles compiled in Steve J. Stern (ed.), Resistance, Rebellion and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).

Regarding the narrative of the return of the Inca, the key works are Juan M. Ossio (ed.), Ideologia mesianica del mundo andino (Lima: n.p., 1973) and Alberto Flores Galindo, In Search of an Inca: Identity and Utopia in the Andes (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010). A recent critique of this interpretation was formulated by Juan Carlos Estenssoro in Del paganismo a la santidad: la incorporation de los indios del Peru al catolicismo, 1532-1750 (Lima: Instituto Frances de Estudios Andinos-Pontificia Universidad Catòlica del Peru, 2003).