The role of silver in the conversion of the indigenous population in the Viceroyalty of Peru

Abstract

The following contribution will show the importance of artefacts and of "material culture" in the case of religious communication in the Andes during colonial times. It investigates the transcultural function of ecclesiastic silver objects as a part of the conversion of the indigenous population. The object produced their meaning as transcultural media not only through iconography, but also due to allocations to their material. These allocations were very often invisible, but part of knowledge and memories of indigenous and European people. The perception of the information that was communicated by the objects was more a sensory one than cognitive. The approach to use allocations to the material as well as iconography opens new ways of interpreting material culture.