Una nueva lectura de la Visita a Chucuito (1567): Interrelaciones múltiples y el ganado de la comunidad

Abstract

The present contribution deals with an administrative document from the early colonial period, offering a "new reading" of the Visita a Chucuito, which was carried out by the visitador Garci Diez de San Miguel in 1567. This source contains detailed data on tribute, demography, social life, etc. in the administrative centre west of Lake Titicaca. A working group at the Institute of Amerindian Studies and Cultural Anthropology of Bonn University re-read the document, taking a critical approach to the source, looking at the complexity of its manifold topics, and at the personal motivations and interactions among the persons involved. The document shows that the indigenous communities of the area were still rooted in Inca times and in the particular regional sociopolitical conditions of the precolonial era; simultaneously, it offers a view of the contemporary colonial situation. By using a detailed kind of systematisation it was possible to delimit individual topics as well as to study the involved persons according to their social contexts. Such a microhistorical approach highlights a series of topics within a geographically and temporally defined framework. At the same time this way of reading the document reflects the network of interactions and cross-references contained in it and thereby allows a more satisfying interpretation of the complex character of the indigenous community described in the visita. The exemplary analysis of one topic (the livestock of the community) shows some problems and possibilities of interpretation.