Christopher Dilke's The Nueva Coronica

In The Nueva Coronica book, by Guaman Poma de Ayala, Guaman Poma reveals the Indigenous Peruvians’ perspective over the Spanish regime was totalitarian. This source proves to be very valuable at the time because it was like none other, since the Incans did not have written documents of themselves; they used Quipu (bead and knot system). David Frye, Kenneth Mills and William B. Taylor, and Christopher Dilke present their translations with different connotations (significances). However, all of the facsimiles of Guaman Poma by the historians all can provide a framework for the audience to understand the Native Peruvians’ perspective of the Spanish Church community and Priests.

The visual aspects of the translations differ greatly while comparing

the original document to the facsimile and represent some of the aims of the translators. The titles are clear, sections are marked in bold and there are many drawings in the facsimile of the Nueva Coronica. Dilke’s interpretation is in the form of an accounted story, since the visuals are able to flow with no breaks. The priests are presented as “[showing] an unholy greed for worldly wealth and the sins of the flesh and [would set a] good example to everyone if they were punished by the Holy Inquisition (Dilke 145). Although the visual aspect of the Dilke interpretation is flimsy, there is a bit of repetition present at the start of some passages. Frye, distinct from Dilke and ‘Mills and Taylor’, attempts to preserve the pictorial and practical formatting of Poma’s original manuscript. Frye bullet points Poma’s different claims, such as “the doctrina padres and priests in this kingdom keep the offerings and alms given at the masses for the dead”, which caused the church to raise prices for the natives (Frye 211). Frye’s translation closely resembles the original manuscript, and demonstrates his intention of recreating the Guaman Poma’s claims to the audience with as close resemblance to the original as possible.
Since the formatting and illustrations differ throughout the translations, it can be understood that each author has a certain intention for their writing. The intention of Dilke’s presentation of Guaman Poma’s claims in the Nueva Corónica, was to be “clearer and more graceful” (Dilke 14). This way the audience would be able to understand the texts and claims in a simple comprehensible way. If Dilke did not consider the attention span of the readers, especially through omitting passages, he would have easily lost the audiences interest. Mills and Taylor, for the purpose of their interpretation, exhibit “a history of the world from the perspective of the Andean region, encompassing, Andean cultures, the Inkas, and the Spanish conquest and colonial rule in Peru” (Mills & Taylor 153). Since Mills and Taylor are more recent, their translation was primarily focusses on English speakers as well since it’s a prevalent language. Also, it is stated that Frye’s intention of the translation of to generate Guamán Poma’s book more “accessible to a broad English-Speaking audience” (Frye xxvii). Frye has a certain purpose for translating the document in retrospect to Guaman Poma de Ayala’s. His intentions were to create an English version that would be easily distributed amongst proficient English speakers and readers.
The original Nueva Corónica was composed with having a certain objective.

On the other hand, the facsimiles have differing expressions of the document’s intent. Dilke states that his translation’s purpose was to “bring attention to the Spanish Court the great merits and the sufferings under the Spanish rule of the Peruvian people” (Dilke 15). Dilke effectively positions his reasoning, just as Mills and Taylor did with theirs. Mills and Taylor describe Guaman Poma’s manuscript as a “moral condemnation and stinging critique of flagrant disobedience of royal laws and colonial ordinances”… “That would assist the survival of native Andean people” (Mills & Taylor 153). Although Dilke’s translation just demonstrated the Incans being treated poorly by the Spanish Empire’s rule, but in Dilke’s translation they only were suffering under Spanish regulation. The Andeans being treated poorly by the law breaking Spaniards, who’s “example [for the Indians] they set [was] nearly always bad”, is demonstrated by both the ‘Mills and Taylor’ and ‘Dilke” translations (Dilkes, 146). They all had the intention to let the audience sympathize with the horrors occurring with the Spanish maltreatment of the Native Incas. On the other hand, Frye references “Guaman Poma’s Indictment’ by presenting a simple numbered list, however he does not display Poma’s intentions for the letter to the King. Frye’s main intentions were to make Poma’s work more accessible to a general audience, as opposed to

investigating the context.
In order to make the points given across the manuscript easily interpreted for the audience, the translators had to consider omitting passages and putting emphasis on different aspects.

These interpretations were molded by what the historians believed to be most important from Poma’s manuscripts. In order to gain better attention of the reader, Dilke first eliminated passages which seemed to be of no conceivable interest to the reader”… and “omitting a lot of redundant passages” (Dilke, 14). Since the translation was able to effectively translate and organize the passage, readers were able to keep an interest since they experienced texts with new ways to understand it. Guaman Poma’s bringing of “attention to the Spanish Court the great merits and sufferings under Spanish rule of the Peruvian people”, is revealed by Dilke’s attempt “to throw nothing of value away” from the text (Dilke, 15). The abridged Mills and Taylor translation is less like Dilke’s, except there is a resolution presented for the problem with the Spanish Priests. Some of these resolutions encouraged that the Spanish Priests “should be proven and tested for academic preparation as well as for humility, charity, love, and fear of God and justice” (Mills & Taylor, 163). Contrastingly, Frye’s facsimile does not present ant solutions for the Spanish Priest’s corruption and primarily focusses on making it more ‘accessible’. While the Frye translation’s intent is to be more accessible to a broader audience, Mills

and Taylor express Poma’s desire to eradicate the raping’s and other maltreats of the Incans by the Spanish Priests.
The Nueva Corónica ‘s translation by Christopher Dilke, Kenneth Mills and William B. Taylor, and David Frye has demonstrated that the investigations of one text may contain different interpretations and intentions by the authors for the audience. These studied versions of Guamán Poma’s letter each contain different intentions, interpretations of the perspective, and understandings of the facsimile.