Unsettling and Unsettled Readings: Occult Scripts in 16th-Century Lima and the Challenges of Andean Knowledge

This chapter reassesses Andean and Spanish perceptions of Hernández Girón’s “rebellion” in Lima’s society and in the viceregal society at large from the mid-1550s to mid-1570s. By rereading Palentino’s 1571 history in light of two distinct Andean memory traditions, one by diviners of Porco and the other one by Guaman Poma de Ayala, it suggests that Girón’s vested interests in Europe’s tradition of erudite magic went hand in hand with consultations of the powers of wak’a and joint cross-cultural consultation of occult forces. By placing Girón’s interests and his perception in the larger Spanish–Andean history of occult knowledge traditions, the chapter proposes that Girón’s interests in occult forces had a major impact on Jerónimo de Loaysa; on his perceptions of the Taki Onkoy, Sarmiento de Gamboa’s erudite magic and his alleged entanglement with the death of the Conde de Nieva and Fray Francisco de la Cruz. Girón’s occult interests were thus a decisive turning point in the perception of both Spanish and Andean occult knowledge traditions and yet they only forced intellectual heirs to search for new ways of hiding their interests in occult forces in subtexts.