For a reconstruction of reading

The Incas History, by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

Abstract

In this essay we are dealing with La historia índica (1572) written by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532-1592). What has been emphasized in different ways is that Sarmiento”™s writing is mortgaged to viceroy Francisco de Toledo”™s interest. Sarmiento”™s writing is a proof of the thesis that demonstrates the illegitimacy of the inca power, the legal status and metaphysics of the conquest and the viceroyalty reform. After the result of this balance, we wondered about the representation of either the voice or the indigenous memory in the writing of history. We stressed that there exists an oral memory interdiction by literate consciousness that seeks to delete or distort the indigenous background by modeling a new history; that which is mediated not by the voice, but by the official political writing.