Huarochiri Manuscript. A text analysis of the Huarochiri Manuscript

Abstract

Based on the Huarochirí Manuscript, this thesis seeks to elaborate a picture of religious aspects in the culture of the Andean region of Huarochirí in late 16th and early 17th century. I decided to elaborate on two themes which are in the center of this research. My focus lies at first on afterlife concepts as they often have influence in religious thoughts and hence practices. Myth and ritual descriptions are scrutinized in order to obtain significant information about this theme. The second research part is concentrated on worship practices and to what extent people were obligated to perform rituals, and what freedoms in this context they had. Combined, these two themes present aspects of people’s life with regard to religion in the transition period from pre-Spanish to colonial Andean society. The results show a continuation of Andean afterlife concepts but a change in related rituals. The same was recognized for general worship, as people were hiding their belief in pre-Spanish religious concepts under the pressure raised by Christian officials. Freedoms and obligations shifted from Andean to Catholic religion, while the economic pressure often increased, also, due to greedy catholic priests. With the help of previous research and the work of Jürgen Osterhammel on colonialism, my thesis is inspired and oriented on renowned scholarly inquiries. I worked with a qualitative content analysis and narrative analysis as described by Dag Ingvar Jacobsen, Göran Bergström and Kristina Boréus to obtain data from the text.