The theoretical, literary and philosophical conversation
begins with MacCormack's quotation of a Spanish poem about the Virgin Mary.
She then launches into ideas about the soul, about imagination, and about
the encounter between the Spanish and the Inca
born 1224/25, Roccasecca, near Aquino, Terra di
Lavoro, Kingdom of Sicily
died March 7, 1274, Fossanova, near Terracina,
Latium, Papal States; canonized July 18, 1323; feast day January 28, formerly
March 7
also called Aquinas, Italian San Tommaso d'Aquino, byname Doctor Angelicus (Latin: Angelic Doctor) Italian Dominican theologian, the foremost medieval Scholasticist. He developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian premises, notably in the metaphysics of personality, creation, and Providence. As a theologian he was responsible in his two masterpieces, the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra gentiles, for the classical systematization of Latin theology; and as a poet he wrote some of the most gravely beautiful eucharistic hymns in the church's liturgy. His doctrinal system and the explanations and developments made by his followers are known as Thomism. Although many modern Roman Catholic theologians do not find St. Thomas altogether congenial, he is nevertheless recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost Western philosopher and theologian.
Works:
Theological treatises
Scriptum super IV libros Sententiarum (1254–56);
De veritate (1256–59); Summa contra gentiles (c. 1258–64; On the Truth
of the Catholic Faith, 1955); Summa theologiae (1265 or 1266–73; incomplete);
De potentia Dei (1259–68; On the Power of God, 1932–34); De malo (undated;
On Free Choice); De spiritualibus creaturis (undated; On Spiritual Creatures,
1949); De anima (undated; The Soul, 1949); De unione Verbi incarnati (undated);
De virtutibus (1269–72; On the Virtues in General, 1951).
Commentaries on Aristotle
In octo libros Physicorum expositio (1268–71;
Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, 1963); In tres libros De anima (undated;
The Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on Aristotle's Treatise on the Soul,
1946); In librum De sensu et sensato expositio (1270–71); In decem libros
Ethicorum expositio (1271–72; Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, 1964);
In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum expositio (c. 1272; Commentary on the
Metaphysics of Aristotle, 1961); In libros De caelo et mundo expositio
(1272–73); In libros Posteriorum analyticorum expositio (undated; probably
late).
The Cuzco bookkeeping records were used by the Spanish in the early days of their rule in order to divide the country and its population among the invaders. The accuracy of the information about distant places and peoples available to the Inca rulers astonished the Spanish observers. Some among them transcribed what they were told; these accounts became the source of the fragmentary information available to modern researchers. In 1549 and again in the 1570s systematic efforts were made by the Spanish to investigate the Andean past. Some of the interviewers were excellent ethnographers who noted discrepancies between separate oral traditions and contradictions from one set of claims to another. Just as in Mexico, where there were true ethnographers like Bernardino de Sahagún, so in the Andes a young soldier, Pedro de Cieza de León, was a remarkable interviewer, who constantly checked what he had been told by the members of one royal lineage against alternate versions.
Thus, the present knowledge of Inca society has been derived from a combination of archaeological studies and the written accounts sent to Spain by the early Spanish observers. Some of these accounts reached a wide public: within two years of the fall of the Inca, two quite different versions of what happened at Cajamarca (the place where Pizarro first met and kidnapped the Inca ruler Atahuallpa) were already in print in Europe. One of these was the official version of the Pizarro brothers, while the other criticized their actions. At a time when printing was still a rare skill and censorship was severe, such ample coverage of the invasion is notable.
The first serious study of the Andean peoples
was written by Cieza de León, who had reached the Americas as a
14-year-old soldier and had settled in what today is Colombia. A decade
or so later he drifted by horse to what is now Peru; he then rode for some
1,300 miles, traveling as far south as the mines at Potosí, in present-day
Bolivia. Cieza de León was encouraged by the clergy, many of them
partisans and correspondents of the Dominican missionary and historian
Bartolomé de Las Casas, to interview both Spanish and Andean participants
of the invasion and of the wars that some Andean factions had fought against
one another.
"Pachacamac." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
23 Feb. 2004 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=59352>.
creator deity worshipped by the pre-Inca maritime
population of Peru; it was also the name of a pilgrimage site in the Lurín
Valley (south of Lima) dedicated to the god and revered for many centuries.
After the Incas conquered the coast, they did not attempt to replace the
ancient and deeply rooted worship of Pachacamac but instead incorporated
him into their own pantheon. Pachacamac was believed to be a god of fire
and a son of the sun god; he rejuvenated the world originally created by
the god Viracocha and taught men the crafts. Pachacamac was also believed
to be invisible and thus was never represented in art.
The ruins of the shrine in the Lurín Valley
include several pyramids and temples and are partially restored. The site
may have served as the central city of a coastal “kingdom” from c. 1000
to c. 1440.
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