Who's Naughty and Nice
Childish Behavior in the Paintings of Cuzco's
Corpus Christi Procession
C A RO LYN S. D EA N

A SERIES OF CANVASES by anonymous Andean artists depicting the Corpus
Christi procession in Cuzco are among the best known works of viceregal Peru
(r532- r82 5).1 Sixteen canvases, dating from 1674 to r68o , have been attri buted to
this series which originally decorated the walls of Cuzco's parish church of Santa
Ana.' Portrayed are members of the various racial, social, religious , and political
groups that comprised Cuzcan society of this period as they participated in, or
witn essed, the Corpus Christi procession. The series colorfully documents
seventeenth-century Cuzco , the population of which was numerically dominated by indigenous Andeans but governed by a minority of European descent.
Sponsored by native elites and oriented towards these Spanish author ities, the
canvases depict adults of Cuzco's upper classes as differentiated from their
lower class compatriots in appearance, demeanor, and behavior. In contrast,
children of different classes, while distinguished by appearance , are not behaviorally differentiated. Whereas the adu lt elite respectfully attend the procession,
a number of their children are disruptive; they behave like many commoners of
all ages who are similarly disrespectful. This paper explores the behavioral
linkage of misbehaving youngsters and members of the lowe r classes in ter ms of
the multifaceted society for which these images were produced.
The visual analogy of children and commoners was meant to encourage
festive decorum in Andeans by equating rowdy adult behavior with childish
misbehavior. Evidence suggests that the message behind this analogy, however,
was confounded by the fact that the European conception of 'children' differed
from that of the native Andean . While the European assessment of childhood as
a state of mind as well as body allowed a symbolic pictorial linkage between
children and adults whose behavior was deemed 'childish,' the traditional Andean
evaluation of youngsters according to physical development, rather than mental
state , muddied this analogy. It is likely that these differing notions of childh ood
created an interpretive chasm between Europeans / Europeanized Cuzcans and
the culturally marginalized indigenous lower class majority.

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In the paintings Cuzcan society is organized into distinct horizontal planes
which help the viewer differentiate between various social groups. Of the
sixteen canvases, eleven are arranged in three planes.' Those participating in the
procession - the municipal council, the ecclesiastic council, various religious
orders, and numerous local sodalities - occupy the center of the canvas. Because
each canvas of the series focuses on a distinct segment of the procession, they
can be referred to by naming the central parading group or groups (for example,
the canvas of the Franciscan friars or that of the sodality of San Cristobal , and so
forth). The majority of people situated above and behind the cortege are
Cuzco's non-participating elite and their retainers; below and in front are viewers
of the middle and lower economic sectors ofCuzcan society. These spatial planes
contain a spectrum of ethnic types with people of Andean, African, and European
descent clearly identifiable in all three zones.
Each plane is characterized by behavioral similarities among its constituents
that serve to relate these members of shared space, while segregating one plane
from another. In general , those located in the upper plane respectfully watch the
procession or discuss the proceedings with their neighbors. Their hands are
folded over their waists or in gestures of prayer or rest on balcony railings or
window sills; some men have removed their hats as the religious images pass.
Heads incline toward one another to indicate quiet conversation; for the most
part, gesturing remains subdued with hands kept close to the bodies. Their comportment matches that of the participants who occupy the central sector of the
canvases, walking erect from right to left in a dignified manner. Some participants engage in conversation with co-participants. As in the upper plane, activity
is restrained; facial expressions are serious.
In contrast to the upper and middle zones, the lower plane, occupied primarily
by Cuzcan commoners and dominated numerically by native Andeans, is characterized by more diversified behavior. While many individuals, their backs to
us, watch the procession pass, numerous others engage in animated discussions.
Many are inattentive, if not disrespectful. In this plane we find men smoking and
eating; facial expressions are less restrained and activity more pronounced. In
general, the figures are stacked one upon another in a way that suggests a cro wd,
if not a mob, in contrast to the more even spacing of the upper two sectors.
A number of children found in the upper and middle spatial planes do not
conform to the behavioral characteristics associated with their elders, however.
In fact , misbehaving youngsters appear in all three sectors. In the foreground of
the canvas featuring friars of the Mercedarian Order in procession, a child aims a
pea shooter at a nearby celebrant (figures r and 2). Similarly, in the foreground of
the canvas of the parading Dominican friars, two children with pea shooters
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Figurer. The Mercedarian friars in the Corpus Christi procession.
Archbishop's Museum of Religious Art , Cuzco.

Figure 2 . Detail of child with a pea shooter in the foreground
of the canvas of the Mercedarian friars.

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molest a man of African descent while a third prepares to join in by pouring
small projectiles into his mouth (figure 3). In another of the paintings a child,
leaning over a balcony in the upper background, aims a pea shooter at a group of
musicians who are riding in the processional cart of the Virgin of the Purification .
A second child, located in another balcony, aims his shooter at the first child. In
the canvas featuring Cuzco's magistrate (the corregidor ) in procession, a child in
the right background aims a pea shooter at some target off canvas. Because all
those around him are kneeling, an action performed in the presence of the Holy
Sacrame nt, his target is undoubtedly the approaching procession of the Bishop
with the monstrance (the subject of another canvas). In the canvas of the parading Franciscans a child in indigenous dress, located at the far left, aims his pea
shooter at the procession of friars (figure 4). Our final example can be found in
the central zone of the canvas of the parish of San Sebastian where a child, possibly of African descent, attempts to catch a ride on the back of the processional
cart (figu ressand 6).
Such misbehavior on the part of children runs contrary to the otherwise highly
structured formal arrangement of these paintings, wherein people's actions are
prescribed according to their location within the canvases. That children, as
shown in the Corpus series, act according to age group rather than class affiliation echoes the prevailing European paradigm regarding the narure and behavior
of youngsters. In Catholic Europe the notion that a child was naturally inclined to
misbehave was articulated in the doctrine of infant depravity, which held that
childhood folly was a manifestation of original sin. Children were thus as much, if
not more , a product of their imperfect mental and spiritual states as of their
immarure physical condition. Children were seen to be capable of reason from
age seven onward, but it had to be actively encouraged by both schoolmasters
and parents.' While scholars of the history of childhood disagree about when and
why this abstract notion of childhood as a separate mental state developed in
Europe, there is general agreement in the literature that, by the seventeenth
century, European intellectuals were devoting considerable attention to the mental
development of children and the positive impact of education on molding a wellbehaved , productive adult .' One aspect of the European assessment of childhood
was that 'childish' behavior, not acceptable in an adult, was acceptable and even
expected in children. Consequently, the Corpus Christi children can be seen to
behave / misbehave according to European expectations, and indeed , no adults
move to correct the youngsters ' disruptive activities. Misbehavior on the part of
children is thus pictorially characterized as normal and customary .
It is worth noting that while the intellecruals who helped forge this notion of
the separateness of childhood referred to children in general , their observations
were applied only to boys.• Young girls remained in the home , receiving training
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Figure 3. Detail of children with pea shooters in the
foreground of the canvas of the Domi nican friars in the Corpus Christi procession.
Private collection, Santiago, Chile.
in domestic tasks from their mothers. This andro-centrism has its corollary in the
Corpus Christi paintings where we see only male children transgressing. Female
children, where distinguishable, behave properly as do most female adults.
While on one level the misbehaving children of the Corpus Christi series
serve as an anecdotal acknowledgment of typical festive chaos, their prominent
pictorial presence also addresses the desire to control that chaos. In addition ,
these children are behaviorally linked to all those of lower economic status,
most of whom are indigenous, crowded into the foreground. Both children and

Figure 4. Detail of child with a pea shooter at the far left of the canvas of the Franciscan
friars in the Corpus Christi procession. Private collection, Santiago , Chile.
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Figure 5. The canvas of the patron of the parish of San Sebastian in the Corpus Christi
procession. Archbishop's Museum of Religious Art, Cuzco.

the lower classes, as portrayed in this series of canvases, are distinguished from
society's elite by either their ignorance of correct behavior or their refusal to conduct themselves in a respectful manner when in the presence of religious and /or
civic authority. In seventeenth-century Europe, those of low social status were
commonly described as childlike. Moralists and pedagogues blamed the unacceptable behavior of both groups on their lack of education and inherent moral

weakness.' Children, for obvious reasons, are convenient symbols of the unsocialized or unacculturated elements of society and seventeenth-century Europeans
are not the only people to have likened social groups, be they distinct by virtue
ofclass, ethnicity, or gender, to
children in order to
justify 'pate rnalistic'
control.
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Figure 6. Detail of chi.Id attempting to ride the processional carriage of San Sebastian.

When Europeans encountered native Americans, they confronted cultures
whose behavior was alien, incomprehensible to them, and therefore from a
European perspective irrational. Despite the Papal Bull of 1537 which recognized
the natives of the Americas as rational men, ensuing discourse about the nature
of the 'In dian' revolved around his ability to reason. Indian ' irr ationa lity' was frequently explained by analogy with other creatures already defined by Europeans
as irrational- the most common being beasts, barbarians, and children . Indigenous
Americans , at various times and for various reasons, were compared to all three
groups. The notion that they possessed the temporarily irrational mental condition of European children was evoked in particular by many members of the
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religious community who proposed that although neither 'Indians' nor children
regulated their lives by the laws of reason, the behavior ofboth could be 'improved'
thro ugh Christian education. Because priests and friars were the educators and
protectors of the Indians, analogies of their native wards to children was a useful
one. The familial language of the church, whose representatives were addressed
as 'father ,' predisposed the European to this line of reasoning.
The writings of the mendicants include numerous comparisons of native
Americans to children. The Jesuits were prominent proponents of this analogy in
that they saw themselves as the religious order especially devoted to education.
In the sixteenth century Jose de Acosta wrote, 'Such are the miseries that many
Indians have lived in, and do to this day, for the devil abuses them like children,
with many foolish illusions .. .' and adds that their 'childish behavior ' ( niiierias ),
which is how he describes various ' idolat rous' practices, ought not to be condemned but rather that the Andeans ought to be pitied, as such 'childishness' was
the consequence of their lack of education.• Bernabe Cobo tells us that native Americans 'are extremely puerile in their behavior ' and compares them to Spanish
children in their love of play and trickery? The seventeenth-century extirpator of
idolatry, Pablo Joseph de Arriaga, wrote that priests should tell their native charges
that their offenses against Christian teachings would be punished corporally for,
like a mother, the Church would castigate her disobedient children. '0
Indeed, punishment of American natives was similar to that of European
schoolboys . The offender was first admonished; then, if the offense were repeated, corporal punishment was administered publicly." Arriaga mandates that
known sorcerers were to be taught doctrine in the church in the morning and
afternoon 'as children are.' He also dictates that for the vice of drunkenness
commoners ought to be admonished; if a second offense occurred, they were to
be publicly flogged. For a third offense the hair was to be cropped." Andeans
were acutely sensitive to this latter punishment, as short hair was characteristic
of native children. " Priests and friars thus made their native charges physically
more like children to underscore the ideational equation and make clear that
misbehavior on the part of adults was not acceptable.
Festivals were another means of teaching ' rational' European behaviors.
Ideally, religious processions would demonstrate not only who was in charge
but also accepted ways of showing respect to that authority (hat doffed, head
bowed, voice hushed, knees bent). The paintings of the Corpus Christi procession
make permanent the desired ephemeral demonstr ation, allowing the lesson to
be taught year-round through their location on parish church walls and with the
sanctification of the Christian God.
Aside from the indigenous elite, who were responsible for the parish's entry in
the Corpus Christi procession , the Andean parishioners of Santa Ana - the audience
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of these works - would have identified with those portrayed in the lower zone of
the canvases. Consequently, these paintings informed their audience of their separateness from the Cuzcan elite by emphasizing not only the physical distance
between the classes but differences in appearance, manner, and behavior. The
link between misbehaving members of the lower plane and children encodes an
encouragement to refrain from disrespectful or childish behavior / misbehavior
and to emulate the elite and those associated with them. The artists of the series
have employed a para digm, familiar to Europeans and the Europeanized elements
ofCuzcan society, that was thought to accurately characterize the mental state and
consequential behavioral patterns of children, European lower classes, and unacculturated Andeans (most of whom, in urban Cuzco, were lower class as well).
While children were expected to behave irrationally, that is, misbehave, and
the Corpus series portrays many children doing just that, we also see children
whose behavior is unremarkable as well as some who surpass adults in demonstrating respect. These respectful children, who display the instinctual spirituality
which was also associated with youngsters, were undoubtedly meant to encourage emulative behavior on the part of the adult audience. In the canvas of Cuzco's
Bishop (Don Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo), who carries the monstrance, a
kneeling child serves as a model of religious devotion . The child is placed above,
and separated from, the rest of the crowd, clearly serving as an example to all.
In the canvas of the magistrate 's procession, two well dressed Andean boys
appear as patrons, hands folded in prayer. A number of male yout h, old enough
to have learned 'rational' behavior, have been incorporated into the ceremonia l
activity itself. Youth in white surplices bear the candles which flank the high
cross in six of the canvases (see, for example, figure 5). In another canvas a
native youth bears the traditional crown of the native leader of a Cathedral
sociality. In this same canvas Charles II, the teen-age Spanish king, is present in
the central scene of the altar in which he defends the Eucharist against the Turks
(figure 7). The child Christ, wise beyo nd his years, is the subject of another processional altar constructed outside the Jesuit church." These exemplary children ,
though fewer in number, provide a counterpoint to their misbehaving fellows.
By including children so prominently in this series of canvases, the exceptional
nature of youth is underscored, and these youngsters are thus able to address
the audience in a didactic and moralizing fashion.
While few scholars have focused specifically on the meaning and function of
images of children in art, it is clear that youngsters commonly served as symbolic
referents to adult issues in seventeenth-century Europe. Mary Frances Durantini,
in her exemplary study of images of children in Dutch art of this period, concludes
that the artists of the seventeenth century consistently used images of children to
address adult problems, vices, and concerns." While the Protestant Dutch and
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Figure 7. Detail of a processional altar from the Cuzco Corpus Christi series
depicting the Spartish monarch Charles II defending the Eucharist. From the canvas of
the sodalities of Santa Rosa and ' La Linda :
the Catholic Spaniards certainly differed in many regards, they shared the same
notion of childhood as a distinct mental state which required substantial educational efforts. Given this notion , the innocence associated with children and their
lack of conscious or calculated (that is, social ized) responses renders them ideal
didactic pictorial devices. To the European and Europeanized viewer the Corpus
children, both naughty and nice, would have been easily apprehended visual metaphors for inappropriate (irrational) and appropriate (rational) adult behavior.
It is likely that the artists of the Corpus Christi series deliberately featured
children in the canvases, as the activities of youngsters are among the most
remarkable and humorous elements in these crowded compositions. Their prominent presence can hardly be written off as a mere anecdotal diversion from the
primary processional activity. The artist's intentionality can be seen most clearly
in the canvas of the sociality of San Sebastian (figure 5). The processional carriage
of the saint, representing the local parish of San Sebasti an, was copied from
engravings in a Valencian festivity book composed in 1663 byJuan Bautista Valda,
as were all of the carriages in the Corpus Christi series." In Valda, the carriage
belongs to the tailo r's guild and the engraving is signed by Jose Caudi (figu re 8)."
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Figure 8. Processional carriage of the tailor's guild
by Jose Caudi. From Juan Bautista de Valda, Solemnesfiestas (Valencia , 1663).
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Caudi's image has been reversed in the canvas of San Sebastian , its decoration has
been simplified, and its pedestal cropped by the Cuzcan artist. The image of San
Sebastian has replaced that of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception , and the flying dragon (attached to the Valencian pedestal) has been eliminated in the painted version. Whereas the Valencian engraving shows the carriage to be occupied by
five saints, these figures do not appear on the carriage of San Sebastian. Interestingly, while the Cuzcan artist simplified his prototype by eliminating much of the
detail, he added the child who attempts to hitch a ride on the rear of the carriage.
Apparen tly, this pictorial amendment was understood to enhance the meaning of
the canvas as a whole, perhaps rendering this fictive carriage more relevant and
believable to a parochial audience that had never seen such a contraption. "
What and how the misbehaving children signify within the Corpus Christi
series is best understood by examining briefly festive behavior in late seventeenthcentury Cuzco. While no mention is found in available records of unruly children,
there is considerable concern expressed over adult, and especially Andean , 'misbehavior.' As in European art, it would seem that the Corpus children address
adult concerns. That the canvases ultimately focus on adult behavior during public
festivals is logical, considering that this was an overweening concern of Cuzco' s
elite. From seventeenth-century civil records, we know that unruly behavior during public festivals preoccupied both Cuzco's civic and religious authorities. The
Municipal Counc il, Ecclesiastic Council, and parish clerics all took steps to discourage public drunkenness, violence, and other manifestatio ns of disrespect on
the part of Andeans and the lower classes in general. Indigenous leaders were
charged with controlling the drunkenness and unruly behavior of their constituents. The boisterous behavior shown in the Corpus series is mild compared
to the actual brawls that often broke out in the midst of festivities. In fact , the
artists of the Corpus Christi series restricted violent behavior to the annoying,
but harmless, children armed with pea shooters. By showing only mildly unruly
behavior and linking it to the irrational behavior of children, implications of serious social discord have been elided and disrespectful actions appear as isolated
manifestations of childish minds. Further, featuring misbehaving children allowed
the artists of the Corpus series to acknowledge the existence of rambunctious
activity, which is a hallmark of most celebratory occasions, without sanctioning it.
In fact , by linking the misbehaving children to disrespectful commoners, the
parishioner is encouraged to behave reverentially, as noted earlier.
The above interpretation pivots upon the European paradigm of the irrational
child. The images of children in the Corpus Christi series could only have served
to encourage good behavior if the same conception of the nature of childhood

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was held by both colonist and colonized. This is so because 'child' is an ideational
construct not firmly tied to physiology; 'children' and thus 'childishness' are, to a
great extent, created by culture. The equation of naturally irrational children with
improperly irrational adults depends upon the recognition of childhood as a
separate state of both mental and physical being. Because the notion of what is
'childish ' is culture specific, we may wonder how the images of misbehaving
youngsters were interpreted by the largely unacculturated indigenous parishioners of the church of Santa Ana.
In contrast to the European model of irrationality, evidence indicates that the
pre-Hispanic Andean child was distinguished by physiological rather than mental
capabilities. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, an Andean native author working at
the beginning of the seventeenth century, drew pictures of Andean children and
described their function in pre-Hispanic Inca socie ty.1 ' He tells us that native
children of less than one year of age, still in the cradle, had to be cared for by
others, as did those under five years of age who could crawl but who were as yet
unweaned. Small children of both sexes were , according to Guaman Poma, without purpose or usefulness in that they served no one and, in fact, had to be served
by others. Inca children of ages five through nine, in contrast, were assigned
certain tasks. Boys of this age aided their parents and community by watching
younger siblings, performing various domestic chores, and helping to raise
orphans. Guaman Poma contrasts the pre-Conquest usefulness of this age group
to domestic organization with the post-Conquest practice of removing these
boys from their homes to educate them. Girls from ages five to nine served as
pages for important females; they also helped their parents by collecting firewood
and straw as well as spinning, gathering edible wild plants , raising younger
children, fetching water, cooking, and cleaning.
According to Guaman Poma, from ages nine to twelve young males served
both their parents and the cacique (native lord) by hunting small birds, herding,
fetching firewood, spinning wool, and twisting rope. Girls of this same age served
the community by collecting flowers , herbs, and leaves for dying cloth and cooking. They could also serve the government as human sacrifices. Male youth from
ages twelve to eighteen guarded the herds and hunted birds. Females of this age
group served their elders by spinning and weaving, shepherding, sowing and
tending crops, and making chicha (an alcoholic beverage made from maize).They
also helped around the house performing a number of tasks.
Females over eighteen were eligible for marriage and therefore considered
adults; young males, in contrast, from ages eighteen to twenty served in a special
capacity as messengers of the community and lackeys to warriors and great lords.

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Guaman Poma calls them Indians of half-tribute noting their status as 'not-quiteadults.' Each stage of life was thus characterized by what it could do for society in
contrast to the European concept of the excusable irresponsibility of children.
The individual's physical abilities and corresponding duties were the basis of
the categories used by Inca census-takers.John H. Rowe 's seminal study of the
Inca census reveals that Andean age-grades were defined primarily by the individual's ability to contribute to the state economy." In addition to those described
by Guaman Poma, named age-grades are recorded by the Mercedarian friar
Martin de Murua,' 1 the licenciado (lawyer) Fernando de Santillan, " Father Cristobal
de Castro,'' and an anonymous group of Andeans ('los Senores' ) who served under
Incan lords in pre-Hispanic times." Murua's list is so similar to that of Guaman
Poma that Rowe suspects that he used Guaman Poma as a source." While differing from those recorded by Guaman Poma and Murua, the categories provided
by Santillan, Castro, and 'los Sefiores ' are close enough to each other that a common source is indicated . Rowe concludes that Father Castro was responsible for
recording the testimony of 'los Sefiores' and that SantiJlan used Castro as his
source. These three then will be designated as the Castro group in the discussion
which follows.
All sources list similar categories for adults, but differ in their divisions of the
pre-adult years. In all lists, over half of the categories describe the pre-adult
years, or the years before the individual bore full responsibility for producing
tribute. Once adulthood was achieved (ages twenty to twenty-five ), the Andean
was not removed from this category until she / he was incapable of fulfilling the
associated occupational and tributary functions. While Guaman Poma describes
ten categories for males (six of which designate pre-adults) and ten for females
(five of which designate pre-adults), the chronicles of the Castro group tell us
that there were twelve age groupings without differentiating male and female. 2•
In the Castro group, the teen years are divided into two categories, which define
the type of service expected. According to Sant illan , ages sixteen to twenty were
collectively called cocapalla (coca-harvester ); he tells us that youth of this category were expected to reap the state-owned coca crop. Castro similarly terms
ages twelve to sixteen cocapalla, and 'los Sefiores ' assign ages twelve to twenty to
the category cocapallac. Santillan terms ages twenty to twenty-five imanguayna,
which he translates as casi mozo ('almost a young adult' ), and says these youth
contribute to the work of their brothers and relatives. According to Castro, ages

sixteen to twenty were called michoguayna; ' los Sefiores ' term ages twenty to
twenty-five michuguaina and say the category consists of those who aid their
parents and relatives."

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According to the Castro group, seven of the twelve age-groupings designate
the growth stages of the pre-puberty yea rs, although, unlike Guaman Pom a,
none of them lists specific duties of these ages." What is apparent in this categorization of the years in which the individual experiences rapid physical development is that , to the Andean, 'age ' was not the sum of years but an evaluation of
physical attributes, abilities, and dexterity. Cobo confirms this, saying that 'age
was not counted in years, nor did any of them know how many years old they
were. [For the census] they were accounted for on the basis of the duty and
aptitude of each person .. .'" The two major ceremonies for Andean children
marked weaning and puberty - the two most important stages of growth, which,
significantly, commemorated the increasing independence of the young individual.
Weaning, celebrated by the hair-cutting and first naming ceremony, marked the
first stage of the child's physical independenc e. The puberty rites and second
naming ceremony celebrated the age at which the child became a significant contributor to the local economy. The giving of a new name signaled an important reclassification of the individual and his or her significance to society.
Garcilaso de la Vega, a mestizo writing at the tum of the seventeenth century,
tells us that native children were expected to work from age six onward, but
provides only scanty details.30 He describes harsh treatment of children enactedto
encourage responsible behavior from a very early age. Apparently, in stark
contrast to the Catholic notion of infant depravity, neither young age nor ignorance excused native children from contributing to the com munity . Indeed ,
children in pre-Conquest times were themselves often treated as products. We
know they were given to the state as a form of tax payment. In addition, they
were highly valued as the most propitious of sacrifices offered at critical junctures
such as epidemics, war, and the coronation of new heads -o f-state. " It would
appear that children were perceived as natural resources produced by the community and therefore expected to benefit that community. The phrasing of
Guaman Poma, which emphasizes the usefulness of the child from the time it
was weaned, underscores this interpretation. Evidence thus indicates that any
equation of 'adult' to one of the stages of 'child' would make sense to the preConquest Andean only in terms of physical prowess and productivity rather than
the rational / irrational dichotomy of the European paradigm.
Because the pre-Hispanic pattern of child rearing continued into the viceregal
period , it is likely that the common Andean did not quickly adopt the European
concept of childhood irrationality. While most Spanish chroniclers paid little attention to how the Andean adults they were documenting treated native children, a
few helpful references can be found. Pedro de Cieza de Leon, writing between

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1541 and 1550, commented on the early date, while the child was still in infancy and

as yet unweaned, at which language instruction began; he also expressed surprise
at the ability of 'little boys' to fashion fine metalcraft." Arriaga was impressed
that indigenous children were expected to behave as adults in native religious
ceremonies ." Cobo , on the other hand, did not admire the character of native
youth. He decried their lack of manners, virtue , orderliness, and praiseworthy
habits. His statement that native children of the seventeenth century'... do not
know what proper respect and courtesy are ...' suggests, however, that he judged
Andean behavior by European standards, interpreting different training as no
training. Cobo did note that age groups were valued according to their ability to
work, saying that 'as soon as the poor parents begin to grow weak with age,
their ungrateful children forget the natural debt which they have to serve and
respect them with even greater care, love, and compassion.'" Such comments
then indicate that the pre-Hispan ic emp hasis on work performance was maintained into the viceregal era.
During the viceregal period, while the official transition to adulthood was set
at twenty-one according to European custom, children of lower classes assumed
adult roles and responsibilities at earlier ages. Age fifteen or sixteen seems to
have been the age at which working youth were able to undertake professions.
While little mention of children is made in documentary sources, there are records
of arranged apprent iceships . According to these sources, boys were apprenticed
at around eight to twelve years of age with the understanding that they would be
fully trained and able to pursue their intended professions by age fifteen or
sixteen. " Thus although male youth were considered 'minors' until age twentyone, they functioned as adults prior to that time. The work patterns of the lower
Spanish classes during the viceregal period then would not have conflicted with
the native pattern of childrearing. Indeed, there is no evidence to suggest that the
paradigmatic progression from irrational child to rational adult worked out by
European intellectuals ever gained currency among indigenous commoners.
The pre-Hispanic emphasis on the introduction to useful occupations early in life
has persisted until today among the less acculturated. In the Andean highlands
native children of ages five to ten are put to work herding - quite a responsibility
considering that livestock is the family 's major economic investment .'•
In contrast, elite youth in viceregal Peru were educated for longer periods
and took up adult occupations at later dates. Like children of European elite, the
children of the native nobility were accorded differential treatment. They were
taught Christianity , Latin, and the classical humanities - the same course of
instruction received by noble youth in Spain. This emphasis on educating sons

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of the indigenous nobility is common in the writings of mendicants. For example,
Arriaga states,
The only way to make the curacas and caciques [native lords] behave (and the
fact that they do not is, as I have said, an important cause of idolatry) is to begin
at the beginning and instruct their children so that from childhood they may
lea rn the Christian discipline and doctrine."
This special schooling increased the acculturation of the native elite, already
more Hispanicized than natives oflower status by closer contact with Europeans.
To the Andean noble who had himselfbeen singled out as a child and whose male
offspring were accorded special educational emphasis, the notion that children
were legitimately ignorant of proper behavior was probably a familiar and
accepted notion. The images of misbehaving children in the Corpus Christi series
would have performed as intelligible signifiers encouraging him to watch out for
his constituents as prone to childish behavior. Such images would underscore the
socio-political position of the indigenous elite as responsible for the behavior of
their constituency.
However, to the common Andean - the primary audience of these paintings
- the visually encoded equation of a child's irrationality to an adu lt's misbehavior is of doubtful significance . Considerable evidence indicates that the common
Andean did not share the European concept of childhood. The significance of
the exceptional images of misbehaving children within the behaviorally segregated world of the Corpus Christi canvases falters unless 'childish' misbehavior
is thought to be a reflection of an irrational mind. While images of naughty and
nice children undoubtedly evoked special meaning to their Europeanized audience, which included both artists and patrons, they surely failed to bridge the
cultural gap that divided Cuzco's colonial society.

I23

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Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500 to
[Cambridge , 1983]) and others have
1.
'Andean ' is used here to designate indige- taken issue with this particular conclusion,
nous peoples while ' European' refers to peo- Pollock agrees that because Europeans of the
ple of European descent.
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries per2. Twelve canvases of the Corpus Christi
ceived children to be naturally sinful, educaseries are in the Archbisho p' s Museum of tion was seen to be of utmost importance
Religious Art in Cuzco, Peru. Three addi- (see II3-r6 ). Similarly, C.John Sommerville
tional canvases recognized by Ricardo (The Rise and Fall of Childhood ,Sage Library of
Mariategui ( Pintura cuzqueiia de! siglo XV/I en Social Research ,CXL [ Beverly Hills, 1982], 83Chile [Lima, 1954 ]) as belonging to the series, 84 and 97) dates the increase in concern for a
are in a private collection in Santiago, Chile. proper education to the Renaissance, espeA sixteenth canvas, also in a private collec- cially the sixteenth century; he concludes
tion in Santiago, was identified three dec- that, owing to the religious turmoil which
ades later by Mariategui ( Nue vo lienzo characterized that century, education was reautentico del Corpus Cuzqueiio [Lima, 1983 ]). cognized as a primary weapon in the war for
For a discussion of the dating of these can- the minds of European yout h.
6. Aries, Centuries of Childhood, 60-61.
vases, see Carolyn S. Dean , Painted Images of
7. Aries, Centuries of Childhood , ro2, 262.
Cuzco's Corpus Christi: Social Conflict and
8. The Natural and Moral History of thel ndies ,
Cultural Strategy inViceregal Peru,PhD dissertranslated by Edward Grimston [1604], edittation (Universi tyof California, LosAngeles,
ed by Clements R.Markham (London, 1880 ),
1990), 65-67.
Notes

1900

3. Three of the five remaining canvases lack
one or two ofthese planes: two lack thelower
sector and two lack the upper sector, while
the fifth canvas, which features the culmi-

309; Historia natural y moral de las Indi as,sec-

nation of the procession , consists only of festival participants.
4. Philippe Aries , Centuries of Childhood: A

and edited by Roland Hamilton (Austin,

Social History of Family Life, second edition,

lated and edited by L. Clark Keating (Lexing-

trans l at ed by Robert Baldick ( New York,

ton,1968),128.

ond edition, edited by Edmundo O'Gorman
(Mexico, 1985), 224-25.
9. See History of the Inca Empire, translated
1983), 32.

ro. The Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru, trans-

11. Aries, Centuries of Childhood, 262.

1965), I02.
5. Aries, who wrote theseminal workon the

12. Arriaga, Extirpation ofidolatry, ror and 172.

history of European childh ood ( Centu ries of

13. Cristobal de Mo lin a,' The Fables and Rites
of the Yncas,' in Narratives of the Rites and Laws
of theYncas,translated and edited by Clements
R. Markham (Ne w Yo rk, 1873 ), 53; Felipe
Guaman Poma de Ayala, El Primer nueva

Childhood ), claimed that prior to the seven-

teenth century Euro peans had no concept of
childhood as a separate state of being. While
recent research by Linda A.Pollock ( Forgot ten

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W H O' S NAUG HT Y A N D N IC E

coronica ybuengobierno,second edition , edited

de su gobierno porJuan Santa Cruz Pachacuti y

byJohn V.

el Lie. Fernando de Sa ntillan , Colecci6n de
Libros y Documentos References a la Historia de! Peru, series2 , I X, annotated by
Horacio H. Urteaga (Lima , 1927),18-19.

trans-

Murra and RolenaAdomo,

lated

byJorge

L.Urioste

(Mexico,1988),201.
14. It was the practice of the Jesuits to establish sodalities dedicated to the cult of the
child Jesus in the communities they served.
By singling out the special nature of childhood , they were emphasizing their role in
educating youth .

23. Relacion ydeclaraeion del modo que estevalle
deChincha ysuscomarcanos segobernaban antes
quehobieseingas ydespues que las hobo hasta que
loscristianos entraronenesta tierra,Colecci6n de
Libros y Documentos Referen tes a la Histo-

15. The Child in Seventeenth-Century Dutch

ria de! Peru, series 2, X, annotated by Horacio
H. Urteaga (Lima , 1934),136-37.
24. ' Los Se fio res ,' ' Relacion de! origen e

Pain ting( Ann Arbor, 1979/1983),3, 6,177, 191.
16. Solemnes fiestas que celebro Valencia a la

Inmaculada Concepcion de laVirgen Maria por el
supremo decreto de N. S. Pontifice Alexandro VII
(Valencia, 1663).Teresa Gisbert and Jose de
Mesa ( Arquitectu ra andina: 1530-1830, historia y
analisis [La Paz, 1985), 234, 242-43) first id entified thisfestivity bookas the pictorial source
for two of the Corpus Christi carriages;Valda's
book was, in fact, the source of all of the carriages depicted in the series (Dean, Painted
Images, 91-97).

gobierno que los ingas tuvieron y de! que
habia antes que ellos sefioreasen a los indios
deste reino, y de que tiempo, yde otras cosas
que al gobierno convenia, declaradas por
sefiores que sirvieron al inga Yupangui ya
Topainga Yupangui ya Guainacapac ya
Huascar Inga,' in La imprenta en Lima
(1584- 1824 ), edited byJose Toribio Medina, I
(Sant iago, 1904), 202.
25. Guaman Poma and Murua were contemporaries. Guaman Poma defamed both
Murua's deeds and character repeatedly in
his chronicle ( Primer nueva coronica, 480,580,
and 612-13). Rowe discusses aspects of their
problematic relationship ('Age Grades,' 514).
26. Santillan's list actually includes onlyeleven

17. Valda, Solemnes fiestas, 534.
18. For a consideration of how these fictive
carriages both confound and supplement the
documentary mode of these canvases, see
Dean, Painted Images,97 and358-60.
19. El Prim ernu evacoronica,179-89, 201-09.
20. ' The Age Grades of the Inca Census,' in

designations , as heskips number nine.

Miscellanea Paul Rivet Octogenario Dicata , XXXI
International Congress of Am ericanis es ,
series 1, number 50, II (Mexico,1958), 499-522 .
21. Historia del origen y genealogia real de los
reyes incas del Peru, edited by Constantino
Bayle ( Madrid , 1946), 322-27; and Historia
general del Peru,edited by Manuel Ballesteros
(Mad rid, 1987),396-400.
22. ' Rela cion,' inHistoria delos Incas y relaeion

125

27. 'Los Se fio res' say michuguaina means
'almost a young man' (ya casi mozo ). Neither
their michuguaina nor Santillan's imanguayna
literally means 'almost a young man,' however (Rowe, 'Age Grades ,' 507).
28. Rowe doubts that the Inca census employed allseven of the categories listed in the
Castro group because of the fact that pre -

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pubescent children had little impact on the
state economy ('Age Grades,' 517). What concerns us here is not the identification of official Incacensus age-grades, however.but how
theAndean perceived and defined childhood.

35. Published contracts are found in Jorge
Cornejo Bou ro ncle 's Derroteros deartecuzqueiio; datos para una historia del arte en el Peru
(Cuzco, 1960).
36. This is not the case in contemporary ur-

29. History of the Inca Empire, 194.

ban Cuzco where child-rearing is admittedly permissive. Interestingly, in twentiethcentury Corpus Christi celebrations Cuzcan

30. Theincas:TheRoyalCommentaries,translat-

ed by Mariajolas,edited byAlain Gheerbrant

children are given considerable behavioral
latitude to the point that petty theft at prescribed processional junctures is sanctioned
(Carol Ann Fie dler, Corpus Christi in Cuzco:

(New York, 1961), 245.
3r. Acosta , Natu ral and Moral History, 344;
Molina, 'Fables and Rites,' 54-58.
32. The Incas, edited byVictorWolfgangvon

Festival and Ethnic Identity in the Peruvian
Andes, PhD dissertation [Tulane Universi ty,
1985], 62 and 215).

Hagen, transl ated by Harriet de Onis (Norman, 1959), 169 and 176.
33. Extirpation of Idolatry, 23 and 47.
34. Cobo,Historyof theincaEmpire,22and35 -38.

37 Extirpation of Id olatry, 99.

I26