Blow Valera

Three signatures from Blas Valera

Blas Valera (* 1545 in Chachapoyas , † probably April 2, 1597 in Cádiz ) was a Peruvian Jesuit , writer and chronicler.

Life

His father was Luis Valera , a worthy man from Francisco Pizarro's entourage , his mother Francisca Peréz, a local whose ancestry has not yet been fully clarified. Since he lived very shortly after the fall of the Inca empire, he was able to get to know many formerly important people (e.g. the so-called Amauta ), whose knowledge he incorporated into his works. Blas Valera is referred to as the "first Peruvian historian" or "phantom chronicler".

He began his studies in Trujillo and continued it later in Lima . He joined the Society of Jesus and because of his knowledge of Quechua was soon used in various Jesuit mission areas in Peru. He was one of the first mestizos to be accepted into the Jesuit order.

Among his most important works are “De Tahuantinsuyus prischis gentibus” and “Historia Occidentales”, works from which Inca Garcilaso de la Vega also frequently quotes in his texts. Since a large part of Valera's work was irretrievably lost in a fire, these quotations are the only ones that still exist in some of his texts. In 1893, the Spanish historian Jiménez de la Espada published a book entitled "Relación del Jesuita Anónimo", whose authorship is also attributed to Blas Valera.

There are various theories about his death. Blas Valera officially died on April 2, 1597 in a pirate attack on Cádiz. According to other sources, this death was only faked, and reports of several meetings between Blas Valera and Jesuits in Bolivia and Peru in the following years, where he is said to have completed his main works under a different name. He is said to have written the book Nueva coronica y buen gobierno under the name " Felipe Waman Puma de Ayala " . So reported u. a. 1611 the Jesuit Giovanni Anello Oliva of a meeting with Valera that is said to have taken place in Santa Cruz de la Sierra ( Bolivia ).

literature

• Sabine Hyland: The Jesuit and the Incas. The Extraordinary Life of Padre Blas Valera, SJ University of Michigan Press, 2003, hdl: 2027 / mdp.39015056919932

Web links

• Brief description Blas Valera