The University of Arizona Press
Reading the Illegible
Indigenous Writing and the Limits of Colonial Hegemony in the Andes
The concept of legibility allows us to reconsider this unique manuscript within the intertwined histories of literacy, knowledge, and colonialism. Reading the Illegible shows that the anonymous author(s) of the Huarochirí Manuscript, along with two contemporaneous Andean-authored texts by Joan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, rewrote the history of writing and the notion of Christianity by deploying the colonizers’ technology of alphabetic writing.
Reading the Illegible weaves together the story of the peoples, places, objects, and media that surrounded the creation of the anonymous Huarochirí Manuscript to demonstrate how Andean people endowed the European technology of writing with a new social role in the context of a multimedia society.
“Drawing our attention to the central question of ‘legibility’ as a means of understanding the complex processes of reading and writing across disparate record-keeping systems, this meticulously researched study of the production and reception of the Huarochirí Manuscript opens new paths for understanding how Native knowledge became inscribed in European letters. Grounded in careful archival research, Leon Llerena’s magnificent study of textual production is rigorously represented in its sociopolitical context.”—Amber Brian, author of Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Native Archive and the Circulation of Knowledge in Colonial Mexico
“That Reading the Illegible has recalled compatible ideas across such varied disciplines speaks to this contribution’s wide-ranging appeal. The significance of the Andean texts on its 'imaginary table' is matched only by the adeptness with which Leon Llerena guides us through them.”—Manuel Medrano, Harvard University, Hispanic American Historical Review
“This wonderfully thoughtful book reveals a spiritual literacy illegible to non-Andean readers, by which Huarochirí’s peoples used alphabetic writing to explore ‘what faith [their own ancestors] held’.”—American Historical Review
“Reading the illegible explores with expertise the foundational questions of writing in the Andes and of Indigenous agency by insisting on the polyphony of the colonial context. It proposes that the Huarochirí Manuscript preserves not only domination, but also capacity and survival. León Llerena’s work allows readers, whether new to the history of literacy in the Andes or more specialized scholars, to view writing as a contested site of power rather than a straightforward instrument of colonial domination.”—Angelica Serna Jeri, Colonial Latin American Review
“Leon Llerena abre un espacio crítico para repensar las condiciones coloniales con respecto al uso de sus aparatos de significación y a las continuas transacciones que las reconfiguran. Con un enfoque sólido e interdisciplinario, Leon Llerena contribuye al examen crítico del Huarochirí y la escritura alfabética como suma de múltiples relaciones y significaciones.”—Mónica Morales, Bulletin of Spanish Studies
