(_Continued from_ Vol. vi., pp. 60, 61.)
Since communicating to you a short list of a few books I had noted as
having reference to this obscure subject, I have stumbled over a few others
which bear special reference to the Quichua: and of which I beg to send you
a short account, which may be worthy a place in your valuable pages.
The first work upon the Quichua language, of which I find mention, is a
grammar of the Peruvian Indians (_Gramatica ó arte general de la lengua de
los Indios del Perù_), by the brother Domingo de San Thomas, published in
Valladolid in 1560, and republished in the same year with an appendix,
being a Vocabulary of the Quichua. The demand for the first edition appears
to have been considerable; or, what is more likely, from the extreme rarity
of the work, the careful author {195} suppressed or called in the first
edition, in order to add, for the benefit of his purchasers, the vocabulary
which he had found time to prepare within the year.
The work of San Thomas seems to have glutted the market for some twenty
years; for we do not find that any one made a collection of words or
grammatical forms until the year 1586, when Antonio Ricardo published a
kind of introduction to the Quichua, having sole reference to that
language, without anything more than an explanation in Spanish.[1] This
work, like that of his predecessor, was immediately remodelled and
re-published in a very much extended form in the same year. Ricardo's books
are amongst the first printed in that part of America.
Diego de Torres Rubio is the next writer of whom I am cognizant. He
published at Seville, in 1603, a grammar and vocabulary of the Quichua; the
subject still continuing to attract attention. Still, as was to be
expected, the Quichua language was of more consequence to the Spaniards of
Peru. No doubt, therefore, that Father Juan Martinez found a ready sale for
his vocabulary, published at Los Reyes in 1604. Indeed, the subject is now
attracting the attention of the eminent Diego Gonzalez Holguin, who
published first a new grammar (_Gramatica nuevu_) of the Quichua and Inca
dialect, in four books, at the press of Francisco del Canto, in Los Reyes,
1607; and second, a vocabulary of the language of the whole of Peru (_de
todo el Perù_), in the same year and at the same press.
It is worthy to remark, as confuting somewhat fully the assertion of
Prescott (_Conquest of Peru_, v. ii. p. 188.), that the Spanish name of
Ciudad de los Reyes ceased to be used in speaking of Lima "within the first
generation," that the books of Ricardo, Holguin, and Huerta (of whom
presently) are all stated to have been printed in the Ciudad de los Reyes,
though the latest of these appeared in 1616. In 1614, however, to confine
myself strictly to the bibliographical inquiry suggested by the heading of
my article, a method and vocabulary of the Quichua did appear from Canto's
press, dated Lima,--a corruption, as is well known, of the word _Rimac_.
That, however, the Castilian name should be employed later, is curious. At
any rate, it occurs for the last time on the title of a work printed by the
same printer, Canto, in 1616; and written by Don Alonso de Huerta, the old
title being adhered to, probably from some cause unknown to us, but
possibly in consequence of old aristocratic opinions and prejudices in
favour of the Spanish name. That the name of Lima had obtained considerably
even in the time of the Conquerors, Mr. Prescott has sufficiently proved;
but as an official and recognised name it evidently existed to a later
period than the historian has mentioned.
The work of Torres Rubio, already mentioned, was reprinted in Lima by
Francisco Lasso in 1619. From this time forward, the subject of the native
language of Peru seems to have occupied the attention of many writers. A
quarto grammar was published by Diego de Olmos in 1633 of the Indian
language, as the Quichuan now came to be called.
Eleven years later, we find Fernando de Carrera, curate and vicar of San
Martin de Reque, publishing an elaborate word bearing the following title:
"Arte de la lengua yunga de los valles del obispado de Truxillo; con un
confesonario y todas las oraciones cotidianas y otras cosas: Lima, por
Juan de Contreras, 1644, 16mo."
Grammars and methods here follow thick and fast. A few years after
Carrera's book, in 1648, comes Don Juan Roxo Mexia y Ocon, _natural de
Cuzco_, as he proudly styles himself with a method of the Indian language:
and after a few insignificant works, again another in 1691, by Estevan
Sancho de Melgar.
The most common works on the Quichua are the third and fourth editions of
Torres Rubio, published at Lima in the years 1700 and 1754. Of these two
works done with that care and evident pleasure which Jesuits always, and
perhaps only, bestow upon these difficult by-roads of philology, I need say
no more, as they are very well known.
Before I close this communication, allow me to suggest to the readers and
contributors to the truly valuable "N. & Q.," that no tittle of knowledge
concerning these early philological researches ought to be allowed to
remain unrecorded; and with the position which the "N. & Q." occupies, and
the facilities that journal offers for the preservation of these stray
scraps of knowledge, surely it would not be amiss to send them to the
Editor, and let him decide as he is very capable of doing, as to their
value.