Page:Ollanta An Ancient Ynca Drama.pdf/17

Rh specimen of Quichua composition, its great value and interest will be lost.

I was told by Dr Justiniani, and by other Quichua scholars whom I met at Cuzco in 1853, that the drama of Ollanta was undoubtedly ancient and composed before the Spanish conquest. Rivero and Von Tschudi also appear to have had no doubt upon this point, and Barranca strongly advocates the same view. But I was led, during my visit to Peru in 1860, to think that Dr Valdez was the author, though the drama might contain ancient songs and speeches, and though the plot was undoubtedly ancient. I had not then carefully analysed the work itself. I have since done so, and this closer investigation has led me to revert to my earlier impression, and to concur with Justiniani, Rivero, Von Tschudi, and Barranca, that the drama is a pure relic of the ancient literature of the Yncas.

The internal evidence of the antiquity of the drama of Ollanta is, I consider, quite conclusive. We know from Garcilasso, that dramas were performed before the Yncas, and that the Indians had a special talent for acting; and we learn from the sentence of Areche that Quichua dramas were acted as late as 1781, to preserve the memory of the Yncas. They were performed before the ill-fated Tupac Amaru, whose intimate friend, Dr Valdez, committed the drama of Ollanta to writing, at about the time of the insurrection of the Ynca. Thus we have a chain of evidence