Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/353

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NAME AYMARA
313

Holguin was appointed Interpreter-General to the Viceroy of Peru on September 10, 1575. He published his vocabulary of the general language at Lima in 1586, calling it 'Quichua, or the language of the Inca.'[1] His elaborate grammar was published in 1607.[2] Another Jesuit, Diego de Torres Rubio, published his 'grammar and vocabulary of the general language of Peru, called Quichua,' at Seville in 1603.[3] In 1607 the excellent Bishop Luis Geronimo Oré, a native of Guamanga in Peru, published his 'Rituale seu Manuale Peruanum' at Naples. It contains specimens of the different languages and dialects.

The Jesuits established a mission at Juli, on the west coast of Lake Titicaca, and studied the language of the natives of Colla-suyu. Other priests had studied that language before the Jesuits were established at Juli, and had given it the name of Aymara, which is even more inappropriate for the language of Colla-suyu than the name of Quichua is for the Runa-simi, or general language of the Incas. The Jesuits had a printing-press at Juli, and were very active in the work of conversion. The native tribe at Juli and on the west side of the lake of Titicaca was called Lupaca. To the north were the Collas, to the south the Pacajes, and on the east side of the lake were the Pacasas. As the Collas were the most powerful, all the tribes in the basin of Lake Titicaca were usually referred to by the early Spanish writers under the generic name of Collas.

Colla would, therefore, be the correct name for the language of the Collas, and not Aymara. None of the early writers ever mentioned the inhabitants of Colla-suyu except as Collas. There is not one single instance of the name

  1. Second edition, Lima, 1607.
  2. Ibid., Lima, 1842.
  3. Ibid., Lima, 1629; third, 1700; fourth, 1754. A vocabulary of Chinchay-suyu, by Juan de Figueredo, is bound up with Torres Rubio's.