Waman Puma was born not long after the death of Atawallpa in 1533, and grew up in Ayacucho, between Lima and Cusco. He learned Spanish from his half brother, assiduously reading what he could obtain, and may even have converted to Christianity for a time. He certainly worked for a Spanish friar, travelling the country to root out ‘idolatry’. But as he travelled and met with the few remaining elders of the Tawantinsuyu he was appalled by the collapse of the old order which had been replaced by no other. The Spanish were only interested in what riches they could obtain and not in replacing the social order which they had destroyed. He devoted the remainder of his life to writing his one great book of 1200 pages and 400 drawings The First New Chronicle and Good Government, which he completed at the age of eighty.

This volume, intended for the Spanish Court, cannot have arrived as it would surely have been burnt. Somehow it got to northern Europe. It lay forgotten for three centuries, and was found accidentally at the Royal Copenhagen Library in 1908.

Why do you wish to run the lives of foreigners when you cannot run your own? Why do you demand from the poorest man his mule, but never ask if he needs any help?

And so I dared, as a vassal of your royal Crown, and as a nobleman of his kingdom of the Indies of the New World to write and illustrate the said New Chronicle and Good Government in service of God and of Your Majesty, and for the welfare, increase, and protection of the Indians of this realm.

You should consider that all the world belongs to God, and that thus Castile is of the Spaniards, and the Indies of the Indians, and Guinea of the Negroes. Each of these are the lawful owners of their lands.

The Indians are the natural owners of this realm; the Spaniards are the natural owners of Spain. Here the Inca is king, and no Spaniard nor any priest has the right to intrude, for the Inca was the possessor and lawful sovereign.

You should consider that in the time of the Incas people had much faith in God and were loyal, and very charitable, and humble, and they raised their sons and daughters with discipline and teaching. And now the people of this life are lost .... there is no justice. Everything is by self-interest and the lust for aggrandisement.

In the time of the Incas there was none of this greed for gold and silver. But now there are many thieves: Indians, Negroes, and most of all the Spaniards, who flay the poor Indians and injure them and rob them. And not only that, for they take their wives and daughters - especially the priests.

And consider, Don Francisco de Toledo, the viceroy, who in his pride wanted to be greater than a king and who passed judgement on the King of Peru! If only Your Majesty had sent a judge here then to behead him on the same scaffold!

Consider the poor Indians and their works, that in every town they built irrigation canals from the rivers and springs, lakes and reservoirs. In ancient times they built them with so much effort and with the greatest skill in the world, so that it seems that every Indian that ever lived raised up a stone. And all this was sufficient for the large number of people that there used to be here. And thus throughout the kingdom all the land produced food, whether jungles, deserts, or the difficult mountains of this realm, and the Inca kings ordered that nobody should damage or remove one stone, and that no livestock should enter the said canals.

But his law is no longer kept, and so all the fields are ruined for lack of water. Because of this the Indians lose their farms. For in this time the Spaniards release their animals, their mule trains, cows, their goats and sheep, and they cause great damage. And they also take the water, and break the irrigation canals, so that they could not be repaired now for any amount of money. And the little water that remains, they take even that from the poor Indians. And so the Indians abandon their towns.

Consider that the Indians were not barbarous or simple, but they had a law even before there was an Inca. And from that time forth they had an Inca law and an Inca king.

And since one of these kings was my grandfather, I propose: first, a son of mine, a great-grandson of Tupa Inka Yupanki, as prince of this realm; second, a Negro prince in the kingdom of Guinea; third, a king of the Christians of Rome and fourth, a king of the Moors of Grand Turkey - the four to be crowned, with their sceptres and robes.

And in the middle of these four parts of the world shall stand the Majesty and Monarch of the world King Philip, but the monarch does not have jurisdiction.