Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Case for Studying History
I thought the idea that lack of writing contributed to the fall of the Inca to be fascinating. In Chapter 3 Diamond says that the Incan chief had no experience with previous invaders and no knowledge of invasions from other parts of the world. This included the recent conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico. For this reason, he showed a marked lack of suspicion when meeting Pizarro and was captured. Whereas the spaniards were "heirs to a huge body of knowledge about human behavior and history." Just an awareness of other people's fates might have made the chief more suspicious and saved him.
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Hence the saying, "Knowledge is power." The Incas may have had wisdom, but without knowledge of their enemies they had no idea how to respond or what to expect. Had they had the knowledge of behavior based on previous experience of ancestors or other humans, they would not have been so trusting.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure Dr. Diamond has not overstated the case for written history and its affect on the battle at Cajamarca. The lack of a written history does not mean no history -- if it did, we wouldn't have an Old Testament to our Bible. Oral history traditions long preceded written histories everywhere. The Incas were an empire of over 4 million people. They had a god-king and his court: I guarantee they understood the concept of intrigue. They had wars, even if it was waged with "primitive" weapons ("primitive" is relative to who is using it on whom right now -- just ask Magellan). The Incas knew their own history. It is true that Atahuallpa had little military intelligence about the Spaniards and what he did have was wrong. The Spaniards were, however, a new enemy to the Incas -- it is unlikely there would have been much to read about them even if writing were commonplace among them. Word of the Spanish conquests elsewhere could have travelled in oral form, even if not as effectively as in written form: the point is, it didn't travel at all.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, that whole trap incident was a little strange. Most god-kings I ever read about were meglomaniacs: they didn't go to you; you came to them, on your belly, pushing your gifts to them before you. Yet, Atahullpa went to the Spaniards. Perhaps he had underestimated the Spanish capabilities and intentions, but there had to be something else. Instead of him being innocent and trusting lamb wandering in among nasty, duplicitous Spanish wolves, perhaps he did understand something more of the Spanish capabilities and wanted the Spaniards to help him strengthen his own shaky hold on on the throne. If he was looking to plan some intrigue with the Spaniards, he would have had reason to enter their camp with so small a fraction of his force. Whatever he intended, I don't see that having his information in a written form rather than an oral form would have made a difference. Having the Black Watch there to show his forces how to form squares to fend off heavy cavalry: now that would have made a difference.
So glad to see Kurt here. I was just going to send a personal invite. I am finally at the last section of the book. The chapter on team politics and relition got a lot of comments in the margins in my copy. ;)
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