The Incas and the Enlightenment: Andean Idols and European Discourses on Religion, 1550–1900

This article examines the shifting status of Inca religion in European discourse between 1550 and 1900. It is argued that a trope of Inca Exceptionalism—the idea that Inca religion was uniquely rational and admirable—can be discerned throughout this period, albeit to varying degrees, ultimately reaching a crescendo during the Enlightenment. Contrasting accounts of Aztec religion are also discussed, given the widespread tendency among European authors to see Inca religion as superior to its Mesoamerican counterparts. Following the Enlightenment, there is a marked decline in the prestige afforded to Inca religion, which was viewed in increasingly negative terms by nineteenth-century anthropologists and philologists. The article presents a range of interpretations as to why understandings of Inca religion altered so much over the time period in question and suggests that the discourse on Inca religion is illustrative of shifting intellectual frameworks with respect to the wider category of religion itself. Finally, it is argued that Inca religion cannot be understood apart from the distinctively aniconic nature of Inca visual culture, a material fact that exerted considerable influence over European perceptions of religion in the Americas.