Andeanizing Mary: Evangelization and Quechua Devotional Poetry from Early Colonial Peru

Marian Quechua poetry, such as the verses included by criollo authors Luis Jerónimo de Oré in his Symbolo catholico indiano (1598) and Juan Pérez Bocanegra in his Ritval formvlario (1631), played a central role in the conversion of Indigenous peoples to Catholicism in the Andean region. Both authors drew upon Western Marian rhetoric and iconography while negotiating the challenges of translating foreign religious concepts into Quechua. The resulting process of cultural and linguistic adaptation involved the strategic appropriation of Inca myths of origin and religious practices.