Fictional Shields and Real Harm – The Getty Murúa I

Figure 1: UNKNOWN ARTISTS, Mayta Capac, ca. 1616, coloured illustration, in: Martin DE MURÚA, Historia general del Piru (Ms. Ludwig XIII 16), fol. 28v, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
During the summer of last year, Torsten Hiltmann had the opportunity to undertake a research stay at the Getty Library. As part of this visit, he was also able to learn more about a particular manuscript—the Getty Murúa—and to examine the original at the Getty Museum, which is the focus of the following blog post. This manuscript was met with a lot of curiosity and gave rise to even more questions. Here we have a document from the beginning of the 17th century, originating in colonial South America and describing the precolonial history of the Inca. The text is accompanied by multiple drawings, some of them depicting the alleged coats of arms of these precolonial Incas. At this point the questions begin: Why are there coats of arms next to indigenous rulers? Who designed them? What could they possibly mean? This blog post is not meant to and does not answer these questions to their fullest degree. It does however elaborate on these questions, collecting the information we already know about this and similar documents and hopefully highlights often overlooked aspects in heraldry. It is the first of three parts, part 2 and part 3 can be found on this blog as well.
Introduction
It is not often that heraldic matters attract any kind of media attention. But Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley did just that when he announced that the Caribbean island would be updating its national coat of arms. The change to the current design – three ships on a red field, accompanied by two golden hummingbirds in chief on a black field between a white chevron – is motivated by a desire to remove colonial connotations from the state’s official insignia. The three ships, representing the ships of Christopher Columbus, are replaced by three steelpans, the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago.[1]
This change in heraldic symbols once again demonstrates that the field of heraldry is far from an apolitical space and has a place in current debates such as postcolonialism. With such a framework in mind, it is helpful to look back at past heraldic communication in the former colonies to further our understanding of visual communication and the expression of power and agency through coats of arms. One particular case will be presented here: a seventeenth-century manuscript containing the (fictional) coats of arms of ancient Inca rulers and of the region itself, known as Getty Murúa. This work, written by Martín de Murúa, deals with the history of Peru from its ancient past to the colonial period, as its title “Historia general del Piru” suggests. The following essay will take a look at this manuscript. First, its genesis will be recounted with reference to early drafts and another work by an indigenous scholar, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala. After this brief introduction, the coats of arms will be examined in detail and compared with some actually granted early indigenous coats of arms from Mesoamerica and South America. Finally, the role of heraldry and its scholars will be reflected against the background of postcolonial debates. It is explicitly not the aim of this blog post to interpret these heraldic representations in any meaningful way or to postulate any thesis about their influence, but rather to present them and to give inspiration for further research.
Martín de Murúa
The available sources provide only limited information regarding Martín de Murúa’s early life. It is presumed that he joined the Mercedarian Order in South America during the 1570s as a docterinero (missionary) which means that he has to be previously ordained. Early documents place him in San Salvador de Capachica, which lies within the corregimiento of Paucarcollo and archival material locate him for the year 1595 in Cuzco as the procurator of a local convent. The sources place Murúa in various Peruvian towns and regions while not providing much more information. It is known that he lived in among others Ylabaya, La Paz, and Aimaraes. He subsequently returned to Spain in 1615.[2] This dates his sojourn in South America occurred within the historical period when the Incan Empire had already been subjugated by the Spanish and the recently established viceroyalty of Peru encompassed the vast majority of the South American continent.[3]
During his stay on the recently conquered continent, Murúa occupied himself with the composition of an historiographical and ethnological treatise on the history of Peru’s ancient rulers, the Incas. The culmination of his scholarly endeavours is the manuscript currently known as the Getty Murúa, which was completed around 1616. The historical significance of this work has been recognized in recent years by scholars, who have discovered that it is one of only three illustrated manuscripts covering the history of Peru from this time period. The other two, the Galvin manuscript and El primer nueva coronica i buen gobierno, are, however, closely related to the Getty manuscript, as will be demonstrated later on.
The Getty manuscript and its predecessors
In terms of subject matter, the Getty manuscript deals with the rise and fall, governance, and religion of the Inca empire, and provides readers with a geographical overview of the ancient Incan and colonial Spanish settlements, as well as the mines of the viceroyalty. The manuscript that has been examined is a clean copy that was submitted to Spanish censors in order to receive the royal permission to be printed, and not the final version that would be published. Although printing permission was granted, the reasons why the manuscript never went into production remain unknown, and thus the present version represents the closest to completion. The fact that we are not dealing with a finished, printed manuscript is evident in the illustrations, which display blank spaces within the binding and by comparing it to previous drafts. It can thus be inferred that each chapter of the Getty manuscript was supposed to be introduced by a hand-coloured drawing. However, only 34 original and 4 copied drawings accompany the Getty Murúa, representing approximately one-fifth of the planned total.
One earlier draft is passed down to us as well. This manuscript, also authored by Murúa, known as the Galvin manuscript, has the title Historia del origen y genealogia real de los reyes ingas del Piru and was finished around 1590. This piece of writing is closely related to the Getty Murúa and can be seen as a predecessor to the later work. While the Getty Murúa significantly expands the content of the Galvin manuscript, which is only half the size of the Getty manuscript, the Galvin manuscript is more extensively illustrated, containing 128 hand-coloured drawings. Both the Getty and Galvin manuscripts are cleanly copied from earlier text drafts, one of which was supposedly shown to the indigenous rulers of Cuzco for approval, although it is most likely that this was not illustrated. An analysis of the creation process reveals that the drawings were added in multiple steps after the text was finished, with the addition of the coats of arms being the final step and being done by a second artist who was not involved in the creation of the other illustrations.
The perspective of the natives. Guamán Poma’s Nueva coronica
As previously stated, a third manuscript dealing with Incan history from this time period exists: El primer nueva coronica i buen gobierno by Filipe Guamán Poma de Ayala (c. 1535–1615). This manuscript was created after the Galvin manuscript but predates the Getty Murúa.[4] The primary distinction between this manuscript and the other two lies in its authorship. Guamán Poma, as he is frequently referred to, was an Incan nobleman and, consequently, not a member of the Spanish conquistadors but rather an indigenous Peruvian. During his early years, he served as an administrator for the viceroyalty until he embarked on creating his magnum opus. While the author was different, both the Getty Murúa and Poma’s nueva coronica were addressed to the Spanish King and had the people in mainland Spain as its readers in mind.[5]

Figure 2: Felipe GUAMÁN POMA DE AYALA, The Mercedarian friar Martín de Murúa abuses his pa-rishioners and takes justice into his own hands, 1615, in: Felipe GUAMÁN POMA DE AYALA, El primer nueva coronica i buen gobierno (GKS 2232 4°), p. 661, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen.
Recent scholarship has led to a reassessment of the influence exerted by Poma on the creation of the Murúa’s work. It is no longer assumed that Poma was Murúa’s informant and co-author of the Getty Murúa. Instead, the influence exerted by Poma is now described as “late and limited”[6]. Of the four drawings extracted from the Galvin manuscript and incorporated into the Getty Murúa, three were executed by Guamán Poma, including the depiction of the Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Peru.[7] Modern scholarship postulates that Guamán Poma and Murúa were once friends, but that the two men fell out sometime between the completion of the Galvin and Getty manuscript. In his own text, the Andean writer does appear to hold Murúa in low regard; he informs his readers of the Spaniards’ mistreatment of the indigenous people, claiming that he kept unmarried women in his residency to weave expensive and elaborate clothing for him. Guamán Poma further alleges that Murúa mistreated his workers both as an employer and as a preacher, threatening, abusing and terrifying the local populace. Murúa’s mistreatment of workers is illustrated in Guamán Poma’s nueva coronica as Murúa beating a woman working at a loom (fig. 2).
Furthermore, Murúa’s mistreatment of the local population is evidenced by Poma’s testimony, in which he recounts the Spaniard’s sermon in response to criticism regarding his treatment of workers:
“You tell me that you would have me removed? Who is the bishop? Who is the king? They will do nothing to the representative of God. I shall have all of you burned, saying that you are illegitimately cohabiting or that you are sorcerers. Understand me well! I am going to die here! I shall leave only after killing the curaca [local chief]. With the scourge I shall make you confess, O troublemaking Aymara!”[8]
What’s next?
The second installation of this little series will take a closer look at the images in the Getty Murúa. What do we know about their creation? How do they look? And how do the depicted coats of arms compare iconographically to other examples from Meso-America?
[1] Cf. Simon Barmann, Neue Wappen für ehemalige Kolonien, in: taz, 23.09.2024, URL: https://taz.de/Dekolonisierung/!6036010/, (last Access: 25.10.24).
[2] Juan M. Ossio, Martin de Murúa, in: Historia Hispánica, URL: https://historia-hispanica.rah.es/biografias/31913-martin-de-murua (last access 29.01.2025).
[3] Barbara Anderson and Thomas B.F. Cummins, Introduction, in: id. (eds.), The Getty Murúa. Essays on the Making of Martín de Murúa’s “Historia General del Piru,” J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig XIII 16, Los Angeles 2008, pp. 1–5, here pp. 1–3.
[4] Rolena Adorno and Ivan Boserup, The Making of the Murúa’s Historia General del Piru, in: Anderson and Cummins (eds.), The Getty Murúa, pp. 7–77, here pp. 7–25.
[5] The Editors Of The Encyclopedia, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Felipe-Guaman-Poma-de-Ayala (last access: 30.10.2024).
[6] Adorno and Boserup, The Making, p. 42.
[7] Cf. Ibid., p. 42 f.
[8] Cited in: Juan M. Ossio, Murúa’s Two Manuscripts: A Comparison, in: ANDERSON and CUMMINS (eds.), The Getty Murúa, pp. 77–94, here p. 81.
Literature
- Adorno, Rolena and Ivan Boserup, The Making of the Murúa’s Historia General del Piru, in: Anderson and Cummins (eds.), The Getty Murúa, pp. 7–77.
- Anderson, Barbara and Thomas B.F. Cummins, Introduction, in: id. (eds.), The Getty Murúa. Essays on the Making of Martín de Murúa’s “Historia General del Piru,” J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig XIII 16, Los Angeles 2008, pp. 1–5.
- Barmann, Simon, Neue Wappen für ehemalige Kolonien, in: taz, 23.09.2024, URL: https://taz.de/Dekolonisierung/!6036010/, (last Access: 25.10.24).
- Ossio, Juan M., Martin de Murúa, in: Historia Hispánica, URL: https://historia-hispanica.rah.es/biografias/31913-martin-de-murua (last access 29.01.2025).
- Ossio, Juan M., Murúa’s Two Manuscripts: A Comparison, in: Anderson and Cummins (eds.), The Getty Murúa, pp. 77–94.
- The Editors of the Encyclopedia, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Felipe-Guaman-Poma-de-Ayala (last access: 30.10.2024).
Image References
Figure 1: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, URL: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/105W9T (Accessed 12.11.2024).
Figure 2: Ossio, Murúa’s Two Manuscripts, p. 80.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Jannes Schönhardt (February 5, 2025). Fictional Shields and Real Harm – The Getty Murúa I. Heraldica Nova. Retrieved November 10, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/1391v

