Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Susane Rodrigues de. The priestesses of the sun: sacred and profane images of the feminine in sixteenth's century Spanish chronicles. Cad. Pagu [online]. 2002, n.19, pp. 145-169. ISSN 0104-8333.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-83332002000200007.

This article presents an analysis of the representations of the priestesses of the sun - the acclas - transmitted in the chronicles of three Spaniards of the sixteenth's century: the Jesuit José de Acosta, the Crown's official Sarmiento of Gamboa and the mercedarian friar Martín de Murúa. It is a study of statements that identify such women sometimes with the sacred, other times with the profane, and they disclose the Spanish conceptions of gender and religion that presided over the construction of the differences, inequalities, hierarchies and relationships among Incas and Spaniards, and among men and women, in the process of colonization of the Incas.

Keywords : Acclas; Incas; Chronicles; Sacred; Women; Nuns; Vestals; Concubines.