“[For] I have been fortunate to be kinsfolk of the Royal Incas”: the maternal lineage

The references to Chimpu Ocllo, Inca Garcilaso’s mother, are the central axis of his works as they appear in strategic places within his texts. These textual references, some longer than others, function as the unifying thread of his cultural and historic narratives. It is through his mother that the Inca Garcilaso designs his own genealogy, embraces his mother tongue, and becomes a cultural translator, able to negotiate with the margins of the ontological alterity.