As the initial sentence of Durston's book points out, the appropriation and use of indigenous languages for religious purposes was “one of the most telling features of Spanish colonialism” (1). It is appropriate and interesting that Durston approaches this problem from the complex notion of “translation,” which, as the book shows, is both a microcosm of and a means of furthering unequal social relations between Spaniards and Quechua-speaking Andeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Durston combines knowledge of Quechua language and linguistics with a sophisticated account of the history of Christianity in the Andean world. His work is based on historical work (part I) and the actual analysis of Pastoral Quechua texts in terms of linguistics, genres, themes, and contexts (part II).

Chapter 1 discusses the development of language ideologies in Europe and their relationship with religious practices upon the coming of the Spanish to the New World. There is a discussion of the language situation in the pre-Hispanic Andes, and the situation is one of considerable diversity with regard to Quechua dialects and other indigenous languages. Durston argues against attributing a primordial status to Cuzco Quechua, which, following Mannheim, is considered just one of the many dialects of “Southern Peruvian Quechua” (37). How Cuzco Quechua became associated with the origins of the language family and elevated socially above other Quechuas was the result of a long process involving the creation and propagation of “Standard Colonial Quechua,” a standardized version of the Cuzco dialect. This new Quechua dialect was used only for colonial and religious purposes.

Standard Colonial Quechua did not significantly alter the spoken landscape of Quechua, nor did it usher in a major language shift in the Andean world. Standard Colonial Quechua, however, did have significant effects on the development of Quechua literacy and the psychology of the speakers of other Quechua dialects. In Durston's words, “colonial pastoral translation is at the root of the persisting myth of the primacy of Cuzco Quechua, and this myth has arguably had very negative repercussions for the linguistic self-esteem of the vast majority of Quechua speakers” (49).

Chapter 2 focuses on the years of the 1550s and the 1560s and the history and politics of beginning efforts at creating pastoral texts in Quechua. This beginning period was more diverse, accommodating of Andean concepts, and experimental. Chapter 3 looks at the 1570s and 1580s and the key transformations of the pastoral regime ushered in by Viceroy Francisco Toledo and the arrival of the Jesuits onto the scene. These set the stage for the Third Council of Lima, which created an official corpus of catechetical texts and reforms that sought to curb resurgences of old ideas. An official Quechua and an official Aymara were selected, and “the use of all other Quechua or Aymara cartillas, translations … and basic catechetical texts in general was prohibited” (89). The pastoral regime implemented policies assuring non-variation “even in a single syllable” (102), as variation endangered the resurgence of past notions.

Chapter 4 is about the politics of vernacular competence, which, as Durston shows, was somewhat limited and problematic. Chapter 5 is about the “heyday” of Pastoral Quechua, which Durston contends was from the 1590s through the 1640s. Here Durston mentions and discusses the publication and political context of a significant corpus of Colonial Quechua texts, all studied in detail by the author. The epilogue to this chapter discusses mid- and late colonial developments and the decline in the production of new pastoral Quechua texts.

Part II begins with a chapter on Pastoral Quechua linguistics, and Durston confronts the complexities of dialectology and orthography in the formation of Pastoral Quechua. Durston raises the issue of whether Pastoral linguists really knew Quechua grammar well, especially the category of grammar that linguists refer to as “evidentials”—a class of suffixes that specify the source of information in relation to the speakers. The orthography developed was more useful to Spanish speakers. The system employed Spanish loan words for key Christian concepts such as God and praying but also co-opted other Quechua terms with religious significance.

Chapter 7 discusses genres, poetics, and the textual styles of Pastoral Quechua. Hispanic thought and categories were dominant in the translation process, but some texts displayed daring syncretisms of terms, styles, and metaphors. Durston provides a nice description of the differences of poetic style between the Western and Quechua traditions, and he shows in detail the pervasive use of widespread Quechua conventions of parallelism and couplets in pastoral Quechua poetics, a use that gave “gravity” to Christian ideas (236). Chapter 8 looks at how the root metaphors of Christianity—God, Christ, and Mary—were translated in Quechua texts. The death of Christ was translated through Andean tropes of spilling blood and the association of that blood with rivers and irrigation. Also, Christ's power was explained through a rich Quechua vocabulary of ritual sacrifice. Marian themes were expressed through Andean tropes of flowers. Pastoral Quechua iconography portrayed Andean religious symbols, such as the sun, in Christian scenes. This iconographic and metaphorical encompassment signaled that Andean religion was “already essentially Christian” (270). Chapter 9 is about performance and context and involves a detailed discussion of catechesis and liturgy—those processes that guided the control of behavior through metadiscourses, time, and space.

The conclusion is very helpful in tying together what is a dazzling amount of information. Durston clarifies that the story of Pastoral Quechua was an institutionalized effort to create a limited-use language rather than to allow Quechua to become a full-fledged Christian language. As a language intended to create proper religious piety, Pastoral Quechua was managed and controlled only by religious specialists in a well-defined hierarchy. This history explains a lot about the contemporary dynamics of the Quechua world, which, for lack of space, I cannot discuss here. Durston's achievement, which is a major contribution, is to show us the detailed and complex inner workings of the Spanish theory of domination through Quechua translation. The book is highly recommended.