Inca subjects were cast as Moors in Peruvian colonial pageantry

Evidence

Cuzco, Peru, 1570. As Viceroy Francisco de Toledo makes his formal entrance into the city, he is greeted with elaborate pageantry. In the main square, once site of the Inca festivals, a Moorish castle and an enchanted wood have been erected for the celebration. The mock-Moors emerge from the castle to capture young women at a fountain, only to be pursued by valiant Christian knights, who engage them in fierce mock combat. The conquistadors play “themselves.” The Moors are played by the Indians. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 577

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete instance of the manufactured Muslim monster — the theatrical re-enactment literalizes the projection. Connects to the ‘fiery castle’ and mock-combat imagery of medieval Iberian festival tradition.
• STORYSTEM: The image of the Inca plaza — where sovereigns once performed their own power — now staging the defeat of mock-Moors played by the conquered, is a potent scene of colonial theater writing.