draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

Chapter 8
Omagua Passages in Uriarte’s Diaries
In this chapter we present and analyze all of the Omagua utterances that Manuel Uriarte included
in his diaries, which were published as Uriarte ([1776]1952b,6) and Uriarte ([1776]1986). We include
these utterances as part of this larger work for two reasons. First, they are examples of mid-18thcentury
Omagua, and as such, help us to understand how Omagua differed at this point in time
from modern Omagua. Second, unlike the ecclesiastical texts published with his diaries, there is no
question regarding the authorship of the Omagua utterances found in Uriarte’s diaries themselves,
which helps us judge Uriarte’s command of Omagua. This in turn allows us to better evaluate the
likelihood of Uriarte playing a major role in the authoring of one or more of the ecclesiastical texts
discussed in previous chapters.
We now briefly summarize what we know and can guess about these diaries. Manuel Uriarte
kept a diary throughout his eighteen-year stay in Maynas, and up to the Jesuit expulsion. By this
point his diaries had reached two large volumes, together with a set of ecclesiastical documents (Sp.
papeles espirituales), linguistic notes (Sp. apuntes de lenguas) and conversations (Sp. pláticas).
Fearing he would not be allowed to take his personal papers back with him to Europe at the time
of the expulsion, Uriarte spent the months leading up to the arrival in Maynas of the new secular
head of the missions, Manuel Mariano Echeverría, reducing his diaries to a compendio that he could
take along with his other papers in a small chest. Immediately preceding his departure from San
Regis (located on the Marañón River), his final missionary posting, Uriarte sent his original diaries
to Echeverría, who had established himself in Lagunas, on the Huallaga River. Bayle writes the
following with regard to the fate of his original diaries: 257
Los tomos los envió al Sr. Echeverría, Superior de los Curas, «suplicándole los guardase
o quemase, si corrían peligro»; en caso contrario que los remitiese a su familia. Desde
Rávena (13 de enero de 1776) escribe a su hermano Agustín: «Don Manuel Mariano,
Prevendado [sic] quitense (y a falta suya Dn. Marcos o Dn. José Bazabe nro. Comisario)
le darán las Memorias o Diarios que le dejé allá encargados en dos tomos.»
(Bayle [1952]1986:48) 258
257 See Uriarte ([1776]1986:523) for the original account of these events.
258 Translation (ours):
The volumes he sent to Sr. Echeverría, Father Superior, “begging that he keep them or burn them if
they were in danger”; if not, that he remit them to his family. From Ravenna (13 January 1776) he
writes to his brother Agustín: “To Don Manuel Mariano, Prebendary of Quito (and in his absence Dn.
Marcos or Dn. José Bazabe, his deputies), will they give the Memorias or Diarios that I left in their
care in two volumes”.
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