“ The dramatic aptitude of the people was discovered by the Spanish priests almost immediately after the conquest, and they endeavoured, with notable success, to turn this talent to account, as a means of conveying religious instruction. Garcilasso tells us that the Jesuits composed dramas for the Indians to act, because they knew that this was the custom in the time of the Yncas, and because they saw that the Indians were so ready to receive instruction through that means. ”

“ It is thus clear that the Ynca chiefs were permitted by the Spaniards to retain a portion of their authority, that they were encouraged to continue the use of their costumes in order to increase the magnificence of religious processions, and that some at least of the old Ynca customs were preserved by special enactments. Under these favourable circumstances, the chiefs would almost certainly preserve the memory of the former grandeur of their country, and encourage the people to recite the ancient songs and dramas, some of which would eventually be committed to writing. ”

“ In his monstrous sentence in 1781, the Judge Areche prohibited "the representation of dramas, as well as all other festivals which the Indians celebrated in memory of their Yncas." [15] This proves that the ancient dramas of the Yncas were remembered and actually performed down to the year 1781; for those composed by Spanish priests cannot be intended, as they would not be prohibited by a Spanish judge.
These considerations will enable us to form an opinion of the antiquity of the drama of Ollanta ”

“ Such is all that is to be gathered from the writers who flourished in the century which witnessed the conquest of the Ynca empire by the Spaniards. We come next to the inquiry whether songs and dramatic compositions of præ-Spanish times were likely to be preserved, orally or in writing, by the Ynca chiefs and people. It was the policy of the Spaniards to treat the native chiefs with some consideration ”

“ They were performed before the ill-fated Tupac Amaru, whose intimate friend, Dr Valdez, committed the drama of Ollanta to writing, at about the time of the insurrection of the Ynca. [22] Thus we have a chain of evidence connecting the drama of Dr Valdez with the performance enacted before Tupac Amaru, the words of which had been orally transmitted from ancient Yncarial times. To these considerations are to be added the far more conclusive proofs of antiquity derived from the work itself. There is not a single modern or Spanish word or phrase in the whole work ”

“ Thus the purest and oldest text will now be accessible to inquirers in this field of research, while the translation will furnish additional material for judging of the sort of civilisation that was developed in this part of South America, before its discovery by Europeans. ”

“ It is curious that these authors should not have been acquainted with the article in the Museo Erudito, and with the fact that the drama was first committed to writing by Dr Valdez. They give two extracts from the drama in Quichua. The complete text in Quichua was first printed at the end of his Kechua Sprache, by Dr Von Tschudi, a work which appeared at Vienna in 1853. [18] This version is from a copy in the monastery of San Domingo at Cuzco, which is exceedingly corrupt ”