“For My Necessities”: The Wills of Andean Commoners and Nobles in the Valley of Lima, 1596–1607

This article is a detailed analysis of thirteen wills, perhaps fitting for such a short time span. It explores how Andean men and women of the Lima Valley crafted their own hybrid counter-narrative as manifested by their reconstituted families, inheritance practices, sexual behavior, use of language, political traditions, material culture, and socioeconomic ties and activities. The wills (and other documents) served as evidence of this hybridity, which was also facilitated by Spaniards and Spanish colonialism.