<i>Micuc Isutu Cuiuc Utusi Cucim</i>: The Sator Square and Martín de Murua’s Quechua Palindrome Poem

The friar Martín de Murua (1566?-1615) composed a Quechua palindrome poem as part of an illustrated Andean legend in his first manuscript version (1590) of his chronicle (Historia general del Perú [1616]). The poem faces a depiction by the Andean artist, don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (c. 1560s-c. 1616), of a woman sitting in the middle of a four-cornered, enchanted Inca fountain. Murua reimagined Guaman Poma’s image in a form reminiscent of the Latin Rotas-Sator Square. This article considers the confluence of Andean sacredness with early Christian occult beliefs, leaving multiple and divergent interpretations determined by the viewer/reader’s perspective.</jats:p