The Sounds of Indigenous Ancestors. Music, Corporality and Memory in the Jesuit Missions of Colonial South America

WILDE, GUILLERMO

The Oxford Handbook of Music Censorship

Oxford University Press

Lugar: New Yotk Oxford; Año: 2015; p. 1 - 15

This chapter examines how music, corporality, and memory were intertwined in the Jesuit missions of South America during the colonial period. More specifically, it considers how European music was imposed upon indigenous peoples whereas traditional indigenous musical traditions were censured as part of a larger project of political and cultural domination that was not completely unilateral. It argues that the Jesuits used censure and the mechanisms of adaptation in various regions of South America to disconnect musical expression and corporality that had characterized preexisting native rituals involving music, or, more broadly, sound, together with dance and movement. The chapter concludes by assessing the significance and persistence of indigenous music within the context of the Jesuit missions.