Writing Rites in the Borderlands: Appropriation, Mimesis and Interaction between Jesuits and Indians in Colonial South America

WILDE, GUILLERMO

The Rites Controversy in the Early Modern World

Brill

Lugar: Leiden - Boston; Año: 2018; p. 267 - 300

This article is divided into four parts. The first discussesthe nature of missionary sources about indigenous religious traditions and rites reflecting on their anthropological concerns. The second explores the problematicuse of native languages in the translation of Christian concepts, focusing onone controversy that took place in Paraguay. The third part discusses thereading Jesuits made of native rites and the translations they tried to make inorder to implement sacraments such as baptism and marriage. The last partanalyses disputes between Jesuits and Indians in the administration ofspiritual power in which ritual and symbolic devices were appropriated andmanipulated. I will focus on examples coming from the Jesuit missions of theSouth American borderlands (Guarani, Moxos, Chiquitos and Chaco), distant fromthe main centers of the colony.