Women in Santa Ana: new contributions to the study of the Guarani-Jesuit Reductions in the Rio de la Plata area (South America) during the 17th and 18th centuries

MARÍA VICTORIA ROCA

Dublin

Congreso; World Archaeological Congress (WAC 6); 2008

World Archaeological Congress (WAC)

One of the mechanisms of domination and conquest, systematically maintained by the Spanish Crown in the overseas territories, was the establishment of Missions. It was the Society of Jesus the one who was in charge of performing this task, since the beginning of the 17th century, among the guaranies that inhabited the area of the Rio de la Plata, in South America. Although the issue of the Guarani-Jesuit Reductions (Reducciones) has been the subject of many studies, there is extensive information that still remains unknown regarding the role played by the guarani women living in those Reductions. This poster, therefore, tries to shed light on an aspect that has been hardly investigated both in this specific subject matter and within the traditional archaeology. Thus, starting from the study of one of the structures of the Mission Santa Ana, the Coty-Guazu (house of widows, orphan girls and adulterous women), and taking into account the information provided by the sources of the time, the guarani women will be shown as agents of significance. The roles they played in the different spheres of the reductional social life will be stressed, as well as their meaning, since they are key features of the new social relations that started to unfold in this particular space. This work was carried out within the framework of the project “Archaeology of Santa Ana (Misiones)”, Argentina, and the agreement of methodological collaboration signed between the Universidad Nacional de Rosario and the Universidad Nacional de Misiones.