Kurusu Kuatia (Inscribed Cross): Written Culture and Indigenous Memory in the Reductions of Paraguay (Eighteenth Century)

From Firenze University Press Journal: Journal of Early Modern Studies (JEMS)

Eduardo Santos Neumann, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

In recent decades, there have been important advances in ethnohistorical production regarding the indigenous reductions administered by the Jesuits in colonial Paraguay, with respect to traditional interpretations previously disseminated about the past of the missions. The appreciation of indigenous participation in the management of these communities, in addition to the originality of the political-administrative institutions, has enabled a better understanding of the functioning of these Indian villages, especially from the perspective of historical anthropology, which has highlighted the active role played by the Guaraní (Wilde 2003).These reductions, after overcoming a series of external and internal adversities, experienced a period of marked growth, both economic and demographic. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the Jesuit Province, whose borders were never clearly defined, had approximately thirty villages of Christianized indigenous people. The positive results obtained in these reductions were a result of political, social and cultural measures promoted by the Jesuits with the aim of co-opting the Guaraní to participate in this new colonial community.In the history of the Guaraní reductions, one of the themes that is currently attracting the attention of researchers is the opposition of the indigenous peoples to accepting the order to migrate after the Treaty of Madrid (1750) was signed between the Iberian monarchies. This triggered a ‘written reaction’ from the Guaraní living in the reductions, who wrote sev-eral texts presenting arguments against the implementation of the exchange of the eastern missions with the Colônia do Sacramento. During this period, there was an intense use of writing by the indigenous people, which resulted in the Guaranitic War (1754–1756). The extensive circulation of messages, letters and notices, exchanged between indigenous people, Jesuits and the colonial authorities, is surprising. The appreciation of written communication by the Guarani is the result of both the investment in documentary research and the new readings applied to this documentary corpus and, on the other, reflects the importance attributed to the capacity for action of the indigenous communities. In this essay, I intend to discuss the uses of writing by the Guaraní who agreed to live in the reductions under the Jesuit administration in colonial Paraguay.However, even in the face of researchers’ recognition of the importance of writing in the work of converting indigenous peoples in Hispanic America,4 historical research has not yet paid proper attention to the impact that the introduction of literacy had on the social organization of these communities. The traces of indigenous writing, which can be located in several archives, indicate that there is still much to be investigated with regard to the transformations caused by the ‘domestication of the wild mind’, in the face of the conquest of the alphabet by the indigenous population of the reductions.Even in the face of evidence of indigenous alphabetic skills, some researchers have still insisted on the premise that the documentation produced by the Jesuits was the only testimony of such an experience. However, contrary to this assumption, there is irrefutable evidence that the Guarani of the reductions were actually able to write. This is why it is still possible to find many documents written in the handwriting of the indigenous people in the archives. Since the beginning of this century, researchers from various countries have been paying attention to the documents written by the mission Indians (Wilde 2001; Ganson 2003; Melià 2003 and 2005; Neumann 2005, 2008 and 2015; Boidin 2014; Couchonnal and Wilde 2014). These texts, located in various different archives, libraries and even collections, are being translated and their linguistic/idiomatic expression carefully analysed. The identification of a corpus of documents written in Guaraní has helped in making a break with the traditional and even colonial view of the history of the Guaraní reductions.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jems-2279-7149-15534

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