7. Administration and native perceptions of baptism at the Jesuit peripheries of Spanish America (16th–18th centuries)

Oriol Ambrogio

By the end of the 16th century the Jesuits had already started a worldwide missionary enterprise which spanned India, Japan, China, the Congo, Mozambique and Angola to Brazil, Peru, Paraguay and central Mexico. The apparently relentless expansion of Jesuit overseas missions was severely tested by the encounter with the semi-sedentary and non-sedentary populations of southern Chile, the Chaco and north-western Mexico, where groups scattered across rugged valleys, mighty rivers and arid deserts strongly resisted Spanish conquest. The difficulties raised by the conversion of decentralised natives had been dramatically anticipated by the failure of the Florida mission, where seven Jesuit missionaries were killed in 1572.¹ If in north-western Mexico missions managed, with difficulty, to pacify the Sinaloa and Sierra Madre regions and extend by the end of the 17th century to Baja California, the results in the southern borderlands of Spanish America were different. After the 1598 Araucanian revolt succeeded in expelling the Spaniards from southern Chile, the missionary presence in the area remained partial and unstable throughout the entire colonial period. Similarly, late 16th- and 17th-century Jesuit attempts among the non-sedentary Guaycuruas of the Chaco failed due to the warlike conditions in the region and the paucity of missionary personnel. Missions operated on a permanent basis only between 1743 and 1767.²

The present chapter focuses mainly on the Jesuit missions of northern Mexico, southern Chile and the Gran Chaco, all remote regions only partially controlled by the Spaniards and sites of persistent native military and cultural resilience. Such difficulties limited missionary control over these regions and hampered the diffusion of Christianity and its rituals. In particular, this chapter dwells on native perceptions and local acceptance of baptism, considered a privileged point of view for the understanding of native-missionary interactions and the formation of the post-conquest societies. How did native populations perceive baptism; and how did reception of the sacrament affect local understanding of the missionary role? What were the reasons for accepting Christianity and missionary life at the fringes of the Spanish American empire?

The study demonstrates how baptism shaped local perceptions of the role of the missionary as a foreign curandero-hechicero [healer-sorcerer] able both to heal the dying and to cause death.³ The integration of Christian elements into the traditional cultural system caused struggles between baptised and non-baptised natives, leading some members of local communities to perceive baptism as an instrument of cultural novelty which could be used to shift socio-political and economic intertribal balances. Although the analysis of illnesses and the impact of mortality is crucial for the understanding of the reception of baptism, this chapter mainly focuses on the array of cultural and political reasons which led natives to accept baptism.

Jesuit baptismal administration at the fringes of Spanish America

Although the Jesuits produced a large number of rules, precepts and orders regulating spiritual and temporal missionary life, they made relatively few references to the administration of baptism to the natives. This was in part due to the well-known Jesuit flexibility and adaptability to local customs and beliefs, which limited the validity of general rules but was mainly caused by the sense of urgency associated with baptism. Since the administration of baptism was perceived as a critical issue when dealing with gentiles, this reduced the attention the Jesuits paid to the matter in the first moments of the establishment of a mission.⁴ As soon as the new communities evolved in their doctrinal knowledge and were integrated into the colonial system, references to the administration of the sacrament and native response tended to disappear. The Chilean case represents a significant exception due to the repeated rebellions and subsequent threat of apostasy which increased missionary concerns about local conversions for the entire colonial period.⁵

Jesuit efforts to baptise local populations on the fringes of America shared common practices. The scepticism about adult doctrinal ability and the fear of apostasy and abandonment of the missions led to an extremely cautious administration of the sacrament, especially in the first moments of missionary efforts, such that baptism was generally conferred only to the dying, with the exception of candidates with a good disposition. The rules given by the Paraguayan provincial Diego de Torres Bollo to Orazio Vecchi and Martín de Aranda for the establishment of the Arauco mission in 1608 illustrate this:

The unstable political circumstances of the southern fringes forced missionaries to face the challenge of apostasy, a common native response to the evangelisation process. For these reasons, the new Jesuit rules strictly limited the administration of baptism to the dying and those natives able to understand the Christian doctrine. Although these rules were directed to the specific Araucanian context, they outlined common missionary concerns. Doctrinal knowledge, abandonment of traditional practices, voluntary acceptance of the sacrament and peaceful political conditions were considered crucial requirements for native access to baptism in the borderlands. Moreover, continuous pastoral care of the neophytes and a stable community were important prerequisites for baptism, since daily Christian education was considered the first essential barrier against local idolatries and apostasy. Nevertheless, the missionary quest for souls and the widespread illnesses led to some exceptions, such as those among the non-sedentary Abipones of Chaco in 1591, where Juan Fonte and Francisco de Angulo decided to baptise local infants even though a permanent priest could not be provided due to the warlike conditions and local mobility.⁷

Among the north-western Mexican missions, after the baptism of infants a programme of catechesis, usually lasting eight days, was offered to the adults.⁸ However, this period could vary according to every candidate’s disposition and preparation. In 1597 a Tepehuan man surprised local missionaries by learning the main prayers and commandments of the Church in only three hours, being immediately baptised.⁹ On the other hand, in the mission of Santa María de las Parras, among the Laguneros of the state of Coahuila, an old man traditionally adverse to Christianity was finally baptised after two months.¹⁰ Scepticism towards potentially recalcitrant adults generally resulted in a longer preparation, while younger catechumens, who demonstrated particular ability and sacramental predisposition, were usually baptised more quickly.

The particular political situation of Chile forced the Jesuits to organise their baptismal efforts differently from north-western Mexico. The rebellion of 1598, which led to the destruction of the seven Spanish towns founded to the south of the Bío-Bío River, opened a period of Mapuche independence and substantial political autonomy. There the dispersion of native villages and the paucity of missionary personnel both hampered the evangelisation process and impeded the formation of stable communities. For this reason, Jesuit sacramental administration did not result in the general baptisms common in north-western Mexico, but rather in baptisms administered in articulo mortis. This policy could change according to particular political conditions. There was, in fact, a clear relationship between wider native access to baptism and the peace treaties signed during the hispano-Mapuche parleys.¹¹ The temporary pacification of the borderlands, which occurred especially during the Guerra Defensiva policy introduced by Luis de Valdivia in 1612, led to the administration of the sacrament no longer being limited to the dying, clearly contrasting with renewed missionary restrictions in the aftermath of the rebellions. Luis de Valdivia started to accept adults extra periculum mortis, beginning in 1613 in Lebu, where 900 baptisms were administered.¹² This trend reached its peak in 1619, when in the area of Arauco Valdivia baptised 300 natives a day, these receiving only a brief instruction in the catechism sufficient only for the acceptance of baptism.¹³ The favourable peaceful conditions were a strong inducement for the acceleration of the baptismal process, at the expense of doctrinal preparation.¹⁴ The impact of the changing political conditions on Jesuit baptismal policy is further demonstrated by the attitude of Lorenzo Chacón in the district of La Imperial in 1655, who refused to confer baptism on the applicants due to the ongoing rebellion, baptising only three or four adults extra periculum mortis.¹⁵ The Jesuit policy of administering baptism in Chile was, therefore, greatly influenced by the unstable military conditions in the borderlands, which periodically resulted in a wider or more restricted native access to baptism. As a result, the Mapuche baptismal conquest proved to be a discontinuous process, characterised by provisional expansions followed by violent setbacks, rather than a linear progression towards a widespread conferment of baptism on the natives.¹⁶

The information available on the administration of baptism by the Jesuits in the Chaco missions is extremely scarce. Paradoxically, the most significant data refer to the 17th-century, short-lived attempts, while the chronicles written during the actual missionary period between 1743 and 1767 are quite reticent on the issue. In 1641, among the Abipones under the local cacique Caliguila, Juan Pastor and Gaspar Cerqueira refused to administer baptism extra periculum mortis, ‘fearing that tired by the rigidity of Christian faith they could regret the missionary entrance and remain after baptism without pastoral care’.¹⁷ Due to the absence of stable pastoral care, the distance of the Guaycuruas from the Spanish towns and their mobility, the Jesuits administered baptism only in articulo mortis until the foundation of permanent missions in 1743, following the general precepts used in Chile.

Deadly ritual or healing act? The dual perception of missionaries

The native encounter with Christianity needs to be understood in the framework of the tremendous demographic and cultural impact of illnesses on indigenous populations. Epidemics sharply affected local economic and cultural life, forcing communities to reorganise their political structures in a changing world while coping with powerful foreign beings such as the missionaries. Illnesses also influenced Jesuit baptismal policy, limiting its access to the dying, and were thus crucial in the first perceptions of baptism. The Jesuit chronicler of the Chilean province, Francisco Enrich, states: ‘They [the Mapuche] developed the wicked idea that the holy baptism was a deadly poison killing them in few moments. They believed that after everyday life experience; since in those times missionaries were administering baptism only in articulo mortis, they used to see people die after its imposition’.¹⁸

Natives misunderstood the missionaries’ quest for the salvation of the souls of the sick, seeing baptism as a deadly act which worsened the health of the dying. Cases of mortal perception of baptism were common on the fringes of Spanish America, where, especially in Mexico, illnesses circulated through mining and missionary routes, spreading havoc in local communities.¹⁹ The association of mortality with baptism expanded all over Sinaloa, the Sierra Madre and the deserts of Mapimí, usually fostered by local religious leaders in a first attempt to challenge the missionaries’ authority and regain their own political and cultural power.²⁰ The same fear pervaded Chaco communities in their first encounters with Christianity. In 1672, in the mission of San Javier among the Tobas and Mocobies, a mother hid her sick children under a blanket, terrified by the effects of baptism, while 40 years later, in 1711, a Lule woman warned her community against the activities of Antonio Macioni, who ‘kills people by pouring on their head a kind of poisoned water he uses in these occasions’.²¹

The sources analysed show that a deadly perception of baptism developed almost simultaneously with the opposite idea of the sacrament as a healing ritual. Jesuit documentation and current historiography have described native responses to baptism as a gradual process moving from an initial rejection to a later acceptance, often confusing the increased number of baptisms and the diffusion of Spanish names with an imposition of the ritual at the expense of local, traditional concepts of culture and healing.²² However, this interpretation suggests a clear separation between the ideas of baptism as a rite at the point of death and as a cure, seeing the two concepts as mutually exclusive. This does not completely reflect the response of the population in the borderlands to the sacrament, since the two concepts tended to co-exist. Occasional healings were decisive for the emergence of the idea of the curative powers of baptism. In Arauco six wounded local warriors recovered after being baptised at the same time as a woman died after refusing it, while the Nebomes of Sinaloa resorted to the priest to intervene as soon as they fell ill. These episodes proved crucial in the acceptance of baptism as a cure.²³ In the same way, among the Guanas of the mission of San Juan Nepomuceno in Chaco, founded in 1764, an unconverted woman informed of a previous healing of a baby, offered her children to the missionary, seeking protection against illnesses.²⁴

The supposed healing effectiveness of the sacrament guaranteed the success of the baptismal ritual, which came to be conceived of as a viable cure.²⁵ However, baptism did not totally replace traditional cures, but rather became one of the possible healing rituals to which natives resorted in order to find a solution to sickness. An anonymous account of 1750 about the San Javiér mission of Mocobies highlights this fact: ‘There are some agoreras. One of those women seriously ill asked the father for baptism. He told her he was not sure she sincerely desired it, and it was like this; because later she was accompanied to the house of a hechicera. The father came and asked her why she accepted the traditional cure. She answered; I came here because you did not heal me, and here I was unwittingly sucked by the hechicera [me ha chupado]’.²⁶ The episode underlines the clear identification of baptism with a healing ritual and its equivalence with local medical practices. It shows how the traditional system survived and acted as a complementary cure, especially in the first decades after the establishment of a mission. Natives perceived baptism as an extrema ratio solution in case of the failure of all other traditional healings.²⁷ This explains why requests for baptism increased dramatically during periods of acute epidemics and why local curanderos-hechiceros [healer-sorcerers] and native leaders accepted the new ritual when they fell seriously ill.²⁸ Therefore, the curative powers of baptism did not eradicate local scepticism about the ritual. Especially in the southern borderlands, adults tended to reject baptism if in good health.²⁹ Therefore, the acceptance of the sacrament during the colonial period was often limited to specific circumstances such as imminent death and could be related to a previous consultation with traditional healers. The situation differed in north-western Mexican missions, where a large number of natives requested baptism even extra periculum mortis.³⁰

In order to understand the complexity of natives’ approach to baptism it is necessary to understand local perceptions of missionary activity in the framework of extant cultural traditions and healing practices. In a manuscript account of the missions of Sinaloa written between 1620 and 1625, Andrés Péres Ribas refers to the administration of the baptismal rite and the subsequent local response: ‘In the ceremonies made with the children, the father used to go around the circle made up of the mothers and their children and impose salt, saliva and oil, and it sometimes happened due to their ignorance of these ceremonies … that while the father was proceeding in the ceremony on one side of the circle, some mothers on the other side escaped from the circle taking their babies and washing them in the near river’.³¹ In a similar way, among the Yaquis in 1617: ‘At the time of the holy ceremony of the imposition of the holy salt in the mouth of the catechumen, certain mothers cleaned their children’s mouth and tongue, showing that they still believed we bewitched them with the salt, in the same way their hechiceros kill them with other things’.³² Natives accepted baptism and asked for the sacrament for their children, searching for protection against illnesses. Nevertheless, a great scepticism towards the priests’ actions persisted. Some adults removed oil, salt and saliva as soon as possible, indicating a clear fear of their possible fatal effects. These episodes reinforce the idea of the perceived dual identity of the missionary, who could cure the dying but at the same time cause death.³³ How can we explain the simultaneity of these opposed ideas?

A common indigenous response to the missionaries was their cultural identification with local shamans, the curanderos-hechiceros. Missionaries were, in fact, dealing with the treatment of illnesses, the management of the community, soil fertility and the afterworld, the same activities carried out by curanderos-hechiceros.³⁴ Native people did not see Christian rituals and local beliefs as mutually antagonistic; rather, they looked for a syncretic inclusion of useful practices in the indigenous cultural systems. The case of holy water is significant. In the first encounters with Christianity, natives perceived it as an instrument of death, a mortal poison.³⁵ However, its apparent effectiveness in curing sore throats, fever and various illnesses soon changed local perspective.³⁶ In the 1660s in the mission of Buena Esperanza in southern Chile, a local Mapuche eliminated the infestation of the crops by a pest by spreading holy water on the plants, while José Tardá and Tomás de Guadalajara used the same remedy among the Tarahumaras of Santa Ana mission in 1676.³⁷ Holy water assumed curative powers not only for humans but also for the natural world, a practice fostered by the same Jesuits, as demonstrated by the case among the Tarahumaras of the healing of a dog with holy water and a relic of St Ignatius.³⁸ Missionary practices also influenced the activities of local curanderos-hechiceros. In 1649 a Mapuche healer from the district of La Imperial treated the sick, ‘spraying the body of the dying with some kind of water’.³⁹ An alien ritual was therefore incorporated into the cultural and religious system. Padres and curanderos-hechiceros became two comparable identities, sharing common practices and dealing with similar issues.

In the Chaco the rivalry between missionaries and local shamans paradoxically contributed to their assimilation as curanderos-hechiceros. In a period of drought the Abipones of the San Jerónimo mission looked for the intervention of the priest to make it rain. When rain started to fall, it did not irrigate the crops of the leader of local shamans, Pariekaikin, who therefore accused the priest José Brigniel of being a curandero-hechicero.⁴⁰ The episode clearly underlines the double nature of the curandero-hechicero. If Pariekaikin’s accusations were directed at discrediting the role of the Jesuits inside the new communities, at the same time they contributed to the formation of the idea of the fathers as shamans with similar features. Therefore, native leaders’ ritual struggle against the missionaries reinforced local perceptions of the equivalences of the two parties.⁴¹

Among Amerindian communities curanderos were both respected and feared. Both the Abipones and Mocobies were convinced that man was immortal and illnesses and death were caused by the deadly spells of the curanderos-hechiceros.⁴² The Abipones called the curandero-hechicero ‘Queveet’, which was the ‘bad spirit’, since they thought that this evil entity was the origin of the curandero-hechiceros’ power.⁴³ The curanderos-hechiceros were at the same time both a terrifying and an indispensable presence in the everyday life of local communities. According to this cultural explanation, death was caused not by illnesses or physical diseases, but instead by a deadly external intervention.⁴⁴

The populations of southern Chile shared similar beliefs. According to Miguel de Olivares, ‘[t]hey never believe that someone can die for an infirmity or an illness, but for the Huecubu, a sorcery inserted into the body, and they confer to the holy baptism and confession this kind of sorcery if someone dies after its reception’.⁴⁵ The Huecubu was generally considered the ultimate cause of every evil and death, sometimes interpreted as the soul of a foe who introduced thorns or small sticks into someone’s heart, or identified with a deadly poison introduced in drinks or food.⁴⁶ Since corporeal diseases were caused by the introduction of deadly elements into the body of the infirm, native medicine developed the practice of sucking on the painful part. Curanderos used to introduce thorns and worms into the mouth while treating the sick by sucking the wound and then spitting them out, showing the cause of pain and the effectiveness of the cure.⁴⁷ What is crucial is the fact that the curandero was considered to be responsible for the introduction of the Huecubu into a body, but at the same time the parents of the deceased resorted to his help in order to find those responsible for the death, which occasionally led to their being killed.⁴⁸ In a clear affinity to the beliefs about illnesses held by the Wendat in 17th-century Ontario, indigenous populations on the fringes of empire believed that the agent which ritually precipitated an illness was also considered the only one able to undo it.⁴⁹ Curanderos-hechiceros caused maladies and death but could also find a solution to the problem.

Since Jesuits were perceived as traditional healers, missionaries possessed a double identity too. If death was caused by ritual acts, then missionary rituals, in particular baptism and confession, could be held responsible for the high mortality.⁵⁰ However, they could also save lives and protect the crops with holy water in continuity with the role played in the pre-contact era by local curanderos. Therefore, local perception of baptism was not only influenced by the unprecedentedly high mortality rate, but rather had its origins in the traditional system of beliefs. The initial perception of baptism as a deadly ritual was caused not by the novelty of the administration of the sacrament or the use of holy water, but rather by the assimilation of similar Christian features into their traditional system of beliefs. In the same way, the birth of the perception of baptism as a cure can be traced not only to the occasional successes achieved by the Jesuits, but also to the secular medical activity developed in pre-contact times by local curanderos-hechiceros, both for the human and animal world.

Baptism and the reconfiguration of socio-political and economic intertribal relations

Since missionaries were perceived as powerful curanderos-hechiceros, natives accepted baptism as an act to be added to their extant practices in order to enlarge the array of ritual responses to the changing conditions of the post-conquest societies.⁵¹ Nevertheless, native acceptance of the sacrament was not only related to its impact on illnesses and healing practices. There were also social and economic reasons which led indigenous populations to accommodate a missionary presence.⁵²

In 1636, in the district of Arauco in Chile, a Mapuche was captured and imprisoned by the indios amigos, the local allies of the Spaniards.⁵³ Before his ritual execution, Diego de Rosales tried to convince the prisoner to accept baptism: ‘When he was conducted to the sacrifice, he decided to let me bury his body, because when he was still obstinate in rejecting baptism, what most convinced him, with the help of the divine grace, was telling him that if he refused Christianity his body would have been thrown in a dunghill, consumed by dogs and birds, but if he decided to receive our holy faith, he would have been buried in the church’.⁵⁴ The missionary strategy proved successful. The prisoner eagerly accepted baptism, not for religious reasons but only as an instrument for obtaining a traditional and honourable burial. The achievement of a specific, traditional goal led to the acceptance of baptism, while the Jesuits were recognising the two driving forces of Mapuche social structure: war and honour.⁵⁵ Internal rivalry and warrior competition acted as central institutions in the material and symbolical reproduction of the basic social unit, the lebo.⁵⁶ Gift exchange and reciprocity fostered intertribal competition, since the circulation of a Spaniard’s head or a horse started a dynamic process of reciprocity in which every group was forced to obtain new trophies through war and return the gift obtained.⁵⁷

Reciprocity and intertribal rivalry played a pivotal role in the development of baptism. When a cacique of Arauco fell seriously ill, the only reason which convinced him to embrace Christianity was the desire to imitate the great Catumalo, a native leader who had died and who had been baptised and accepted a Christian burial.⁵⁸ The dynamic of local society was based on imitation and hence baptism became part of the symbolic indigenous system, a sign of social prestige in the continuous quest for military and political power. The perception of baptism and Christian values as opportunities for the reinforcement of wealth and social prestige is confirmed by the phenomenon of chapel construction which developed in southern Chile in the 1630s and 1640s.⁵⁹ The building of a church by a specific lebo immediately activated the system of reciprocity, leading to a constant search for a bigger shrine and a more solemn celebration of inauguration, as happened in 1636 between the cacique of Carampangui Juan Igaipil and the leader of Lavapié, Catumalo.⁶⁰ The introduction of Christianity represented a new sphere of intertribal competition, causing internal divisions between the baptised and non-baptised.⁶¹

Economic interest did not constitute the crucial inducement for the acceptance of Christianity among north-western Mexican communities. D. Reff has, in fact, refuted the idea that Jesuit innovations such as the plough, wheat, chicken and cattle represented a major incentive to accept missionisation and the revolution in native life during the 17th century.⁶² Although cattle had an unquestionable impact on the food supply, especially during epidemics, natives mainly accepted missions since the Jesuits took charge of the economic activities, regional commerce and distribution of surpluses, which had been managed in pre-contact times by local leaders.⁶³ Pedro Méndez reported an interesting episode among the Mayos in 1614 which stresses the relationship between the economic and organisational sides of the missionary experience. The accidental damage to the crop of a non-baptised man by a group of mission natives caused serious strife, only solved by the missionary with the gift of a piece of iron as compensation to the aggrieved party. In response to this, the man gathered his 16 relatives in front of the father, asking for baptism, ‘because this is commanded by your law … and my relatives and I want to baptise in order to live under such good law’.⁶⁴ What motivated the request for baptism was not the distribution of goods, but instead the missionary’s ability to re-establish a social equilibrium. Baptism was, therefore, perceived as an instrument for social and political reorganisation around the figure of a new leader, the missionary.⁶⁵

The organisational and managerial function of the missionary as seen in the north-western Mexican context was overshadowed by his economic and gift-giving role among the Guaycuruas of Chaco. During the 17th century, non-sedentary groups constantly attacked Spanish neighbouring towns in search of meat, cotton, tobacco, iron and yerba mate.⁶⁶ The development of protective policies in the middle decades of the following century consistently restricted native access to European goods, accelerating the process of acceptance of the missions.⁶⁷ Unlike north-western Mexican populations, the Guaycuruas did not conceive of missions as new organisational communities, but rather as a place of refuge, trade exchange and food supply.⁶⁸ This was due to their non-sedentary nature and the difficulties of acquiring an everyday supply of food, which transformed the missions into an indispensable instrument of survival, especially during periods of famine or epidemics. The case of the distribution of yerba mate among the members of the San Javier mission of Mocobies, founded in 1743 in the jurisdiction of Santa Fe, epitomises local approaches towards missions and shows the emergence of a peculiar perception of baptism.

In order to extinguish the common practices of drunkenness and alcoholic feasts known as borracheras, Jesuits fostered the consumption of mate, a cold drink highly appreciated by local Mocobies and produced in the Guaraní missions.⁶⁹ Mate not only succeeded in reducing alcohol consumption, but also proved to be a powerful instrument of coercion, as shown by the following case. In the San Javier mission, there were two principal caciques, Cithaalin and Aletin. Their traditional rivalry was amplified because only the latter accepted Christianity and, unlike in the Mapuche context, this did not result in imitation, but rather in even stronger opposition and obstruction of Cithaalin to missionary activities. Therefore, baptism caused a major internal fracture between Aletin’s group, composed of Christians who were helping the father in missionary works, and the rival Cithaalin, who spent most of his days organising borracheras and hindering missionary life. The situation changed with the distribution of mate. The access to food supplies was, in fact, controlled by the missionaries and granted as a reward to the most righteous. A lack of participation in mass and Christian doctrine, or the failure to provide sufficient labour force for the everyday mission life, resulted in a reduced distribution of goods and a loss of political power. Since Cithaalin could not access the same quantities of mate due to his non-baptised status, his group members started to join Aletin, who had superior economic and distributive power.⁷⁰ Differential access to missionary products was, therefore, rebuilding intertribal relations and solidarities, putting aside non-baptised elements which failed to contribute to the prosperity of the community. Baptised local leaders could rapidly weaken rival groups thanks to the redistribution to their members of local products in exchange for the acceptance of baptism and participation in the everyday working activities of the mission. Local rivalries and the quest for material goods influenced native perception of baptism. Baptism was, therefore, seen as the only way to enter the community as a full member and benefit from missionary products, while non-baptised caciques considered the sacrament an instrument for regaining lost power and political consensus.

Conclusion

The spreading of illnesses and an unprecedented mortality rate shocked local populations into calling into question the power and social status of local healers. The emergency created by epidemics led to an immediate perception of the missionaries as responsible for the development of the maladies. Branded as deadly beings, Jesuits started to be perceived also as healers. As shown by the study of traditional beliefs about the origin of the illnesses, local healers possessed a dual identity which made them able to both cause death and save the dying. Therefore, the assimilation of the missionaries as curanderos-hechiceros paved the way for the development of similar beliefs about the Jesuits’ dual abilities. They could kill and save, fostering an initial scepticism towards baptism.

Indigenous populations on the fringes of Spanish America developed various perceptions of baptism according to the different socio-political conditions. The crucial role carried out by the Jesuits in the reorganisation of native communities after the havoc of the conquest years, especially in north-western Mexican communities, led to new approaches towards the sacrament. Local populations reconfigured baptism as a viable way to rebuild social, economic and political structures around a new leader who proved able to replace traditional pre-contact rulers. Assimilation of foreign practices and continuity with local beliefs were two common features of natives’ approaches to missionary life. Access to baptism and church construction became important parts of the Mapuche social system based on reciprocity and imitation. Acceptance of the sacrament and the preparation of solemn Christian ceremonies resulted in the perpetuation of intertribal rivalry and the quest for political power, with a limited religious meaning. Although it would be simplistic to reduce native approaches to missionary life to an opportunistic endeavour, certainly material interests proved decisive for Guaycuruan acceptance of the missions.⁷¹ The economic organisation of the Chaco missions based on cattle-raising, hunting and gathering and the cultivation and distribution of salt, maize and mate, perfectly matched the non-sedentary peoples’ constant search for food supply.⁷²

The Mapuche cultural system of reciprocity was reinforced by the introduction of the sacrament, perceived as a new way of showing political power and authority. Due to the continued resistance which hampered the evangelisation process, the abandonment of traditional practices in favour of foreign beliefs caused shame and internal strife among local communities. On the other hand, the attainment of economic stability and regular food supply led north-western Mexican communities and non-sedentary Guaycuruas to conceive of the missions as a way to obtain a new socio-economic and political balance. For this reason, the abandonment of traditional customs represented the way to obtain an improvement of economic conditions by accepting missionary rules. Those who resisted colonial rule usually suffered pressure within the tribe and witnessed a decrease in their political influence amid a clear reshaping of the tribal framework of power around the new leading figure of the missionary. The Jesuits generally perceived native distortions of baptism, but fostered the healing aspect of the sacrament, understanding its positive impact on local communities. At the same time, the natives transformed a foreign practice into a ritual which could be inserted into the extant cultural systems. The acts of the missionaries did not differ substantially from the activities of the curanderos-hechiceros; and baptism could be completely accepted only through its assimilation of local practices.

Archival abbreviations

ARSI Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome

BNC Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Rome

RAH Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid

Bibliography

Manuscript sources

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 5, P. de Sotomayor, ‘Preguntase si sera conveniente el que la Compañía de Jesús prosiga o no con las misiones que tiene en el estado de Arauco? Ponense las razones por una y otra parte, 31 Jan. 1675’.

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 5, G.B. Camargo, ‘Propuesta de las razones que militan en favor de la asistencia de la missión de Valdivia y de las que ay en contra de ella, 22 April 1675’.

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, ‘Letras annuas de las missiones de la tierra de guerra en el Reyno de Chile por los Padres de la Compañía de Jesús desde el año de 1616 hasta el mes de Diciembre de Seiscientos y diez y siete’.

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, ‘Letras Anuas desta Provincia de Chile de los años 1629 y 30, 2 April 1630’.

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, ‘Letras Anuas de la Viceprovincia de Chile de los años de 1635 y 1636, 1 March 1637’.

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, ‘Adjunta a Letras Annuas de la Viceprovincia del Reino de Chile desde el año de mil y seiscientos y cuarenta y siete hasta el presente de 1648’.

ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, ‘Letras Anuas de la Viceprovincia de Chile del año de 1649, 17 December 1650’.

ARSI Provincia Mexicana 14, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de México de 1597, 30 March 1598’.

ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de la Nueva España de la Compañía de Jesús del año de 1606, 14 May 1607’.

ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de la Nueva España del año de 1610, 18 May 1611’.

ARSI Provincia Mexicana 15, ‘Letras Anuas de la provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Mexico por los años 1646 y 1647’.

ARSI Provincia Mexicana 17, ‘Copia de una carta que los Padres José Tardá y Tomás de Guadalajara escribieron al P Francisco Ximenez Provincial sobre su entrada a los Tarahumares despues de haber estos abandonado la fe matando a los Padres Cornelio Godinez y Santiago Basilio, 1676’.

ARSI Provincia Mexicana 19, A. Pérez de Ribas, ‘Libro septimo de algunos puntos dignos de notar en la historia de las missiones de la Compañía de Jesús en la Nueva España, en particular de la de Cinaloa. Travajos que en ellas han pasado sus operarios y frutos que de ellas an cogido. Y de los medios de que se han ayudado para coger tan abundantes frutos’.

BNC, FG 1407, ‘Breve relación de los indios de Chile’.

RAH, Colección Juan Bautista Muñoz, tomo 15, ‘Carta del Padre Andrés Pérez, dirigida al Padre Provincial, año de 1617’.

RAH, Colección Juan Bautista Muñoz, vol. 19, ‘Carta Anua de 1598’.

Printed sources

Anderson, E. (2010) ‘Blood, fire and baptism. Three perspectives on the death of Jean de Brébeuf, seventeenth-century Jesuit martyr’, in J. Martin (ed.), Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of the American Religious Landscape (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press), pp. 125–58.

Ascasubi, M. de. (1846) ‘Informe cronológico de las misiones del reino de Chile hasta 1789’, in C. Gay (ed.), Historia física y política de Chile segun documentos adquiridos en esta república durante doze años de residencia en ella. Documentos (Paris: at the house of the author; Chile: el Museo de Historia Natural de Santiago,1846), pp. 300–400.

Boccara, G. (1999) ‘Etnogénesis Mapuche: resistencia y restructuración entre los indígenas del centro-sur de Chile (Siglos XVI–XVIII)’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 79: 425–61.

— Los vencedores. Historia del pueblo mapuche en la época colonial (San Pedro de Atacama: Línea Editorial IIAM, 2007).

Bugarín, J.A. (1993) Visita de las misiones del Nayarit 1768–1769 (México D.F: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos).

‘Carta Anua de la Provincia del Peru, 29 Abril 1599’, in E. Fernández Dávila and A. de Egaña (eds.), Monumenta Peruana, Apud Monumenta Historica Soc. Iesu (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1954), pp. 660–733.

Cassirer, E. (1965) The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Catto, M. (2010) ‘Missioni e globalizzazioni: l’adattamento come identità della Compagnia di Gesù’, in Evangelizzazione e globalizzazione: le missioni gesuitiche nell’età moderna tra storia e storiografia, edited by M. Catto, 1–16 (Rome: Società editrice Dante Alighieri).

Dobrizhoffer, M. and E. Wernicke (ed. and trans.) (1967–70) Historia de los Abipones, 3 vols. (Resistencia: Universidad Nacional del Nordeste).

Enrich, F. (1891) Historia de la compañia de Jesús en Chile, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Rosal).

Díaz Blanco, J.M. (2010) Razón de estado y buen gobierno. La guerra defensiva y el imperialismo español en tiempos de Felipe III (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla).

Dobyns, H.F. (1983) Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press).

Farriss, N.M. (1984) Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

Foerster, R. (1996) Jesuitas y Mapuches, 1593–1767 (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria).

Folsom, R. (2010) The Yaquis and the Empire: Violence, Spanish Imperial Power, and Native Resilience in Colonial Mexico (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Frankel, A.M. (1983) La yerba mate: producción, industrialización, comercio (Buenos Aires: Albatros).

Gullón Abao, A.J. (1993) La frontera del Chaco en la gobernación del Tucumán: 1750–1810 (Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz).

Jackson, R.H. (2015) Demographic Change and Ethnic Survival among the Sedentary Populations on the Jesuit Mission Frontiers of Spanish South America, 1609–1803: The Formation and Persistence of Mission Communities in a Comparative Context (Leiden: Brill).

Leonhardt, C. (1927) Iglesia. Cartas Anuas de la provincia del Paraguay, Chile y Tucumán, de la compañía de Jesús, 1609–1614 (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas).

Levaggi, A. (2002) Diplomacia hispano-indígena en las fronteras de América (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales).

Lozano, P. (1941) Descripción corográfica del gran Chaco gualamba (Tucumán: Instituto de Antropología).

Lucaioli, C. (2010) ‘Los espacios de frontera en el Chaco desde la conquista hasta mediados del siglo XVIII’, in C. Lucaioli (ed.), Fronteras: espacios de interacción en las tierras bajas del sur de América (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Argentina de Antropología), pp. 21–68.

— Abipones en las fronteras del Chaco: una etnografía histórica sobre el siglo XVIII (2011) (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Argentina de Antropología).

Maeder, E. (1996) Cartas anuas de la provincia jesuítica del Paraguay, 1641 a 1643 (Resistencia: Instituto de Investigaciones Geohistóricas-Conicet).

Marotti, F. (1985) ‘Juan Baptista de Segura and the Failure of the Florida Jesuit Mission, 1566–1572’, The Florida Historical Quarterly, 63: 267–79.

Muriel, D. and G. Fúrlong Cárdiff (1955) Breve noticia de las missiones vivas de la compañía de Jesús en la provincia del Paraguay (Buenos Aires: Escritores Coloniales Rioplatenses).

Norton, M. (2015) ‘The chicken or the Iegue: human-animal relationships and the Columbian exchange’, American Historical Review, 120: 28–60.

‘Noticia sobre a reduçao en San Xavier de indios Mocobi, na jurisdiçao de Santa Fe (1750)’, in J. Cortesão (ed.), Do Tratado De Madri à Conquista Dos Sete Povos (1750–1802) (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Nacional, 1969), pp. 15–23.

Olivares, M. de (1874) Historia de la compañia de Jesús en Chile, 1593–1736 (Santiago de Chile: Bello).

O’Malley, J.W., S.J. (1999) I Primi Gesuiti (Milano: Vita e Pensiero).

Ovalle, A. de (1888) Historica relación del reyno de Chile y de las misiones y ministerios que ejércita en él la compañia de Jesús (Santiago de Chile).

Paucke, F. and E. Wernicke (ed. and trans.) (1942) Hacia allá y para acá. Una estadía entre los indios Mocobíes, 1749–1767 (Tucumán: Universidad Nacional de Tucumán).

Pérez de Ribas, A. (1944) Historia de los triunfos de n.s. fe entre gentes las más barbaras y fieras del nuevo orbe (México: Layac).

Pizzorusso, G. (2009) ‘I dubbi sui sacramenti dalle missioni ad infideles. Percorsi nelle burocrazie di curia’, in P. Broggio, C. de Castelnau-L’estoile and G. Pizzorusso (eds.), Administrer les sacrements en Europe et au Nouveau Monde: la curie romaine et les dubia circa sacramenta (= Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranée, 121), pp. 39–61.

Reff, D.T. (1991) Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Change in Northwestern New Spain, 1518–1764 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press).

Ruiz-Esquide Figueroa, A. (1993) Los indios amigos en la frontera araucana (Santiago de Chile: Universidad Nacional del Litoral).

Saeger, J.S. (2000) The Chaco Mission Frontier: The Guaycuruan Experience (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press).

Sánchez Labrador, J. and S.A. Lafone y Quevedo (1910) El Paraguay católico. Homenaje de la universidad nacional de La Plata al XVII. congreso internacional de los americanistas en su reunión de Buenos Aires, en Mayo 16 á 21 de 1910 (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Coni Hermanos).

Vitar Mukdsi, B. (1997) Guerra y misiones en la frontera chaqueña del Tucumán, 1700–1767 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones

_____________

1 See F. Marotti, ‘Juan Baptista de Segura and the failure of the Florida Jesuit mission, 1566– 1572’, The Florida Historical Quarterly, 63 (1985): 267–79.

2 For the Jesuit efforts in southern Chile and the Chaco, see R. Foerster, Jesuitas y Mapuches, 1593–1767 (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1996); B. Vitar Mukdsi, Guerra y misiones en la frontera chaqueña del Tucumán, 1700–1767 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1997); and J.S. Saeger, The Chaco Mission Frontier: The Guaycuruan Experience (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2000).

3 The term curandero-hechicero will be used throughout the text to emphasise the duality of native perceptions and to represent the everyday activities of the healer-sorcerers at the fringes of Spanish America. These two terms were both used in Jesuit sources, while native populations had various ways of describing this concept in their own languages.

4 J.W. O’Malley, S.J., I primi Gesuiti (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1999), pp. 29–59; M. Catto, ‘Missioni e globalizzazioni: l’adattamento come identità della Compagnia di Gesù’, in M. Catto (ed.), Evangelizzazione e globalizzazione: le missioni gesuitiche nell’età moderna tra storia e storiografia (Rome: Società editrice Dante Alighieri, 2010), pp. 1–16.

5 See, e.g., the debate inside the Chilean province concerning the suspension of the missions in Arauco and Valdivia in 1675 due to the limited results of evangelization (ARSI Provincia Chilensis 5, fols. 170–73, P. de Sotomayor, ‘Preguntase si sera conveniente el que la Compañía de Jesús prosiga o no con las misiones que tiene en el estado de Arauco? Ponense las razones por una y otra parte, 31 Jan. 1675’; ARSI Provincia Chilensis 5, fols. 177–7v, G.B. Camargo, ‘Propuesta de las razones que militan en favor de la asistencia de la missión de Valdivia y de las que ay en contra de ella’, 22 April 1675).

6 F. Enrich, Historia de la compañía de Jesús en Chile (Barcelona: Rosal, 1891), p. 143.

7 P. Lozano, Descripción corográfica del gran Chaco gualamba (Tucumán: Instituto de antropología, 1941), p. 114.

8 A. Pérez de Ribas, Historia de los triunfos de n.s. fé entre gentes las más barbaras y fieras del nuevo orbe (México: Layac, 1944), vol. I, pp. 288 and 344.

9 ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, fol. 24v, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de México de 1597, 30 March 1598’. See also ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, fol. 578, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de la Nueva España del año de 1610, 18 May 1611’.

10 ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, fol. 472v, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de la Nueva España de la Compañía de Jesús del año de 1606, 14 May 1607’.

11 For the Guerra Defensiva policy and the parlamentos de indios, see J.M. Díaz Blanco, Razón de estado y buen gobierno. La guerra defensiva y el imperialismo español en tiempos de Felipe III (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 2010); A. Levaggi, Diplomacia hispano-indígena en las fronteras de América (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2002).

12 Foerster, Jesuitas y Mapuches, p. 273; Enrich, Historia, vol. 1, p. 285.

13 Carta Anua de 1618–1619, 17 Febrero 1620, in C. Leonhardt, Iglesia. Cartas Anuas de la provincia del Paraguay, Chile y Tucumán, de la compañía de Jesús, 1609–1614 (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1927), p. 189; and A. de Ovalle, Historica relación del reyno de Chile y de las misiones y ministerios que ejércita en él la Compañia de Jesús (Santiago de Chile, 1888), vol. 2, p. 291.

14 For a Franciscan late colonial critique of the Jesuit administration of the sacrament in southern Chile, see M. de Ascasubi, ‘Informe cronológico de las misiones del reino de Chile hasta 1789’, in C. Gay (ed.), Historia física y política de Chile segun documentos adquiridos en esta república durante doze años de residencia en ella. Documentos (Paris, 1846), vol. I, pp. 300–400 (p. 321).

15 Enrich, Historia, vol. 1, p. 598.

16 For the acceptance of baptism as a linear process, see Foerster, Jesuitas y Mapuches.

17 Lozano, Descripción Corográfica, p. 186. See also ‘Carta Anua de 1641–1643’, in E. Maeder, Cartas anuas de la provincia jesuitica del paraguay, 1641 a 1643 (Resistencia: Instituto de Investigaciones Geohistóricas-Conicet, 1996), pp. 47–51.

18 Enrich, Historia, vol. 1, p. 164.

19 See especially D.T. Reff, Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Change in Northwestern New Spain, 1518–1764 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1991).

20 Pérez de Ribas, Libro septimo de algunos puntos dignos de notar en la historia de las missiones de la Compañía de Jesús en la Nueva España, en particular de la de Cinaloa. Travajos que en ellas han pasado sus operarios y frutos que de ellas an cogido. Y de los medios de que se han ayudado para coger tan abundantes frutos (undated, ARSI Provincia Mexicana 19, fol. 152v); F.J. Alegre, Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España (Rome: Institutum Historicum S. I, 1958), vol. 2, pp. 20 and 152.

21 Lozano, Descripción corográfica, pp. 221 and 395.

22 See Foerster, Jesuitas y Mapuches; and Saeger, The Chaco Mission Frontier.

23 M. De Olivares, Historia de la compañia de Jesús en Chile, 1593–1736 (Santiago de Chile: Bello, 1874), p. 291; Pérez de Ribas, Historia, vol. 1, p. 255.

24 J. Sánchez Labrador and S.A. Lafone y Quevedo, El Paraguay católico. Homenaje de la universidad nacional de La Plata al XVII. congreso internacional de los americanistas en su reunión de Buenos Aires, en Mayo 16 á 21 de 1910 (Buenos Aires: Coni ermanos, 1910), vol. 2, p. 293.

25 RAH, Colección Juan Bautista Muñoz, tomo 15, fol. 178, ‘Carta del Padre Andrés Pérez, dirigida al Padre Provincial, año de 1617’. Documentary evidence shows the diffusion of the perception of baptism as a cure also in the Balkans and China (G. Pizzorusso, ‘I dubbi sui sacramenti dalle missioni ad infideles. Percorsi nelle burocrazie di curia’, in P. Broggio, C. de Castelnau-L’estoile and G. Pizzorusso (eds.), Administrer les sacrements en Europe et au Nouveau Monde: la curie romaine et les dubia circa sacramenta (= Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranée, 121 (2009)), pp. 39–61 (p. 53).

26 ‘Noticia sobre a reduçao en San Xavier de indios Mocobi, na jurisdiçao de Santa Fe (1750)’, in J. Cortesão (ed.), Do Tratado De Madrid à Conquista Dos Sete Povos (1750–1802) (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Nacional, 1969), pp. 15–23 (p. 19).

27 For similar cases in southern Chile, see Carta Anua de la Provincia del Peru, 29 Abril 1599, in E. Fernández Dávila and A. de Egaña (eds.), Monumenta Peruana, Apud Monumenta Historica Soc. Iesu (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1954), pp. 660–733 (p. 703).

28 Enrich, Historia, vol. 1, pp. 209 and 578; Pérez de Ribas, Historia, vol. 1, p. 346.

29 See ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 56v, ‘Letras Anuas desta Provincia de Chile de los años 1629 y 30, 2 April 1630’; and M. Dobrizhoffer and E. Wernicke, Historia de los Abipones. Traducción de Edmundo Wernicke (Resistencia: Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, 1967–70), vol. 3, p. 301.

30 Pérez de Ribas, Historia, vol. 1, pp. 224, 260, 285.

31 Pérez de Ribas, Libro septimo, fol. 140.

32 Pérez de Ribas, Historia, vol. 2, p. 92.

33 The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer clearly stated in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms that all symbols are reversible. Therefore, who can cure the dying man can also cause his death (E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)).

34 R. Folsom, The Yaquis and the Empire: Violence, Spanish Imperial Power, and Native Resilience in Colonial Mexico (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 106.

35 Lozano, Descripción corográfica, p. 395.

36 Ribas, Historia, vol. 3, p. 276.

37 Olivares, Historia, p. 125; ARSI Provincia Mexicana 17, fol. 378, ‘Copia de una carta que los Padres José Tardá y Tomás de Guadalajara escribieron al P Francisco Ximenez Provincial sobre su entrada a los Tarahumares despues de haber estos abandonado la fe matando a los Padres Cornelio Godinez y Santiago Basilio, 1676’.

38 ARSI Provincia Mexicana 15, fol. 248v, ‘Letras Anuas de la provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Mexico por los años 1646 y 1647’. For an analysis of human-animal relationship among the Amerindians, see M. Norton, ‘The chicken or the Iegue: human-animal relationships and the Columbian exchange’, American Historical Review, 120 (2015): 28–60.

39 ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 265, ‘Letras Anuas de la Viceprovincia de Chile del año de 1649, 17 Dec. 1650’. For similar native versions of the baptismal ritual in late colonial Nayarit, see J.A. Bugarín, Visita de las misiones del Nayarit 1768–1769 (México D.F: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, 1993), p. 100.

40 Dobrizhoffer, Historia de los Abipones, vol. 2, p. 86.

41 On the struggle between curanderos-hechiceros and missionaries in southern Chile, see also Olivares, Historia, p. 289.

42 F. Paucke and E. Wernicke, Hacia allá y para acá. Una estadía entre los indios Mocobíes, 1749–1767. Traducción castellana por Edmundo Wernicke (Tucumán: Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, 1942), vol. 3, p. 252. The same perception of the immortality of the self was present among the Mapuches and Tepehuanes (Enrich, Historia, vol. p. 87; Alegre, Historia, vol. 1, p. 471.

43 Dobrizhoffer, Historia de los Abipones, vol. 2, p. 78. According to Saeger, Queveet was a mythical ancestor who distributed courage to the Abipones in war against the neighbouring groups and gold and silver to the Spaniards (Saeger, The Chaco Mission Frontier, pp. 57 and 136).

44 An exception is Mbaya belief that maladies were caused by the exit of the soul from the body, establishing a strong relationship between spiritual and corporal health (D. Muriel and G. Fúrlong Cárdiff, Breve noticia de las missiones vivas de la compañía de Jesús en la provincia del Paraguay (Buenos Aires: Escritores Coloniales Rioplatenses, 1955), p. 135).

45 Olivares, Historia, p. 278.

46 ARSI, Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 264v, ‘ Anua de la Viceprovincia de Chile de 1649’; Ovalle, Historica Relación Del Reyno De Chile, vol. 2, p. 196. An anonymous late 18th-century Jesuit chronicle refers to the Huecubu as a dreadful demi-god causing epidemics and plagues (BNC, FG 1407, fol. 37v, ‘Breve relación de los indios de Chile’).

47 On the medical practice of sucking and Jesuit reflections on traditional healing systems, see, e.g., Sánchez Labrador and Lafone y Quevedo, El Paraguay Católico, vol. 3, p. 37; Paucke, Hacia allá y para acá, vol. 3, p. 252; Dobrizhoffer, Historia de los Abipones, vol. 2, p. 246; ARSI, Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 265, ‘ Anua de la Viceprovincia de Chile de 1649’.

48 ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 24, ‘Adjunta a Letras Annuas de la Viceprovincia del Reino de Chile desde el año de mil y seiscientos y cuarenta y siete hasta el presente de 1648’. 7. A similar fate awaited curanderos-hechiceros in Northern Mexico (Reff, Disease, p. 268).

49 E. Anderson, ‘Blood, fire and baptism. three perspectives on the death of Jean de Brébeuf, seventeenth-century Jesuit martyr’, in J. Martin (ed.), Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of the American Religious Landscape (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), pp. 125–58 (pp. 145–6).

50 See, e.g., the accusations made against Diego de Rosales during a plague epidemic in Arauco in 1631, in Enrich, Historia, vol. I, p. 412; and Olivares, Historia, p. 278.

51 For the Chilean context and the concept of cumulative magic see G. Boccara, Los vencedores. Historia del pueblo mapuche en la época colonial (San Pedro de Atacama: Línea Editorial IIAM, 2007), p. 366. On the inclusiveness of Mesoamerican communities, especially in the formation of a vast and composite pantheon of deities, see N.M. Farriss, Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).

52 On native acceptance of the missions as an opportunistic endeavor, see for the northern Mexican missions Reff, Disease, p. 16.

53 See A. Ruiz-Esquide Figueroa, Los indios amigos en la frontera araucana (Santiago de Chile: Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1993).

54 ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 24, ‘Letras Anuas de la Viceprovincia de Chile de los años de 1635 y 1636’, 1 March 1637.

55 Boccara, Los Vencedores, p. 373.

56 G. Boccara, ‘Etnogénesis Mapuche: resistencia y restructuración entre los indígenas del centro-sur de Chile (Siglos XVI–XVIII)’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 79 (1999): 431 and 434.

57 Boccara, ‘Etnogénesis Mapuche’, 436.

58 Olivares, Historia, p. 299.

59 See Boccara, Los Vencedores, pp. 368–70.

60 ARSI, Provincia Chilensis 6, fols.129–31v, ‘Letras anuas de 1635 y 1636’.

61 ARSI Provincia Chilensis 6, fol. 32, ‘Letras annuas de las missiones de la tierra de guerra en el Reyno de Chile por los Padres de la Compañía de Jesús desde el año de 1616 hasta el mes de Diciembre de Seiscientos y diez y siete’. For similar cases in the Mexican context, see RAH, Colección Juan Bautista Muñoz, vol. 19, fol. 36, ‘Carta Anua de 1598’.

62 Reff, Disease, p. 13.

63 Reff, Disease, pp. 259 and 278.

64 Ribas, Historia, vol. 2, p. 16.

65 According to H. Dobyns, acceptance of missionary life in north-western Mexico was a direct consequence of the similarity between the missionary structure itself and the town-life model in pre-contact times, now rebuilt by the priests (H.F. Dobyns, Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1983), pp. 303–4).

66 C. Lucaioli, ‘Los espacios de frontera en el Chaco desde la conquista hasta mediados del siglo XVIII’, in C. Lucaioli (ed.), Fronteras: espacios de interacción en las tierras bajas del sur de América (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, 2010), pp. 21–68 (pp. 38 and 58).

67 A.J. Gullón Abao, La frontera del Chaco en la gobernación del Tucumán: 1750–1810 (Cádiz: Universidad De Cádiz, 1993), p. 107; and Saeger, The Chaco Mission Frontier, pp. 64–5.

68 The demographical study of Guaycuruan mission population, especially the case of the Abipon communities, underlines the great freedom of mobility of local groups, which redefined their non-sedentary features around the integration of the mission as a dwelling for women, children and the elders and a temporary space for food supply, gift exchange and political meetings. See R.H. Jackson, Demographic Change and Ethnic Survival among the Sedentary Populations on the Jesuit Mission Frontiers of Spanish South America, 1609–1803: The Formation and Persistence of Mission Communities in a Comparative Context (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 128–43; C. Lucaioli, Abipones en las fronteras del Chaco: una etnografía histórica sobre el siglo XVIII (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, 2011), pp. 159–65.

69 Paucke, Hacia allá y para acá, vol. 2, p. 93. Mate was widely known and consumed in pre-conquest Paraguay. It was a bitter drink obtained from the yerba mate, which Jesuits started to produce in the Guaraní seven missions during the first half of the 17th century. Sometimes used as a medicine, it was also involved in regional commerce and exchange due to its wide appreciation by the natives (A.M. Frankel, La yerba mate: producción, industrialización, comercio (Buenos Aires: Albatros, 1983).

70 Paucke, Hacia allá y para acá, vol. 2, p. 106.

71 Saeger, The Chaco Mission Frontier, p. 53.

72 On Chaco Jesuit missions as an economic success, see Gullón Abao, La frontera del Chaco, p. 160.