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
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.
ADMINISTRATION AND NATIVE PERCEPTIONS OF BAPTISM 161 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
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.
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
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.
ADMINISTRATION AND NATIVE PERCEPTIONS OF BAPTISM 163 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
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.
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
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.
ADMINISTRATION AND NATIVE PERCEPTIONS OF BAPTISM 165 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.