Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The foundations of reductions in the Guayra region followed a methodology based on the understanding of the way of being of indigenous groups. In this context there was absolute respect for the typologies of indigenous spaces and the pre-existing conformity of social hierarchies. This was made possible essentially by the understand-ing of Guarani language and that of the Gualachos or Ibirajaras. Understanding the meaning of a word could be the difference between life and death. The Jesuits and the Indians exchanged knowledge. The technological contribution was important, essential-ly the iron wedges. But it was also the implementation of agricultural techniques and, therefore, the realization of new crops such as sugar cane and cotton. To realize these innovations it was necessary to know the earth, the water and the plants. The introduc-tion of cattle with the provision of milk and the manufacture of butter and cheeses sub-stantially modified the diet. The construction of roads changed the structure of space. What was the ideology that supported the organization of space?We think that there was a philosophy of conformation of the missionary space as a sum of places that can be linked with the ideas of Leibniz. Although this one broke in a few years later in the world of the ideas we maintain that some concepts of the metaphysics of the space of this author could be instrumented some years before in the formation of the Jesuits in the level of the noviciado or later. To continuously fold and unfold the subregions, that is what we call successive approximations. We will analyze these no-tions and the role of Father Joseph Cataldini in his conformation.

Among the editions from the Jesuit mission press, the Explicacion de el catechismo... by Nicolás Yapuguay (Santa María la Mayor, 1724) is known from a limited number of copies over the world. This paper describes and illustrates a recently discovered exemplary, which originally belonged to the bibliophile Pedro N. Arata. A comparison among all surviving copies reveals differences in the number and completeness of the parts they are made of, the presence of a pagination failure in the third part, the level and quality of restoration they underwent, their property marks, and the presence of marginalia. The frequent lack of the catechism text (part IV) suggests that the Explicacion originally circulated in both complete and incomplete versions, perhaps to meet different needs of the intended users. In the past, private collectors played an important role in the rescue and preservation of copies of this work, which presently are mostly kept at non-ecclesiastical public collections. Guaraní marginalia, which abound in the Arata copy but also occur on other three, suggest that some exemplaries remained for long time within guaraní communities due to their value for catechesis. This would help to explain the comparatively high survival rate of this book, of which 15 copies exist of an edition that probably amounted to only 30-40 exemplaries.

Most studies about the Jesuit literature in the La Plata region up to now focu-sed on a very small number of texts considered the most important ones, as for instance Ruiz de Montoya and Pablo Restivo, or the translation of Nieremberg in Guarani. In our contribution, we will try to take into account lesser-known texts and their didactical use. After establishing the tradition of the didactical dialogue in literature history we will show that texts as the Sermones and Explicación by Yapuguay and some unpublished devotional manuscripts were closely linked to the use in the cofradías in charge of social work and religious education among the Guarani-indians.Some of these texts obviously have a double function: they were used for the Guaranis’ personal devotion or joint prayers in cofradias’ meetings but at the same time helped the Jesuits themselves to improve their knowledge providing texts in an actualized version of Guarani as the one spoken in the reducciones.

The study of stones and rubble in a small section of the already totally artificial coast of the city of Buenos Aires, showed the presence of two recently arrived and very worn stones. Due to its reddish coloration, its geological composition and the evidence of manual carving, it was assumed that it came from the Misiones area and that it must have been part of buildings. We do not know where they come from, how that enor-mous trip was made in distance and in centuries, but they arrived recently and stayed over de muddy coast. Finally it is just a curiosity, there must be hundreds of Jesuit buildings destroyed in time and whose stones fell into the water; these two, curiously, were visible at a great distance, and shortly before leaving the ocean and lost forever.

This is the third and last of a series of articles that present information on the population and vital rates of the Jesuit missions in the Paraguay province reconstructed from cen-suses. This article discusses the Moxos missions that were a part of the Peru Province but were similar to the Chiquitos establishments. It also discusses the Tarima and Chaco missions, and the short-lived mission Jesus Maria de los Guenoas.

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In the second half of the seventeenth century, after the Portuguese Restoration, the settlement of the sertão of Portuguese America intensified. The process, defined in the documentation as "expansion for the inland routes", aimed at the constitution of villages and the formation of alliances, with the purpose of guaranteeing security in the commercial access to the routes of the cattle ranchers that followed from Bahia to Piauí, as well as As the constitution of a group of Indians that would restrain the formation of quilombos in the impenetrable routes of the sertão. Again, the religious orders were entrusted with the task of organizing the villages, disciplining the souls, and providing manpower at the entrances to the hinterland. The context of creation of the villages is presented based on the documentation of the Ultramarino Archive and that found in the collection Historical Records of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro. This work has as objective the multiple actors involved in the settlement of the sertão of Bahia, with emphasis on the Jesuits, who became the mediators between the worlds of the Indians and the interests of the curraleiros, responsible for a series of difficulties for the work of catechesis.

The paper deals with the process of circulation and transmission of knowled-ge about the “erba mate”, initiated by correspondence between Federico Borromeu, Cardinal of the city of Milan, the Jesuit missionary Diego de Torres Bollo and other informants of the Company, and the Milanese physician Iacopo Antonio Clerici. Diffe-rent modes of appropriation of the information received from Latin America are focu-sed, according to the cultural and religious universe of the recipients.