Intersection of subjectivities: the indigenous presence in the affected writing of the Jesuits

Abstract

The written production developed by the members of the Company of Jesus during the reduction experience in Spanish America acquired a new impulse of analysis when the researchers perceived that these records were composed of the intersection between the subjectivities of the authors and the formal demands that the hierarchy of the Order imposed on the missionaries. Because of this, records containing detailed descriptions of various ceremonies, shamanic practices and stories about mythology are frequent, as well as other aspects related to indigenous practical knowledge, which are placed between the obligation to record native behavior and the interest of the Jesuit. In this article we intend to demonstrate that the presence and performance of native knowledge also caused disturbances on these records generating what we call an affected writing. An intimate expression that does not come from the effort of convincing on the part of the narrator, but that is the result of the missionary’s weighting and of the direct or indirect influence that the natives exerted through contact and reductionist coexistence.