This book examines how European missionaries in Latin America constructed the identities of indigenous peoples as "others" through their missionary activities from the 16th to 18th centuries. It contains 12 chapters by various authors analyzing different missionary orders and regions. The introduction provides an overview of how the book addresses how missions shaped indigenous cultures through processes of negation, exaltation and transformation of native identities and practices. The contributing authors employ diverse sources and methodologies to explore the complex relationships between missionaries and indigenous communities.

1. Manufacturing Otherness

3. Manufacturing Otherness:
Missions and Indigenous Cultures
in Latin America
Edited by
Sergio Botta

4. Manufacturing Otherness:
Missions and Indigenous Cultures in Latin America,
Edited by Sergio Botta
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2013 by Sergio Botta and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-5160-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5160-2

5. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Lists of Illustrations .................................................................................. vii
Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Manufacturing Otherness: Missions and Indigenous Cultures in Latin
America
Sergio Botta
Chapter One ............................................................................................... 11
Towards a Missionary Theory of Polytheism: The Franciscans
in the Face of the Indigenous Religions of New Spain
Sergio Botta
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 37
The Doctrine of Juli: Foundation, Development and the New Identity
in a Shared Space
Virginia Battisti Delia
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 63
Jesuits and Indians in the Borderlands (Vice-Royalty of Peru,
16th-18th Centuries)
Nikolai Rakutz
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 95
Making the Indigenous Speak: The Jesuit Missionary Diego de Rosales
in Colonial Chile, 17th Century
Rafael Gaune
Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 121
Negation and Exaltation of the sertanistas of São Paulo in the Discourses
of Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, D. José Vaissette and Gaspar
da Madre de Deus (1756-1774)
Michel Kobelinski

6. vi
Table of Contents
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 149
Demonym Cartography: Native Peoples and Inquisition in Portuguese
America (18th Century)
Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende
Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 177
Christian Bodies, Other Bodies: Processes of Conversion
and Transformation in Northeastern Amazonia
Vanessa Elisa Grotti
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 191
Indian Missionary or Pastor? Reflections on a Religious Trajectory
in the Amazon
Paride Bollettin
Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 211
The Indigenist Missionary Council: A Brazilian Experience
between Culture and Faith
Marcos Pereira Rufino
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 231
Religious Contexts, Missionary Action and Indigenous Activism
in the Western Brazilian Amazon
Sidnei Clemente Peres
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 253
Seeing is Believing? Vision and Indigenous Agency in the Anglican
Evangelisation of the Paraguayan Chaco
Alejandro Martínez
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 273
The Hidden Heritage
Valéria Nely Cezár de Carvalho
Contributors ............................................................................................. 283
Index ........................................................................................................ 287

7. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 4.1: “Lautaro” in Diego de Ocaña, Relación del viaje a Chile ...........
Table 6.1: Region - 18th Century ..................................................................
Table 6.2: Denounces - Period - 18th Century ..............................................
Table 6.3: Reason of the Denouncement - 18th Century ...............................
Table 6.4: 18th Century .................................................................................
Map 11.1: The main locations of Anglican stations and Indigenous
settlements in Paraguayan ........................................................................
Figure 11.1: “Indians of Paraguay” ..............................................................
Figure 11.2: “Riacho Fernández, mission station in Gran Chaco” ................
Figure 11.3: “Boy” ........................................................................................
Figure 11.4: “Sports at feast, Chaco” ...........................................................

8. CONTRIBUTORS
Virginia Battisti Delia is an Independent Researcher in History and
Cultural Anthropology. She received a BA in 2006 at Sapienza University
of Rome (Italy) and then moved to Lima (Peru) where she attended a
Master’s degree program in Andean Anthropology and History at
Pontificia Universidad Católica. Her thesis was devoted to the Jesuit
mission of Juli (Lake Titicaca). She is currently working as a Lecturer at
Universidad Cientifica del Sur, teaching Anthropology, and as freelance
journalist on Latin America topics.
Paride Bollettin received a BA in History at University of Padova (Italy)
in 2005, a MA in Anthropology at University of Perugia (Italy) in 2007
and a PhD in Anthropology at University of Siena (Italy) in 2011. He has
currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centro de Estudos
Ameríndios at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). He has written various
articles for academic journals and published several books as
editor: Amazzonia Indigena (with Gerardo Bamonte. Roma: Bulzoni,
2008), Ricerca sul Campo in Amazzonia (with Umberto Mondini. Roma:
Bulzoni, 2009), Lévi-Strauss visto dal Brasile (with Renato Athias.
Bologna: Cleup, 2011) and Etnografie Amazzoniche (with Umberto
Mondini. Bologna: Cleup, 2001).
Sergio Botta (PhD in History of Religions) is Assistant Professor at
Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). His research focuses on Indigenous
religions and colonial discourses in the Americas, with particular regard to
missionary literature. He is also devoted to Method and Theory in the
Study of Religions, and to such topics as Religions and the Arts, and
Shamanism. The results are published in three monographs and several
edited books. He has written articles that have appeared in academic
journals. He has given invited talks and colloquia at different institutes. He
has spent several periods as a fellow in Mexico, Guatemala, Spain and
England. He is the Chief of the Editorial Committee of the academic
journal Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni.
Valéria Nely Cézar de Carvalho (PhD in Anthropology) is a Researcher
in Nucleo de História Indígena e do Indigenismo of the University of São

9. 284
Contributors
Paulo (Brazil). She has studied History and Anthropology and has been
carrying on research on Indigenous societies in different historical
archives, both in Brazil and Europe. Her contributions offer a large view
about Brazilian expansion into Indigenous territories, especially in
northwestern Amazonia.
Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende is Associate Professor of History of
the Native peoples of the Americas (University of São João del-Rei Brazil) and Researcher at the Centre for Overseas History (Centro de
História de Além-Mar, CHAM) of Universidade Nova de Lisboa and
Universidade das Açores (Portugal). Her researches focus on the IberoAmerican Atlantic World (Brazil and Portugal), with an emphasis on its
social and cultural history. She received a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in
History from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and several grants from
prestigious institutions such as the Fulbright Program (University of
Texas, 1999), the National Library of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil, 2005),
CAPES (Brazil, 2007), Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT,
Portugal, 2008), CNPq and FAPEMIG (2009-2011).
Rafael Gaune is a PhD candidate in Modern History at the Scuola
Normale Superiore di Pisa (Italy). He gained his undergraduate degree at
the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and completed his MA at the
“Roma Tre” University (Italy). He is currently professor at the Andres
Bello University (Santiago, Chile). His research interests include the
relationship between the global and the local through the Society of Jesus
in Early Modern Latin America.
Vanessa Elisa Grotti is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at ISCA
and Research Fellow in Wolfson College. Her study includes archival and
ethnographic data-collection of healthcare systems. She was Research
Fellow at the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale (EHESS-Collège de
France, Paris) (2007-08) and at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine (2007). She was awarded her PhD in Social
Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 2007. Her doctoral thesis
is a study of kinship, change and social transformation among Central
Carib populations of northeastern Amazonia. She has conducted fieldwork
in northern Amazonia since 2003 and in Burkina Faso in 2007. She is
author of Nurturing the Other: Wellbeing, Social Body and
Transformability in Northeastern Amazonia (forthcoming) and, as editor,
of Animism in Rainforest and Tundra: Personhood, Animals and NonHumans in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia (with M. Brightman and

10. Manufacturing Otherness
285
O. Ulturgasheva) and The “frontier” in Amazonia and Siberia (with M.
Brightman and O. Ulturgasheva).
Michel Kobelinski is Assistant Professor of History at Universidade
Estadual do Paraná (UNESPAR, Brazil). He received his MA and his PhD
at Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP, Brazil). He has also carried
out research in Anthropology and Museology while working for
Companhia Paranaense de Energia Elétrica (COPEL). His researches
focus on History and Culture, Sensitivities and Nature. He has published
the book Ufanismo e Ressentimento: de Minas Gerais aos Sertões de São
Paulo (século XVIII) (2012).
Alejandro Martínez received his PhD in Social Anthropology at
Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina). He is currently
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CONICET (National Council of
Research, Argentina). He is Assistant Professor at Facultad de Ciencias
Naturales y Museo (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina). He has
published “Evangelization, visual technologies and Indigenous
responses,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 34, no. 2
(2010): 83-86; “Antropología misionera, interculturalidad y colonialidad.
Las etnografías anglicanas del Chaco paraguayo (1890-1914),” in Actas
electrónicas del IV Simposio Internacional sobre Religiosidad, Cultura y
Poder (Buenos Aires: Museo Roca, 2012).
Sidnei Clemente Peres received his PhD in Social Sciences at
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil). He is currently Assistant
Professor of the Programa de Pós-Graduação in Sociology at Universidade
Federal Fluminense (PPGS/UFF). He works academically and
professionally with Indigenous groups and organisations in the NorthWest of Rio Negro (Western Amazonia - Brazil). He is currently project
coordinator on identification of Indigenous lands. He has publicshed the
book A política da identidade: o movimento indígena no Rio
Negro (EDUA/Valer, forthcoming).
Nikolai Rakutz received his PhD at the Institute of Ethnology and
Anthropology RAS of Moscow State University (Russia) with a thesis
dedicated to “Corónica Moralizada by P. Antonio de la Calancha as
ethnographic source.” He is currently working as Senior Resercher at the
Institute for Latin American Studies, RAS (Moscow State University). He
has been Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology Research and
Eduction Centre of Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow.

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Contributors
He is a member of “Circolo Amerindiano” (Perugia, Italy). His main areas
of research are Anthropology and Ethnohistory of Amerindian Peoples of
South America.
Marcos Pereira Rufino received his PhD in Social Anthropology at the
University of São Paulo (Brazil). He is currently Assistant Professor of
Anthropology at Universidade Federal de São Paulo. He is working at ISA
(Instituto Socio-Ambiental) in a program on Indigenous People in Brazil
and on a thematic project about Christian activity with Indigenous people
of CEBRAP (Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento), and in the
School of Sociology of São Paulo. Among his interests are the relationship
between Catholic missionaries and Indigenous people of Brazil from the
1970s and the participation of the Catholic Church in the environmental
movement.