Indigenous bodies, gender, and sexuality in the Jesuit Missions of South America (17th–18th centuries)

Abstract

Many studies tend to apply categories of gender and sexuality to indigenous peoples in the same way as they are used in the West. This ignores the fact that indigenous peoples have their own notions of people, which are often at odds with Western binary standards. The issue at stake in this article is the inclusion of the analytical categories of gender and sexuality in South American communities, starting with the Jesuit Missions that spread across present-day Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay during the 17th and 18th centuries. To this end, it uses as historical sources a set of 1212 Jesuit writings, including manuscripts and books, as well as architectural, sculptural, and pictorial remains. Using techniques specific to paleography to read manuscripts, the project’s methodology makes use of ethnohistory guided by Content Analysis, thus producing a reading that starts from contemporary indigenous problems in order to build an Indigenous History. The study’s discussion considers that indigenous bodies, once produced by village collectives made up of extended families, were forged in the Jesuit missions according to the parameters of the colonial project. The article therefore demonstrates the genealogy of the bodies of indigenous men, indigenous women, and abject indigenous people, concluding that the current scenario of gender and sexual violence in South America has its origins in the colonial process, and not in indigenous cultures.