The religious literature of the Rioplatense Jesuit reductions The River Plate Sermonaries and other devotional books, manuscripts, theatre and poetry. Studies on Theology-Linguistics-Bibliography (2025)

Religious literature in the Jesuit Reductions at the Río de la PlataThe Rioplatense Sermonaries and other devotional books, manuscripts, theatre and poetry.Studies on Theology - Linguistics - BibliographyEnglish abstractThe abundance of manuscripts with religious texts from the Jesuit reductions of the South American province of Paraguay from the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century and the locally printed devotional books of Yapuguay (Explicacion 1724, Sermones 1727) and José de Insaurralde (Ara poru, written before 1730, the year of the author's death; printed only in Madrid in 1759/1760), together with the surviving handwritten grammars (Arte) and dictionaries (later printed under the name of Pablo Restivo), show that the Jesuit had a differenciated use of Guaraní. On a linguistic level, from the 1680s onwards, the Jesuits became aware of the linguistic deficits of the Guaraní religious language developed by Ruiz de Montoya and fixed in grammatical works in 1639/40 in the reductions. Linguistic development had led to a diglossia of the Guaraní language in the Jesuit villages (Reductions) by the end of the century, with increasing differences between the religious and everyday language. At the same time, a more differentiated religious literature was also needed.The manuscripts and the later prints of the Jesuit press in the reductions from around 1700-1727 (first Jesuit printing press, the second in Córdoba produced only a few small printings in 1765/1766) were intended to provide the Guaraní indigenous with material for their personal religiousness and religious instruction in cofradías (prayer brotherhoods). The devotional literature was used for religious instruction through sermons and prayers, which the Jesuits could use with the help of indigenous mediators in congregations / cofradías. The mediating function of trained, literate Guaraní in religious instruction is symbolised in the two prints by the Yapuguay mentioned on two title pages, who is known to have lived as a musician in the Reduction Santa María. There is an obvious line of development here from the linguistic manuscripts written by an anonymous Blas Pretorio, which are usually attributed to Pablo Restivo himself, although this cannot apply to the first large anonymous manuscript, the Phrases Selectas, 1687 to be seen as the begin of a collective work by many jesuits, as well as other translations, for example of Montoya's Conquista espiritual (Madrid 1639) by anonymous Jesuit translators. Some other secular texts by unknown authors can be found alongside the works of a Yapuguay, who wrote them under the guidance of a Jesuit. His most important work, alongside a collection of sermons, is the EXPLICACION // DE EL // CATECISMO // EN LENGUA GUARANI // POR Nicolas Yapugai // CON DIRECCION // DEL P. PAULO RESTIVO // DE LA COMPAÑÍA // DE // JESUS // En el Pueblo de S. María La Mayor // AÑO DE MDCCXXIV. Religious literature then culminated in a work on the correct use of time, the Ara poru by José de Insaurralde, the work of a native Guaraní-speaking Jesuit born in Paraguay who had made a career in the hierarchy of the order. With this book, the Jesuits promoted mental prayer and meditation on the correct use of time. The development of the texts is obvious: it begins with Montoya with a language focussed on basic religious themes, and standardising grammatical works that also created a religious vocabulary for the instruction of the Guaraní indigenous people. In the 1680s, there were increasing doubts about the use of Montoya's works, which no longer appeared to be sufficient (in a paratext of the Phrases selectas, dated 1687, this is addressed despite the linguistic richness of Montoya's work). We tend to regard the dating of this anonymous manuscript as a point at which the work was begun as a collective endeavour by several Jesuits. The need for new material also became apparent in the religious texts in the years 1700-1730. The early catechisms standardised by traditional European models and rudimentary forms of dialogue, some of which are still preserved in manuscript form (manuscript in London, British library), were now replaced by manuscripts containing further religious texts. Of these manuscripts, however, only the two Yapuguay works were later printed.Religious instruction, which had previously been limited to the catechism, changed (Montoya, Catecismo was printed in Madrid in 1640). The surviving religious manuscripts are model sermons for Jesuit use, but also combinations of sermons, religious examples, prayers and sermons for teaching in the cofradías or for private use. Alongside communal reading in the prayer brotherhoods, devotion thus became more intimate, culminating in the work by José de Insaurralde (Ara Poru, printed 1759/60), which was suitable for religious instruction and private devotion. Personal meditation and mental prayer are added to the highly developed musical culture in the Reductions during the celebration of mass and in processions. Especially on the festivals in honour of the patron saints of the Reductions, a performative work of art was created through sermons, the performance of plays, the recitation of poems and singing in the Reduction churches built by the indigenous. Some of these orally transmitted prayers, which may have been modelled on Jesuit models survived and were not recorded until the 19th century; they are also dealt with in this study. The sermonaries preserved in manuscript form provide an insight into the multifunctionality of their use: they reproduce exemplary sermons that could serve as models for the newly arrived missionaries, but they also served as books of daily devotion in the prayer brotherhoods, which can also be seen in the content of some manuscripts in the selection of sermons and examples they contain. The material condition of some manuscripts also shows this well: they were used intensively; the first pages are sometimes worn by continual use, sometimes they or other parts of the manuscript are missing. Many of the manuscripts also reflect their emergence from smaller thematically circulating booklets, some of which can even be materially traced in the bindings of more extensive manuscripts. In the post-Jesuit period after the exile of the Jesuits in 1767, the manuscripts that came down to us were preserved in families of educated indigenous who had previously been mayordomos or musicians in the reductions, where they were kept almost like relics. They were probably used by these indigenous people as devotional literature even after the Jesuit period. Similarly, medical and pharmaceutical manuscripts of the period, which refer to the knowledge of the Jesuit Brothers Pedro de Montenegro and Marcos Villodas, but which in the surviving manuscripts probably mostly originate from the late or post-Jesuit period continued to be used as reference titles in the medicine chest until the 19th century. The number of copies of the books reflects their probable use: the probable small number of copies of the two Yapuguay prints (Sermones and Explicacion) only for use in the reductiones, gives way to the larger number of the Insaurralde 1759/60 (1500 copies), even if they were not immediately distributed, because at the end of the Jesuit era most copies of this book were still found in the archives of the Father Superior of Candelaria. Why was this book not immediately given to the Reductions? Perhaps it was part of an ongoing project that was only to be tackled with a further expansion of the Reductions. The Jesuits were certainly thinking of regions where linguistic diversity necessitated the use of a Koine language based on Guaraní, similar to the lingua geral based on Tupi in Brazil, for example, which was also used as a language in the Amazon region by tribes that did not originally speak Tupi.This study deals with religious manuscripts, some of which were previously unknown to researchers, and places them in a book-historical and religious context. The manuscript material is suitable for interdisciplinary approaches by theologians, historians or anthropologists who want to understand the significance of Jesuit activity in colonial South America.Includes an index with a list of titles of all surviving sermons and a comparison with similar manuscripts from the Chiquitanía (today Bolivia) in Chiquitano.Here a small citation from another area in South America about the indigenous perception of sermons: Quand ils veulent parler aux Caraïbes ils [the french missionaries] s'asséent au milieu d'eux, & n'y a qu'un Pere assis qui parle. Tous les François escoutent, & est longtemps à parler, & se fache en parlant, & on ne sçait à qui il parle: car tous se tiennent fermes. Apres qu'il a parlée, ils se mett[ent] à chanter les uns apres les autres de costé en costé, & lisent dans un Cotiare [in tupi: a book] ce qu'ils chantent, c'est à dire dans un livre, & parlent, disent-ils, à Dieu en ce temps là. p.246 r./v./ed. ed. F.Denis 1864, p.230 An indigenous person in the short-lived French colony in São Luís, northern Brazil, describes a sermon by Capuchin missionaries there, handed down by Yves d'Évreux, Suitte de l'histoire, 1615, ed. F.Obermeier, 2012, digitised in 2014