CENTURIES OF INDIGENOUS HISTORY IN THE HEART OF SOUTH AMERICA: THE CHIQUITANOS IN THE (ACTUAL) BOLIVIAN EAST

Abstract

Formerly known also as Trabacicosis or Tapuymirí, Chiquito or Chiquitano, is nowadays, generally, the definition of small indigenous groups, of all varieties, that was met by the Jesuit mission (1691-1767) in the actual Bolivian “low-lands”. This action can be summarized in two main aspects: the indigenous agglomeration in reductions or missions and the imposition of a unique language, the Chiquitano, as a general language. About the group’s history it is possible to establish a division into phases: from 1542 to 1620 (the indigenous conquest and domination), 1620 to 1962 (the perambulation of many groups around Chiquitania and the eventual hunting by Spanish and Portuguese men in order to slavery), 1692 to 1767 (indigenous Christianization), 1767 until nowadays (events that point out intense contact among Chiquitano and non-indigenous, after reduction’s period). Although Jesuitical missions represented an incisive event in Chiquitano’s history, they upheld the destruction of traditional political, social, economic, cultural and religious structures, as well as the mixture of several groups, even those which were enemies. The past and the present of the Chiquitano are closely related to the Jesuitical mission project, developed between the end of the XVII century and the beginning of the first half of the XVIII. Attempts of living together, imposition of different cultural behaviors, other significations for practices and representations, intercultural dialogues and armed resistance were ingredients found in this history. The objective of this article is, then, to present a synthesis of the ethnohistoric trajectory about the Chiquitano indigenous, between XVI and XX centuries.