A break in the battle
I arrived in Posadas, the capital of Misiones province, the other day. To be honest, some stops on this journey feel like intermissions between sightseeing main events, and I have a “main event” coming up this week when I get to Puerto Iguazú with its spectacular cataracts and wildlife. So I have to admit that I didn’t approach Posadas with a ton of enthusiasm. It didn’t help that it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity most of the week.
Looking for things to do, I booked a tour of the ruins of the Jesuit Guaraní missions, which aren’t far from Posadas. (Yes, these are the missions depicted in the film “The Mission” with Robert De Niro.) I thought to myself, really, how much more can I learn about European colonizers and how they robbed the indigenous people of so much. I’m already reading Eduardo Galeano’s “The Open Veins of Latin America,” which I recommend to anyone who’s curious about Latin America then and now, although you should take it in small doses. Did I really want to see yet another example of cultural annihilation?
WELL, as usual, when I’m a bit resistant to learning about something, often it’s that very thing that winds up being the most interesting. We visited three mission sites: Santa Ana, San Ignacio Mini, and Loreto. As some of you probably know, the Jesuit order gets its “marching orders” straight from the Pope (and, interestingly, the current pope, Francis, is the first Jesuit Pope ever AND hails from Argentina). In the late 1600s, the Jesuits came to the Americas at the behest of the Spanish crown, and soon found an “in” in what is now northeast Argentina, southeast Paraguay, and southwest Brazil.
Portuguese slave hunters were beginning to make inroads into Spanish territory as they kidnapped the local indigenous people and took them to Rio de Janeiro and the north of what is now Brazil. While the Spanish crown saw nothing wrong with exploiting indigenous people for their own purposes, Portuguese incursions weren’t going to be suffered. And that’s where the Jesuit presence was helpful, for a while.
The Jesuits proceeded to colonize the Guaraní in a seemingly benign manner. They could live in settlements with the Jesuits (with the backing of the local colonial Spanish forces should the Portuguese come calling) and learn crafts such as stonemasonry as long as they converted to Catholicism and accepted European cultural practices like monogamy. Given the “choice” of kidnapping and slavery or a relatively peaceful, if constrained, life on a Jesuit mission, many Guaraní opted for the latter. When the Portuguese did in fact continue to come calling, the Buenos Aires provincial government (at the Jesuits’ request) armed the mission-dwelling Guaraní. The Guaraní, in their turn, saw their first “European-style” military victory against the Portuguese in 1641, near what is now called Mborore in Paraguay.
Galeano’s “Open Veins” makes clear how the Spanish and Portuguese royal families wasted the unfathomable wealth that they plundered from Latin America, weakening those regimes against emerging Northern European empires. In the midst of this, the Vatican-loyal Jesuits were building a small but loyal army: the Guaraní settlements were more populous (and prosperous) by the late 17th century than any of the Spanish settlements in the area. Interestingly, the Jesuits resisted Spanish immigration into the area as well.
The Spanish and Portuguese regimes, sensing their vulnerability and probable competition from the Vatican, were the first to act against the Jesuits. What is now known as the Jesuit expulsion got underway; Jesuits were summarily kicked out of many places, and the Spanish crown gave them the boot out of the Misiones area in 1767. This left the Guaraní at the mercy of the Spanish and Portuguese forces.
When the colonial wars began anew. many Guaraní, who were now skilled craftspeople in part thanks to Jesuit education, fled the area for Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. A few remained, however. Some of today’s Guaraní settlements are open to tourism; others, unsurprisingly, are closed. Guaraní women and children also gather near the mission sites to sell crafts and snacks. Immigrants from all over the world settled in this area as time went on.
My guide, a criollo (of Spanish ancestry, but born here along with most of his ancestors), called the Jesuit settlements “the least bad option” for the local Guaraní with respect to European colonization. I’d be inclined to agree, given that in most other areas of Latin America, indigenous people faced genocidal policies, deadly diseases, and slavery or near-slavery. (The best not-bad option was the Europeans staying home, but that’s not what happened.) The character of life on the missions is a subject of controversy. To the student of history, especially the history of the meeting of cultures, it’s fascinating to see examples of European religious art filtered through a Guaraní lens. It’s also satisfying to learn that indigenous people took every opportunity to incorporate images and motifs from their own traditions into their crafts, keeping them alive in the process.
In collaboration with the Guaraní, the Jesuits developed Guaraní dictionaries and devised a system of Guaraní writing. One of the biggest obstacles here was that indigenous languages of the Americas do not force a separation between nouns and verbs. Most phrases refer to something in motion, or something in action, whether it be a human, a plant, or a rock. In contrast, European languages separate nouns from verbs rigorously. As someone whose first language is English, I think this is a great idea but one I don’t really understand: one of my guides, whose mother is of Guaraní descent, tried to explain the deeper meaning of Iguazú (large waters), and I didn’t get it. I’m not sure I ever truly could.
Sister from another planet
I don’t get homesick very much, fortunately. Don’t take this the wrong way; some of it has to do with having lived too long in an overcrowded place where the weather is frankly terrible quite a bit of the year. I’ve seen more sunny days since I’ve been south of the Equator than I think I saw in two years up North.
But it’s deeper than that. I’ve always thrived on novelty, meaning that I did well with frequent geographical moves. And my attachments to people, for better or worse, have always come second. This confounded my family and some friends I made along the way, and has caused me a great deal of pain in part because it’s not how one’s life is “supposed to be,” but very slowly I’ve come to accept that it’s not a character defect, but part of who I am as an autistic woman.
Not all autistic people are the way I am with respect to personal connections and relationships, mind. But, following my assessment this spring, when I thought back to how I was as a child, the preference for experiences over people was there at that time too.
Also: part of being neurodivergent, for me, means that I am never really settled or calm, and that I never truly do feel at home. The last place that felt like “home” at all was the house where I grew up in Pennsylvania, probably because my mother was there (and even then, I wanted to leave as soon as I could when I turned 18!). Meditation is laughable for me: I just watch my mind ricochet around from thought to thought with no change of pace, and no amount of daily practice or time spent changes this. The other edge of this particular sword allows me to navigate the unfamiliar with relative ease. I may be a physical klutz at times, but I process new information rather quickly, including how to find my way in new places.
I’ve always been good at learning foreign languages, not as good as some, but better than many. Like some autists, I’m a pattern thinker, and as such I enjoy seeing how languages handle verb conjugations, for example. Unlike English, Spanish uses the subjective mood heavily, in any case where uncertainty or a wish is involved. I don’t have a great memory for specific words any more, mostly because I’m older, but my pronunciation is quite good and communication happens more often than not.
So, I go from place to place in South America, communicating mainly in Spanish, occasionally connecting at a slightly deeper level with people here, but not for long. I’ve missed one bus out of many, and had a reasonable plan B in motion within about 60 seconds. Important concepts that are specific to place, such as “remises” (car service), become evident to me fairly quickly whenever I land in a new place. I’m happy to try a lot of new things (including the ubiquitous shared maté cup, for example, which a lot of germphobic global Northerners apparently turn down). And as someone with a longstanding eating disorder, I’m not especially unhappy to be “missing” the food-heavy holidays of Thanksgiving or Christmas.
I’ve maintained connections with people I care about in the States either over the phone or via online chat/email, and I hope to continue to do so. And I still listen to some of my favorite English language podcasts and radio stations frequently. But I’ve started to watch some Spanish language TV, especially the food and garden shows, and I’ve been able to have some good conversations with people here, in Spanish.
There’s also the element of the person who constantly feels out of place being more comfortable in a place where there’s a good reason for that, such as a language barrier. I can’t say that doesn’t play a part in my feeling relatively at ease here.
Many things do not come easily to me because of neurodivergence… but some do, and it’s nice to be able to use those gifts.
