INDIGENOUS APPROPRIATION AND ECONOMIC AUTONOMY: MATERIAL ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS CULTURAL TRANSFER IN THE JESUIT MISSIONS OF EARLY MODERN PARAGUAY

The article situates the physical, social and cultural biographies of religious ob¬jects which the Society of Jesus introduced into the order’s province of Paraguay in the context of transfers of material culture during the seventeenth and eigh¬teenth century. Taking relics and rosaries, which accounted for a significant part of these ‘mobile objects’, as examples, the study points out the materiality, signi¬ficance, function and impact of these objects as well as their cultural transforma¬tion during their journey, their adaption to indigenous religious practices as well as the creation of new transcultural objects in Paraguay. The latter were created by making local reproductions with materials unknown in Europe, which were by no means inferior material imitations. The resulting reflections on processes of cultural and religious transformation within processes of cultural transfer address the question of indigenous agency in the material sphere. Along with treatises on natural philosophy, the article is mainly based on written documents regarding material cultural transfers in South American and European archives, including freight lists, order and shopping lists, accounts and documents pertaining to the organisation and handling of purchases by the provincial procurators during their regular journeys to Europe. These sources are juxtaposed with contemporary Jesuit reports that contain hints about these processes of transformation.