“To better exercise the ministry belonging to your salvation”: circulation of linguistic knowledge and conquests in the inner hinterlands of Portuguese America

Abstract:

The expansion towards the inner hinterlands, in Brazil, during the second half of the 17^th century, was marked by the settlement of villages and the constitution of alliances to ensure the safety of the commercial access to the route cattle raisers followed from Bahia to Piauí. Religious orders were entrusted with the task of organizing the villages, disciplining the souls, and supplying workforce to the advance inwards the hinterlands. The Jesuit priests were responsible for managing the Kiriri, and, to tend to the requests, linguistic studies were carried out to systematize and standardize the local languages and thus make both the communication and intended conversion possible. This paper intends to analyze the communication networks among the missionaries during the conversion of the Kiriri, in addition to identifying the interests, practices and learning methods of the linguistic knowledge, and the diffusion and circulation networks of that knowledge.

Keywords:
Company of Jesus; Catechism; Kiriri