Abstract:
The paper aims to show that, beyond practical and technical hardships, what really brought about adversities on the apostolic enterprise between Jesuits and Chaco’s indigenous was a detachment triggered by the ontology of modern naturalism, which not only denied the possibility of indigenous people not sharing it, but also ignored their ability to have their own system of non Cartesian, dualist, and objectivist relationships. Nevertheless, this did not impede the Jesuits themselves to register traces of animism in their letters. Whilst trying to depict the indigenous as the bad result of an infidel non civilised life trough mythological narratives and native interpretations of the world, they ended up producing evidence of a generalized sociability within the Chaco.
Keywords:
Chaco; Animism; Eighteenth Century