Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

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Colonial Missions in the North American Southwest: Social Memory and EthnogenesisMariah WadeAt least once a year, this baptized Native woman would have to confess and receivecommunion to fulfill the Catholic Easter precept. Depending on the location of the mission,until the early 1700s in most cases she would have to confess facing the missionary withoutthe protective barrier of a confessionary box and she might need an interpreter, particularlysince women had few opportunities to learn Spanish. Later and only at some missions,confessionary manuals were prepared in the most prevalent Native language present in amission. Aside from the fact that some geographical areas like Texas and California had amultitude of different languages and language dialects often mutually unintelligible, theconfessionary manuals’ questions required a precise accounting of events, emphasized themissionaries’ extreme fear of sexual contact outside of the marriage and particularly ofanything the missionaries considered deviant behavior. Questions such as “How many timesdid you fornicate and with whom? Who was watching? Did you fornicate with your brotherin law?” not only required a memory account of socio-sexual relationships but provided theconfessor with information on Native kin sanctioned sexual relations (Señán, 1800s/1967,p.40-63; Vergara, 1732/1965; Wade, 2008, p.217-9). In fact, confession worked as an ethnographicand genealogic tool to identify potential occasions of sinful behavior and thepolicing of specific individuals by other Native Americans or by the missionaries. Gossip, asan instrument of power and social control would easily be a vehicle for dissemination ofinformation beyond the confessionary. How these introspective memory exercises on sexualacts affected Native social and sexual behavior is not clear. Archival texts do show that inthe short term, missionaries were very concerned over the low birthrate and over abortionand targeted questions and measures to minimize both. In Texas, where the colonial missionperiod began in the late 1600s and where most missions were closed by 1773, womenwere mostly confined to the mission compounds (Wade, 2008, p.263). In Alta California(North America) the mission period began in 1769. In that mission field unmarried womenand widows were kept in locked dormitories at night to prevent contact with males (2008,p.263). In relation to the Fifth Commandment, the Ventureño Confesionario of Fr. José Señánasked, “Have you ever caused a woman to kill the child in her womb?” and “Have you everkilled the child in your womb?” among other questions dealing with abortive drinks or with“spilling the body’s seed” to avoid pregnancy (1967, p.38-9). At a time of incipient medicalknowledge about human sexuality missionaries questioned the reasons for the phenomenaclearly implying the willingness of couples to avoid procreation. Yet, the colonial archivalevidence is overwhelming on the love Native parents had for their children. At Mission SanGabriel in Alta California, the missionary stated that “when it concerns the children…theirparents love them to such an extent that we might say they are their little idols” (Geiger &Meighan, 1976, p.23). These statements were repeated throughout the colonial period by allthose who had extensive contact with Native American groups (Casañas, 1691/1975, p.23-7).If we take into account the evidence that Native Americans loved their children dearly andthat children were a source of pride, it seems very likely that efforts to curtail pregnancywould deeply affect personal and group identity construction aside from obvious futuredemographic and social results.While females were especially subjected to scrutiny regarding their sexual andprocreation practices, males and females were extensively questioned in the confessionaryNarratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches260
Colonial Missions in the North American Southwest: Social Memory and EthnogenesisMariah Wadeabout shamanistic practices. Midwives and shamans were deeply implicated, or presumedto be, in the procurement and administration of abortive measures. More important,shamans were the spiritual adversaries the missionaries associated with the devil, evilnessand dark powers. Among Native groups shamans, as spiritual and medicinal practitioners,held positions of great power but also of great danger as they did battle with cosmicforces. Missionaries were not unaffected by shamanic power and their influence on Nativecommunities. Confrontations between Native American spiritual practitioners and Catholicmissionaries permeate the archives. Winning over or defeating a charismatic shaman wereclear validations of God’s grace and of the missionary’s work (Wade, 2008, pp. 13-9). Nativeelders and shamans held the key to social memory and to the spiritual practices whichguaranteed the socio-cultural transmission and continuity of traditions. Though in generalwe lack the evidence, the systematic battle missionaries waged against Native Americanshamans as spiritual competitors could not but influence the transmission of social memoriesand traditions.We have no good archival evidence to track the long-term changes produced in socialroles and in females’ or males’ identity formation in the post-mission period but they had toreflect many decades or centuries of missionization depending on the mission field. Despitethe extent of change experienced, Natives negotiated, exploited and reworked Spanishmissionary demands into their own traditions to structure their identities. Exploring vulnerabilitiesand fissures in the colonial mission system, such as the need for translators forreligious and social functions, guides with environmental knowledge and the continuousneed for Native labor and expertise, Natives won space to embed their social arrangementsand practices into the mission structure subverting the missionaries’ objectives. Thefrequent cases of ladinos who gained the confidence of the missionaries and the militaryand acquired power and prestige, illustrate the nature of the process. Ladinos were Nativeswho spoke Spanish and were familiar with Spanish colonial customs. Antonio Arcón, nativegovernor of Mission Valero in Texas, fled the mission with family and friends and because heknew well the mission’s defenses and troop movements, he led several other Native groupsin attacks against the Spanish (Wade, 2008, p. 117). In Baja California, Leandro, a ladinomayordomo (a Native village official) and trusted guide, obtained privileges such as specialhousing, free passes to travel and even Native labor to plant his private garden. When themissionaries tried to curtail his attempts to help his friends flee the mission, he used hisintimate knowledge of the political frictions between missionaries and soldiers to create anendless series of problems for the missionaries (2008, pp. 160-3). Likewise, a dying faithfulChristian Native refused confession because he felt that he had been duped for many yearsand he wanted to die undeceived and as a Native (2008, p. 33).These notorious archival cases refer to Natives who had acquired important powerpositions within the missions and whose cases were recorded, but many other actors wouldhave structured social actions to define their identities, reinterpret their culture and forgethe basis for ethnogenesis. It is productive to conceptualize ethnogenesis as a multivalentprocess of negotiation and articulation of shared meanings and experiences that producesan identifiable cultural identity whose members feel they share precisely because of thosecommon experiences (Hill, 1996, pp. 1-3).Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches261
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Cinematic Landscape and Social Memo
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comprises both remembering and forg
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include important questions related
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Part ICognitive and Emotional Proce
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Narratives and Social Memory from t
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The Lay Historian: How Ordinary Peo
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Cabecinhas, R. & Abadia, L. (eds.)
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Emotional Processes in Elaborating
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Transitional Justice Processes, Sha
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The Past and the Present (re)Visite
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Part IIMedia(ted) Narrativesand Pub
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Hard News Cognitive Shift: from Fac
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Narratives of Death: Journalism and
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Researching Identity Narratives in
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Journalistic Narrative: a Story of
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The Works of Sísifo: Memories and
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Audiovisual Post-colonial Narrative
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Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates
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Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates
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