The earliest attempts at Christianization are
due to the Jesuits. They made, previous to 1602, six distinct efforts
to convert the Chunchos, from the side of Huánuco in Peru,
and from northern Bolivia, but all these attempts were failures.
There are also traces that a Jesuit had penetrated those regions
in 1581, more as an explorer than as a missionary. Not withstanding
the ill-success accompanying the first efforts, the Jesuits persevered,
and founded missions among the Moxos, one of the
most southerly branches of the Arawaks, and also among the Baures.
Those missions were, of course, abandoned after
1767. During the past century the Franciscans have taken up the
field of which the
Jesuits were deprived, especially the missions among the Pano,
or Shipibo tribes of the Beni region of Bolivia. The late Father
Raphael
Sanz was one of the first to devote himself to the difficult
and dangerous task, and he was ably followed by Father Nicholas
Armentia,
who is now Bishop of La Paz. The latter has also done very
good work in the field of linguistics. Missions among the Goajiros
in Columbia,
however, had but little success. Of late, the tribe has become
more approachable.
The Arawaks of the upper Amazonian region
were probably met by Alanso Mercadillo, in 1537, and may have been
seen by Orellana in 1538-39. The Arawak tribes occupying almost exclusively
the southern bank of the Amazon, they were reached by the missionaries later
than the tribes of the north bank. Missionaries accompanied Juan
Salinas de Loyola (a relative of St. Ignatius) in 1564. But the results
of these expeditions were not permanent.
In the heart of the Andean region the
Friars of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy (Mercedarios) were the first
to establish permanent missions. Fray Francisco Ponce de Leon, "Commander
of the convent of the city of Jaén de Bracacamoros",
and Diego Vaca de Vega, Governor of Jaén, organized in 1619
an expedition down the Marañon to the Maynas. In 1619 they
founded the mission of San Francisco Borja, which still exists as
a settlement.
The first baptisms of Indians took place 22 March,
1620. The year following, Father Ponce made an expedition lower
down the Amazon, beyond the mouth of the Rio Huallaga where he
came in
contact with the Arawak tribes, to whom he preached, and some
of whom he baptized. The Franciscans entered from the direction
of Juaja
or Tarma, toward Chanchamayo, in 1631, and 1635. The first
foundation was at Quimiri, where a chapel was built. Two years
later the founders,
Father Gerónimo Ximénez, and Cristóval Larios,
died at the hands of the Campas on the Péréné River.
Work was not interrupted, however, and three years later (1640) there
were established about the salt-hill of Vitoc seven chapels, each
with a settlement of Indian converts.
But in 1742 the appearance of Juan
Santos Atahualpa occasioned an almost general uprising of
the aborigines. Until then the missions had progressed
remarkably. Some of the most savage tribes, like the Canibos, became
at least partially reduced to obedience,
and led a more sedate, orderly life. In 1725 the
College of Ocopa was founded. All these gains (except the College
of Ocopa and the regions around Tarma and Cajamarquilla) were lost
until, after 1751, Franciscan missions again began to enter the lost
territory, and even added more conquests among the fiercest Arawaks
(Cashibos) on the Ucayali.
Conversions in these regions have cost
many martyrs, not less than sixty-four ecclesiastics having
perished at the hands of Indians of Arawak stock in the years between
1637
and 1766. Missionary work among the Arawaks of Guyana and on
the banks of the Orinoco began, in a systematic manner, in the
second
half of the seventeenth century, and was carried on, from the
Spanish side, among the Maypures of the Orinoco, from the French
side along
the coast and the Essequibo River. Wars between France, England,
and Holland, the indifferent, systemless ways of French colonization,
but chiefly the constant incursion of the Caribs, interrupted
or at least greatly obstructed the progress of missions.
Ethnologically the Arawaks vary
in condition. Those of Guyana seem to be partly sedentary. They call
themselves Loknono. They are well built. Descent among them is in
the female line, and they are polygamous. They are land-tillers and
hunters. Their houses are sheds, open on the sides, and their weapons
are bows, arrows, and wooden clubs. Their religious ideas are, locally
varied, those of all Indians, animism or fetishism, with an army
of shamans, or medicine-men, to uphold it. Of the Campas and the
tribes comprised within the Pano group, about the same may be stated,
with the difference that several of the tribes composing it are fierce
cannibals, (Cashibos and Canibos). It must be observed, however,
that cannibalism is, under certain conditions,
practiced by all the forest tribes of South America, as well as by
the Aymara of Bolivia. It is mostly a ceremonial practice, and, at
the bottom, closely related to the custom of scalping.
Sources
The "Letters of Columbus" contain the earliest information about
the American Indians, and those described in his first letter, 22 February,
1493, were Arawaks. The report of Frey Roman Pane is found in the works of
Fernando Colon, the Spanish original of which has not yet been found, but
an Italian version of it was published in 1751. There are several editions.
Quotations above are from Historia del Signor D. Hernando Columbo. Nelle
quale s' ha particulare & vera relazione della vita, e de fatti del'
Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Columbo Suo Padre (Venice, 1678), the translation
is by Alfonso Ulloa. A first Spanish retranslation was published by Gonzalez
Barcia in Historiadores primitiva de Indios (Madrid, 1749); a French version
by Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg appears appended to the Relation des choses
de Yucatan (Paris, 1864), and there is a second print in Spanish of recent
date.
La Casa, Historia de las Indias (two editions,
one in the Documentos para la Historia del Espana); Brevissima
Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias (Seville, 1552), numerous
editions and translations into various languages; Girolamo Benzoni; Historia
del Mundo Nouvo (Venice, 1585); German translation, 1579; French,
1587; English, Hackluyt Society, History of the New World (London,
1857).
Other sources: Oviedo y Valdez, Historia general
y natural de las Indias (first print. Madrid, 1535, comprising
only the first nineteen books; complete edition, Madrid, 1851);
Gomara, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos &ca. (Madrid,
1601-15); other editions, and more accessible ones: Madrid, 1728-30,
and Antwerp, 1728. On missions, references are (mentioning only
the most prominent sources): the Relaciones geograficos de
Indias (II and IV, Madrid, 1885 and 1897), which contain elaborate
discussions of the expeditions of Salinas Loyola, and of Vaca de
Vega, and documents relative to the ecclesiastics connected with
them: cardova Salinas Coronica de la Religiosisima Provincia
de los Doce Apostolos de Piru (Lima, 1651); Arriga, Extirpacion
de la Idolatria del Piru (Lima, 1651); Calancha, Coronica
moralizda de la oredn de San Augustin en el Piru (Lima, 1638;
second part, 1653); Documentos ineditos de Indias. passim;
C. Quandt, Nachricht von Surinam und Seinen Einwohnen (Gorlitz,
1807). An important vocabulary of the Shipibo dialect (Pano of
the Beni) by Bishop Armentia has been published in the Buletin
de la Sociedad de Geografica de la Paz. It is the most complete
thusfar known. Literature on the Arawaks being so very abundant,
many works cannot be mentioned here.
About this page
APA citation. Bandelier, A.F. (1907). Arawaks. In The
Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved
May 13, 2010 from New Advent: Source
MLA citation. Bandelier, Adolph Francis. "Arawaks." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company,
1907. 13 May 2010 Source.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New
Advent by M. Donahue.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1,
1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley,
Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is
Kevin Knight.
