from traditional practices to reduction practices: rituals of healing, grief and burial at the jesuit-guarani reductions (jesuit province of paraguay, 17th century)

This article intends to evince and analyze the impact of the Christian conceptions of sickness and death on the Guarani indian sensibility and its translation in terms of representations and social practices in the Jesuitical reductions. The analysis of the records made by the missionaries, especially the Cartas Ânuas of the Jesuitical Province of Paraguay regarding the period from 1609 to 1675, revealed that, on the one hand, the Guarani kept traditional practices of their religious sensibility – as is evinced in the resignification of the "copious crying" and the funereal laments –, and, on the other hand, that the missionaries, besides incorporating the native pharmacopoeia and many of the indian healing practices, skillfully manipulated the cures and the "bien morir", a strategy that was fundamental to the success of the civilization-conversion project of the Companhia de Jesus alongside the Guarani.