HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Mojeños, also known as Moxeños, Moxos, or Mojos, are an
indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
of
Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
. They live in south central
Beni Department Beni (), sometimes El Beni, is a northeastern Departments of Bolivia, department of Bolivia, in the lowlands region of the country. It is the second-largest department in the country (after Santa Cruz), covering 213,564 square kilometers (82,458 ...
, on both banks of the Mamore River, and on the marshy plains to its west, known as the Llanos de Mojos. The Mamore is a tributary to the
Madeira River The Madeira River ( ) is a major waterway in South America. It is estimated to be in length, while the Madeira-Mamoré is estimated near or in length depending on the measuring party and their methods. The Madeira is the biggest tributary of ...
in northern
Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
. Mojeños were traditionally
hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...
s, as well as farmers and pastoralists.
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
missionaries established towns in the Mojos plains beginning in 1682, converting native peoples to Catholicism and establishing a system of social organization that would endure well beyond the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. Mojeño ethnic identification derives from a process of ethnogenesis as a result of this encounter between a number of pre-existing ethnic groups in this mission environment. This process occurred in several different mission towns, resulting in distinct Mojeño identities, including Mojeño-Trinitarios (Trinidad mission), Mojeño-Loretanos (Loreto mission), Mojeño-Javerianos, and Mojeño-Ignacianos (
San Ignacio de Moxos San Ignacio de Moxos (or ''San Ignacio'') is a town in the Beni Department of northern Bolivia. History San Ignacio de Moxos was founded in 1689 by the Jesuit missionaries Antonio de Orellana, Juan de Espejo and Alvaro de Mendoza. Its first loc ...
mission). They numbered some 30,000 in the first decade of the 20th century. Many Mojeño communities are affiliated with the Central de Pueblos Indígenas del Beni and/or the Central de Pueblos Étnicos Mojeños del Beni.


Language

In addition to Spanish, many Mojeño people speak one of the several indigenous languages, belonging to the
Arawakan language Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient Indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...
family, including the
Moxo languages Moxo (also known as ''Mojo'', pronounced 'Moho') is any of the Arawakan languages spoken by the Moxo people of the Llanos de Moxos in northeastern Bolivia. The two extant languages of the Moxo people, ''Trinitario'' and ''Ignaciano'', are as di ...
. In many communities, the language is used in daily life and taught in beginning primary school grades. A dictionary of Ignaciano-Mojeño has been published, and the
New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
was translated into the language in 1980.


Name

They are also known as Mojos, Moxos or Moxeños.


History


Moxos before the Jesuits

The previous inhabitants of the region, which before the independence of Bolivia was a single territory called Mojos, were the aboriginal Itonama, Cayuvava, Canichana, Tacana and Movima. Afterwards, the Moxos or the Moxeños arrived. The Moxos were from the
Arawak The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. The term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to different Indigenous groups, from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno (Island Arawaks), w ...
ethnic group, an ethnic group which developed a more complex culture between the
Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...
and the
Llanos The Llanos ( Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, ...
. For unknown reasons, between the 15th Century B.C. and the 8th Century B.C., agricultural Arawak groups from the lowlands (present-day
Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...
) abandoned their lands and migrated to the west and south, bringing with them a tradition of incised ceramics. The Moxos, who were part of this population stream, built irrigation canals and crop terraces as well as ritual sites. Thousands of years before the
Common Era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the ...
, the Arawak also migrated north and populated the islands of the
Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
. This slow expansion resulted in their arrival at the islands of
Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
and
Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ) is an island between Geography of Cuba, Cuba and Geography of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by List of C ...
(present-day island of the
Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
and
Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
). Pottery pieces found in the countryside of the department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and even in the present-day precinct of the city
Santa Cruz de la Sierra Santa Cruz de la Sierra (; ), commonly known as Santa Cruz, is the largest city in Bolivia and the capital of the Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia), Santa Cruz department. Situated on the Pirai River (Bolivia), Pirai River in the eastern Tropical ...
, reveal that the region was populated by an Arawak tribe (known as the
Chané Chané is the collective name for the southernmost Arawakan-speaking peoples. They lived in the plains of the northern Gran Chaco and in the foothills of the Andes in Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina. The historical Chané are divided ...
) with a ceramic-making culture. Writers such as Diego Felipe de Alcaya, tell of a group living between the last buttresses of the
Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...
Mountains and the central arm of the Guapay River. The communities all throughout this great plain region and along the banks of the river were established and allied under the superior command of a leader, whom Alcaya describes with the title of king. This king, called by the dynastic name of Grigotá, had a comfortable dwelling and wore a vividly-colored shirt. Chiefs (caciques), named as Goligoli, Tundi, and Vitupué, were subordinate to Grigotá and had control of hundreds of warriors. As a result, the first Jesuits in Moxos encountered a developed, ancient civilization. Thousands and thousands of artificial hills up to 60 feet high dotted the landscape, along with hundreds of artificial rectangular ponds up to three feet deep, all part of a system of cultivation and irrigation. The people used the built-up high ground for farming and dug canals to unite ponds and rivers that caught water in this flood-prone region. All these architectural and structural masterpieces can be attributed to the ancestors of the present-day Moxeños, who include the Arawak, the most extensive ethnic group in the area. The
Moxos language Moxo (also known as ''Mojo'', pronounced 'Moho') is any of the Arawakan languages spoken by the Moxo people of the Llanos de Moxos in northeastern Bolivia. The two extant languages of the Moxo people, ''Trinitario'' and ''Ignaciano'', are as di ...
belongs to a language family called
Arawakan Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient Indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...
. The Arawak have always been famous architects, and indeed the great hydraulic works (dated to ca. 250 CE) of their ancient empire is located in the territory of Moxos. Even today one speaks of the "Amazonian cultures" as a block, despite the differences between the various peoples. The Amazonian cosmos includes a tripartite world: the sky above, the earth here, and the underworld below. These cultures believe that the earth is controlled by a father creator, in collaboration with created spirits or dueños, masters, of places or things and with ancestors who help to maintain justice and balance. Slipping from the norm brings about a spiritual sickness that is cured by a communal search for the cause and by a variety of religious rituals, including prayers and natural remedies. In Moxos the principal dueños are the spirits of the jungle (connected with the tiger) and of the water (connected with the rainbow). Many rich dances renew the life of the community and the universe.


Jesuit mission era

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
priests arriving from
Santa Cruz de la Sierra Santa Cruz de la Sierra (; ), commonly known as Santa Cruz, is the largest city in Bolivia and the capital of the Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia), Santa Cruz department. Situated on the Pirai River (Bolivia), Pirai River in the eastern Tropical ...
began evangelizing native peoples of the region in the 1670s. They set up a series of missions near the
Mamoré River The Mamoré is a large river in Brazil and Bolivia which unites with the Madre de Dios River to form the Madeira, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon. It rises on the northern slope of the Sierra de Cochabamba, east of the city of Cochaba ...
for this purpose beginning with Loreto. The principal mission was established at
Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...
in 1686. The Jesuit missionaries who first encountered the Moxeños found a people with a strong belief in God as father and creator. The Jesuits accepted in their catechism the names the indigenous peoples gave to God in their own languages, trying to embrace all aspects of the culture not contrary to Christian faith or custom.http://www.companysj.com/v153/returntosanignacio.html


See also

*
Moxos Province Moxos is a province in the Beni Department, Bolivia. It is named after the Moxos savanna. The province consists of one municipality, San Ignacio de Moxos Municipality, which is identical to the province. The province is divided into three cantons: ...


Notes

*


External links


Mehináku material culture
National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

Moxos Indians
at the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.
"The Amazon and Madeira Rivers: Sketches and Descriptions from the Note-Book of an Explorer"
is a book from 1875 that has a chapter about the Moxo people. {{DEFAULTSORT:Moxo People Ethnic groups in Bolivia Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Indigenous peoples in Bolivia