A biofuel company in Brazil owned by Shell has signed a landmark agreement that means they will not purchase sugar cane grown on indigenous lands.

According to the environmental news source Ecoticias, the company running the project – Raízen – was established in 2010 as a joint venture between Shell and Brazilian ethanol giant Cosan to produce biofuel from sugar cane.

The land in question is in territory where Guarani indigenous group hold claims. The Guarani in the area report that rivers are polluted by the pesticides used in plantations. BBC reports that indigenous activists say farmers in Mato Grosso do Sul – the land in question – frequently use violence and threats to force them off their ancestral territory, and that the local authorities do little to protect them.

The NGO Survival International led the campaign, and director Stephen Corry said other companies should follow suit and stop funding the theft of lands.

“It is great news for the Guarani, who are abandoned at the risk of death on the roads,” he said.

'Provincial Letters' by Blaise Pascal

In 1647, an odd case played out in French courts. A man named John d’Alba, unhappy with his wages, made off with a few pewter plates from the Jesuit college where he served; once caught, he was duly charged with larceny. When questioned, however, though he admitted to having taken the plates, he denied it was stealing—instead claiming he had simply been following the teachings of university priests, and showing the court a pamphlet authored by the one instructing him in cases of conscience. The judge was unsympathetic. According to Pascal, who tells the story in his brilliant, scathing ‘Provincial Letters’, the incensed order was given not only for the man to receive a good whipping at the college gates, but also for all materials with a doctrine “so illegal, pernicious, and contrary to all laws, natural, divine, and human” to be burnt. D’Alba didn’t stay around for the repercussions, disappearing from the scene along with the pewter.

The “pernicious” doctrine appealed to so unsuccessfully? ‘Probabilism’, a theological notion with roots in the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain. Initially taught by the Franciscans and Dominicans, it eventually came to be firmly associated with the Jesuits. The idea, briefly, was that right and wrong are not so obvious as they seem—that abstract reason must adapt itself to the specific case, and that many seemingly immoral or un-Catholic actions can be justified retrospectively by taking into account the circumstances.

Mere sophistry or moral relativism, say some—but as the D’Alba case shows, the ideas weren’t limited to dusty Latin texts. Nor was their influence limited to the continent. When Spanish Jesuit missionaries arrived in the Americas—including Argentina—they were confronted with native populations speaking other languages and following customs different from their own. At times these ran quite counter to the Catholic practices the missionaries espoused. And so, to continue living in harmony, the priests practised a flexible doctrine—adapting their arguments to the conditions, and in doing so drawing on theological ideas picked up in Europe.

Speaking crosswise

In the north-eastern Argentine province of Misiones, and just across the border in Paraguay and southern Brazil, lie the crumbling rust-coloured remains of the reducciones where Jesuit priests organised the indigenous into communities. Despite their somewhat difficult accessibility (requiring long walks down dusty roads), and slightly diminished grandeur (the buildings were destroyed during the war with Paraguay), they draw thousands of visitors per year. Most are Argentines, intrigued by “las ruinas” and by this period in their own past.

The first missionaries arrived in Argentina in 1585, after coming to Brazil (1553), Peru (1567), and Mexico (1572). Many were from the Extramadura region of Spain, notable for its harsh living conditions and bleak landscapes, the forge of many strong characters. Still, they found Argentina rough-going. The land wasn’t the problem—that was green and fertile. It was the strange-seeming culture of the natives, their disinterest in city life, commercial interests, and the particular form of religion that for the Spaniards meant civilization.

The most immediate challenge was language. Hundreds of native tongues could be heard in the area; luckily, most tribes could understand at least Guaraní. Unluckily for the Spaniards, Guaraní is a language incredibly difficult for the non-native, with words which can sound like a guttural staccato for a speaker of the Romance languages. Since preaching to an uncomprehending audience in Latin or Spanish would be inutile, however, the Jesuits immediately set themselves to work mastering the unfamiliar sounds and syntax—with surprising success, as several impressive grammars of the period attest.

Any change in language affects what one says as well as how one says it. Guaraní didn’t have words for many of the Catholic terms the missionaries were trying to impart. And so the priests “translated”—putting highly abstract ideas into more practical indigenous language. The interpretive flexibility didn’t go unnoticed. Critics pounced, denouncing the “pagan” teachings before the Tribunal de la Santa of the inquisition in Lima. In this case, the supposed offenders were pardoned—the judges understood the missionaries’ argument that the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception is difficult to explain elegantly when words like “grace” or “conception” do not exist.

The ruins of San Ignacio Miní in north-eastern Argentina (courtesy of wikimedia)

A pragmatic coexistence

On the reducciones, while it was the Spaniards who managed everything, the “tubichá” (chief) of each tribe gave formal approval and was specially treated. Organisation was based on a mixed system of public and private property, which in their writings the priests attribute to influences as diverse as Tommaso Campanella and Plato. In fact, it was an organic twist on the ideas of the Indian community—each family received its own piece of land, or “abambaé,” which it worked three days a week; another three days it worked a different property “belonging to God”, called the “tupambaé”. Food produced on the latter went to the old, the sick, and the children; there, Indians also worked in their workshops, made tributes, and built up the food reserves.

The reducciones were largely self-sustaining, basing themselves around workshops—blacksmiths, carpenters, spinners, potters, sculptors, bakers, silversmiths, and rosary manufacturers. What could not be made was purchased with the money made by selling yerba mate to Spain. As in medieval times, there was a hierarchical structure of apprenticeship, with work tools held in common and an equitable distribution of benefits; all was shared and there were no salaries.

The fine arts were thought of practically, and adapted to incorporate the aesthetics of indigenous crafters. If paintings and miniature wooden statues were well-made and kept the Indians at work and thinking of God, what did it matter if they bore no resemblance to any European image of the divine? Architecture was conceived of in a similarly utilitarian way. As the priest P. Diego de Torres wrote in 1614: “The churches must be brightly lit, so that they can follow the service well and read the prayers in their book. The acoustics must be such that one can hear the preacher and that the hymn reaches the masses. Easy access to the Holy Table is necessary so that one can give the communion without disorder… The plan of the building, the style of construction, are left open to the preference of the donors, the taste of the architects, and the subordination of circumstances.”

Education (of both sexes, rare for the time) went by the classical Ratio Studiorum, fitted to the individual case. It was a two-way learning process: Indians mimicked priests in religion and education, and Jesuits adapted to indigenous practices, an exchange not entirely free of biases. For the priests, the indigenous were largely thought of as children who had to be protected from their own supposedly worse instincts—largely cultural stereotypes. Ana Maria Galileano’s ‘Las Reducciones Guaraníticas’, published by the Argentine government’s Ministry of Culture and Education, is a snapshot of both the philosophy and the prejudice. “To civilize the aborigines, the Jesuits adapted to their mentality and their habits,” she writes. “They were able to halt their warlike impulses and exaggerated taste for alcohol, and, developing their artistic and manual aptitudes, attract them by means of sumptuous temples and solemn ceremonies with songs and an orchestra, to a sincere expression of the worship due to the grandeur of God.”

A subversive doctrine?

Both Jesuit justifications and probabilist or proto-probabilist texts by thinkers like Vitoria, Cano, Soto, and Molina can now be found bound in large Latinate tomes in the Argentine universities in Córdoba and other major cities. In colonial times, the schools of law reinforced the teachings, both through explicit study of the texts themselves, and through the training of lawyers to argue and resolve cases of doubt by providing a plurality of possible acceptable answers.

Not everyone liked this flexibility. The Jesuits gained a negative reputation for “worldliness”, the soothsayers of the “leyenda negra“, due to their willingness to adapt and to work with governments; but since their doctrine was pragmatic and anti-systemic, and focused on the individual case without recourse to a larger legal framework, it could just as easily go the other way. It took as justification the voices of church authorities, but these might be tailored to justify nearly any action retrospectively. In the Argentine context, the Jesuit flexibility was subversive in two ways: It was used by some to defend indigenous rights on the reducciones when the Spanish crown would rather simply rule the natives, and it was used by some to justify clearly anti-government or illegal practices like tyrannicide.

Eventually, the Spanish crown came to see these nonconformist ethics as a threat. In the 1750s, Spain and Portugal negotiated a treaty expelling the reducciones from Río de la Plata; Jesuits and Guaranís combined forces in protest, but were defeated by a joint Iberian force. In 1767 the Jesuits themselves were expelled from Argentina, an act Spain justified by exaggerating the number of probabilists who were “laxists”—the extreme of probabilism, in which nearly anything goes. Portugal was only too willing to help; its minister Marqués de Pombal published several notes meant to discredit the Jesuits, so that his country would have less resistance for its own South American conquests.

Multiplying truths

Pascal accuses the Jesuits of using complicated arguments to further their own worldly ambitions, rather than purely loving God; their flexible ideas “merely serve to betray, by their contrariety, the duplicity of your hearts… ‘Vae duplici corde, et ingredienti duabus viis! Woe be to the double hearts, and the sinner that goeth two ways!’” But Pascal himself drew on similar resources in his own ‘Pensées’, in his famous wager with God. Moral theories based on uncertainty, chance, double possibility, and probability, were particularly frequent and rich during this time—partly due to the influence of the Enlightenment, with its skepticism, unsettling scientific advances, stirrings of secularism, and questioning of moral certainties.

The probablism and religious syncretism of the Argentine reductions might thus be worth turning to once again, as one possible response to still-existing problems. As one Jesuit priest in Argentina wrote, quoting Loyola: “The same illness cannot be treated invariably in all cases in the same way; one must rather consider the nature of the patient.”

Nísio Gomes, a Guaraní chief shot dead by gunmen (Photo courtesy of Survival)

Just days after losing their chief and spiritual leader in a deadly attack, members of the Kaiowa Guaraní tribe entrenched themselves in a makeshift camp on their ancestral territory now used for cattle ranching, vowing to uphold the last words of their lost leader.

“Take care of this land,” the 59-year-old chief Nísio Gomes reportedly said, before being shot multiple times by hooded gunmen and dragged away to a truck.

The Kaiowa, from the Mato Grosso do Sul state in south-eastern Brazil, is just one Latin American tribe that has had its land stripped away on the agricultural frontier. The challenge of protecting native groups is growing as food production escalates across the region.

In Argentina last month, security guards allegedly killed Cristian Ferreyra, 23, a leader in the Lule Vilela indigenous community in the province of Santiago del Estero. The tribe is fighting to keep ancestral land under threat from deforestation for soya farming.

Though not all murders are linked to land disputes, tension arises as farmers and ranchers seek to extend holdings for agricultural production, often contracting private security companies to intimidate indigenous communities that are defending their constitutional right to ancestral land, experts say.

Pushed off their land and frustrated with government inaction, tribes return to occupy what was once exclusively theirs, creating strife within the community and with encroaching businesses.

Evictions from their lands for biofuels and cattle ranching has forced the Guaraní to live on the roadside. (Photo courtesy of Sarah Shenker / Survival International)

Scenes of Conflict

The Kaiowa had been living in spare roadside homes as they waited for Brazil’s Indigenous Affairs Agency, FUNAI, to complete a survey demarcating the land to be returned to the Guaraní by April, 2010, according to Sarah Shenker, a campaigner at Survival International, an NGO dedicated to worldwide tribal rights.

After FUNAI failed to finish the survey, several Kaiowa returned to their land in early November, where they were met with threats from ranchers now on the territory.

According to eyewitnesses, on 18th November, some 40 armed men burst into the Kaiowa camp, surrounded Gomez, and shot him in front of his community. Two adolescents and a boy were also reported missing after the raid. FUNAI and federal police are investigating the incident.

The Guaraní, with a population of roughly 46,000 in Brazil, are under constant threat in the Mato Grosso do Sul state. A traditionally nomadic tribe, they are forced to live in relative confinement, experience a high suicide rate, and are malnourished, according to Schenker.

Brazil’s minister of human rights, Maria do Rosário, called Mato Grosso do Sul “one of the worst scenes of conflict between indigenous people and ranchers in the country”, and pledged material support for the communities.

Meanwhile, provincial authorities in Argentina have taken five men into custody, including the soya businessman José Ciccioli, in connection with the death of Cristian Ferreyra. Ciccioli allegedly hired three other men to carry out the crime.

The territory in Santiago del Estero is being deforested as soya farming balloons across the province: In 1995, soya cultivation in the province was a mere 94,000 hectares. Today the number is over 1.1m, according to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture.

“Indigenous land is rich in natural resources, for agriculture but also for mining,” says Mariela Flores, a consultant with Argentina’s Secretariat for Human Rights and a representative of the Diaguita community in Tucumán.

Protest march against the death of Cristian Ferreyra organized by MOCASE, Movimiento Evita, Partido Obrero, Frente Darío Santillán and Quebracho

Land Pressures

Just as some communities are beginning to gain political recognition and reclaim territory, new agricultural production and land prices are soaring, making conflicts more intense, she says.

But the recent attacks are not new or isolated incidents. Hundreds of ongoing clashes and the prospect of ramped up agricultural production to meet booming global food demand likely means continued pressure on indigenous groups in Latin America.

Worldwide cultivable land is expected to expand by 5% – or 70m hectares – by 2050. Production will decline in developed countries and expand greatly in developing countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization.

In addition, new technology has had an undeniable effect on the outward expansion of farmland. The conversion of Brazil’s Cerrado region – a once unproductive savannah slightly bigger than Mexico – and the use of transgenic crops and precision agronomy have allowed planting in areas not previously thought possible.

And while the new contours of the global economy put pressures on land, political powers often do little to relieve them.

The recognition of indigenous territory requires an agreement between the communal, provincial, and national authorities, says Flores, “which is complicated, because provincial governments tend to be feudal, favouring business interests and providing little representation for native communities.”

The constitutions of both Brazil and Argentina, as well as international statutes from the United Nations and the International Labour Organization, affirm the right of indigenous tribes to their native soil.

QOM camping on 9 de Julio and Av de Mayo protesting their treatment (Photo: Jessie Akin)

However, many tribes, such as the Qom de La Primavera, from the northern Argentine province of Formosa, continue to wait for action from the federal government. Last year, the Qom drew attention by camping at 9 de Julio and Avenida de Mayo – one of the busiest intersections in Buenos Aires – in protest at land usurpations and police repression in their province.

They eventually reached an agreement for access to health care and potable water. But threats against the tribe continue. The son and grandson of Felix Díaz, the Qom’s leader, were shot at last month while walking through their territory. No one was injured.

Cane Cutters

In Mato Grosso do Sul, sugarcane plantations are spreading to meet demand for ethanol-based fuels. The state’s governor, André Puccinelli, claimed in 2008 that “Mato Grosso do Sul will be the biggest producer of ethanol in seven years’ time”.

In 2008, there were 50 new ethanol projects seeking funding in the state, which would occupy roughly 800,000 hectares in coming years, according a report by Survival International.

Guaraní man harvesting cane (Photo courtesy of João Ripper / Survival International)

Many Guaraní end up doing the gruelling work of sugarcane cutters, with a work-life expectancy of just 15 years, according to the report.

“The completion of the survey and land recognition is paramount,” says Egon Heck in a telephone interview from Mato Grosso do Sul. Heck is a coordinator for the Indigenous Pastoral Council (CIMI) in Brazil, a group tied to the Catholic Church in defence of indigenous rights.

The government has been postponing the survey “for decades”, and has received strong opposition from agribusiness groups, he claims, leading to the desperate situation that tribes like the Kaiowa find themselves in.

Similarly, Argentina’s land survey, signed into law in 2006 and to be completed by 2010, was postponed until 2013.

“The killing of Nisio Gomes had surprising repercussions,” says Heck, noting that international media is starting to pay attention. “So hopefully we can raise awareness of the circumstances facing indigenous tribes, and those responsible for violence won’t be met with impunity.”

The trial of three men accused of murdering Guarani Indian leader Marcos Veron is set to recommence on Monday in São Paulo, Brazil.

Veron was beaten to death in 2003 by gunmen who were working on the ranch which took land from Veron’s community. Estevão Romero, Carlos Roberto dos Santos and Jorge Cristaldo Insabralde are being accused of homicide. This will be the first time that people accused of killing an Indian from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul are tried by a jury. Last year, the trial was twice postponed – once because the judge refused to hear the Guarani witnesses bear testimony in their native tongue.

Veron, having long waited for authorities to map out and officially protect his community’s ancestral land, led his people in reclaiming it. Guarani land is often stolen and used to plant soya and sugarcane, leaving the people to live in crowded temporary accommodation. A high rate of malnutrition, violence and suicide has been recorded amongst the Guarani people.

Veron’s daughter Valdelice Veron, speaking to the organisation Survival International, said: “We know that the trial won’t bring back our father and leader, Marcos Veron, but it will give us back our dignity and respect as human beings, as a people with the right to be different.” Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, added: “Marcos Veron’s family and community have endured a painfully long wait for the trial to go ahead. They are now hoping that his killers will be brought to justice and that the Guaranis’ land is mapped out and protected for them. This is what Veron desired above all else, and what he ultimately gave his life for.”

Paraguayan Congress has approved the Law of Languages. The law obliges public institutions to use Guaraní as stated in the national constitution. Now the executive has to decide if the law will be enacted.

Under the law, public bodies must use Guaraní in all documents which are currently only written in Spanish.

In an interview with Radio Viva, Perla Álavarez, an activist for linguistic rights, highlighted the importance of the law in a country where “discrimination still exists in relation to which language you use”. She explained that they talk of discrimination “when the State is not guaranteeing nor respecting the rights of people”, and added that “in the case of linguistic rights, it is when the State does not guarantee the right of the citizen to live in their language”.

Álvaez explained that the Paraguayan State works solely in Spanish, meaning that some citizens can not work in their own language and must substitute it, whilst the country’s Magna Carta establishes that Guaraní is also the official language of the country, along with Spanish.

According to the 2002 census, 27% of the population solely speak Guaraní, although they understand something of Spanish. The majority of these people do not reach sixth grade level education and in hospitals they are attended without their language being respected. As for the judicial branch, statistics show that in more than 90% of cases, the victims and perpetrators only speak Guaraní – and those from the poorer sectors of society don’t have access to translators and all of the testimonies and witness statements are written in Spanish.

As a result, the Language Law aims to guarantee that people have the right to public translation, and even for all public officials to be bilingual.

Story courtesy of Agencia Pulsar, a news agency run by AMARC-ALC network of community radios.

Honoured for all his work defending the rights of Brazilian tribes, Catholic Bishop Erwin Kräutler has accepted the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’.

Bishop Kräutler, who is Bishop of the Xingu region and President of the Indigenous Missionary Council of the Catholic Church in Brazil, was honored at the awards ceremony held yesterday at the Swedish parliament. He was awarded ‘for a lifetime of work for the human and environmental rights of indigenous peoples and for his tireless efforts to save the Amazon forest from destruction’.

He highlighted in his acceptance speech, what he calls genocide, of one of the tribes he has fought for — the Guarani Indians. Speaking with force of their ‘pain, despair and insecurity’ and noted that they are ‘confined to small areas, their young people see no prospect for their future and the suicide rate among them is alarmingly high…the current government is ignoring this cruel genocide in progress before their eyes.’

Bishop Kräutler, discussing the trials and tribulations that each of the tribes he has fought for faces, described the Belo Monte mega-dam project that is currently endangering another group of Indians of the Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. He described it as ‘a project that never took into consideration the legitimate rights and preoccupations of the population of the Xingu.’ The Indigenous population ‘know very well that they will not survive if Amazonia continues to be disrespected and razed.’
He goes on, elaborating ‘that they know planet Earth will suffer irreversible consequences by this cruel destruction’ alluding to the true apocalypse.

To Bishop Kräutler, the main problem behind the despair of the Amazon has to do with ownership and use of the land. He says that the rural violence is linked to the concentration of land ownership, for which the criminals are honoured, ‘They kill and nothing happens!’

Stephen Corry, the director of Survival International said today that, “Bishop Kräutler routinely puts his life at risk by speaking out for Indians in Brazil. They need friends like him just as the churches too need more like him to carry forward the tradition of working for the oppressed. His winning the alternative Nobel prize is fantastic recognition for a great unsung hero.’

Photo by Kate Stanworth

I had never been so thoroughly toured in my life. Ziplining up in the canopy, horseriding through the jungle to a Guaraní village, speed-boating under Iguazu’s waterfalls, learning about medicinal plants and indigenous traps… I was led through one ticketed and guided adventure after another.

This couldn’t have been more different from my last visit, where my need to escape the ‘guided’ experience led me to jump a fence, swim beneath a waterfall and promptly get expulsed by a ranger.

This time around I wanted to test the theory that touring didn’t necessarily mean sticking to the fenced-in path. Before heading north, the HI Travel agent in far-off Buenos Aires told me, “We want to bring tourists beyond Iguazú itself, spread out the visitors. Many people forget that this region has not only falls but also jungle, and there are loads of activities revolving around that.”

So maybe it could fulfil my adventurous expectations after all?

First of all though, let’s not forget that any visit to Iguazú must of course include looking at the falls from every angle. Lets face it, they are incredible – perhaps the most exhilarating natural wonder I have ever seen.

How about viewing them from directly below? On the Nautical Adventure, I went literally underneath some of the smaller falls – smaller being a few dozen metres high. We didn’t motor all the way into the largest waterfall, the ‘Garganta del Diablo’ (the Devil’s Throat) but I didn’t really want to be swallowed by the devil anyways. I did however hear that the Brazilian side’s boat trip is faster, longer and wetter… though that last was hard to believe, considering my sopping clothes.

I was also able to see the falls in a whole new light: at night, beneath the full moon.

The crowds were gone, leaving me to stroll freely towards the distant roar of water. The tranquil sound of far-off falls soon reached a crescendo as I approached the river’s edge. There, the moonlit water plummets and an explosion of mist covers the awe-struck faces of the lucky visitors who have come for one of the five days a month when you can experience this.

But what I really wanted was to go beyond the falls altogether.

So I went with Iguazú Extreme off the path and onto rock faces, and even zip-lining across the canopy. Fun, certainly, but not quite the type of adventure that I was searching for. So I kept looking.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

By the time I had done all these activities, I was feeling the need to experience a less manufactured reality, to really connect with the natural and cultural landscapes. I found this reality, and these landscapes, it turns out, are as beautiful as they flawed.

This type of complexity, I suppose, should be expected with the non-manufactured. Although the falls left me breathless, their simple beauty has honestly only come to mind a couple of times since leaving. On the other hand, my short journey into the jungle has followed me home, insistently tugging on my sleeve to remind me of what I found there.

Run through the jungle

My horseback jungle tour guide, Jorge, led me through indigenous Guaraní territory, dense jungle with narrow footpaths. We had to constantly duck under low-lying branches while perched atop our horses. All the land that now comprises the Parque Nacional Iguazú was once Guaraní, a people who traditionally lived throughout northern Argentina, south-eastern Bolivia, and Paraguay.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Now, the Guaraní have been removed from the park; however, many thousands still live in the region, maintaining their traditional way of life to varying degrees. As we rode through this land, Jorge explained how key the forest is for Guaraní survival, as it provides everything from food to medicine to everyday tools. One of various medicinal plants our guide harvested was the ambay. Later, in the hostel, I would make this plant’s white bud into an effective tea to treat my sore throat – while suffering some strange looks from other backpackers.

We came upon the Guaraní village of Yryapú slowly, as densely vined forest floor began occasionally opening up to small plots of various crops and accompanying thatched-roof houses.

Judging from the lack of material wealth in the village, the benefits of the national park appear to largely remain in state hands. Not that there’s not plenty of money coming into the area: according to park figures, a record 121,381 visitors came to the park this July.

Jorge explained that Yryapú receives very few of these visitors. His tone, however, was ambivalent, as if unsure whether more tourism would be good or bad.

Yryapú has five tables set up for selling artisan products, and I bought necklaces and bracelets for a dozen friends. The wrinkled woman who sold me the jewellery was shy though friendly; according to my guide (and as was apparent by other people’s reluctant smiles) many Guaraní are wary of outsiders’ presence. Not surprising, after a history of exploitation and violence from outsiders.

I was told by other travellers and by our hostel’s staff that the other Guaraní village in this area, which does not take Yryapú’s low-profile approach to the tourist industry, currently accepts large groups of camera-toting tourists. These swing by on their all-included tours to see traditional dances and local customs which are put on specially for visitors. Says Gabriela of Hostel-Inn, “We do not bring tourists to see the indigenous dances that are set up like circus. We try to conduct business with ethics.”

Despite Yryapu’s wary approach to tourism, the influence of recent developments certainly reaches the town. Power lines crisscrossing between thatched-roof huts attest to the electricity that arrived here two years ago; metal roofs contrast with the houses of traditional adobe and thatched roofs; and huge ditches belie the water system that is being built both for the village and for incoming hotels. According to local workers, much of the recent infrastructure has been paid for as part of a deal between the Guaraní, the hotels and the municipality.

Five hundred Yryapú residents now live on 265 hectares, what’s left after they recently sold 300 acres to a consortium of 35 parties, including the Hilton, the Sheraton and the Hyatt.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

As we trotted out of the forest back to the road, tractors hummed as they transported dirt. One construction worker shouted over his engine’s roar that soon there would be a golf course in the forest on our right. I felt like I was visiting a disappearing world, knowing that this wild jungle and small village were rapidly transforming.

A surreal image came to my mind: the village shrinking until it was nothing more than the tiny displays on the national park walkways where Guaraní sell souvenir trinkets that all look the same.

As I dismounted, Jorge continued his cultural tour. As an afterthought, or fun-fact that I imagine he always uses to wrap up his tours, he explained that Guaraní girls, after coming of age and until they are 14, have the right to choose whatever single man they wish as husband, forcing any man to marry. This cultural reality, very natural a short 30 minute trot from where I now stood, didn’t quite fit where I now stood, next to a highway buzzing with buses.

Back on track

It was a bit of culture shock coming back to the hubbub of the hostel. Don’t get me wrong, the beaten path can be fine, especially when you don’t want a 12-year-old to force you into marriage – or if you just want comfort. That night I dined (a verb I rarely do, being more accustomed to chowing down) at El Gallo Negro, where Malbec-soaked pork would make most any traveller comfortable.

Coming back at night to the Hostel-Inn, digesting both the Malbec and the day’s journey, I flopped down on a couch in the commons. This hostel is a well-travelled spot with 200 beds, full even outside of the high tourist season – really more amped-up with amenities than any hostel I’d ever been to. Here you have the option to have your own room with bathroom or even your own bungalow, and most any travel service you can imagine to boot.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Techno and pop music provided the soundtrack to that evening’s encounters with other random travellers. Many of these backpackers were in it for the long haul, on South American or even world tours. Others had decided to stay in Argentina to deepen instead of broaden their experiences. I wondered if these extended trips might make folks more inclined to strike out on their own to avoid the crowds… but when I asked around, very few seemed to do so at Iguazú, spending only two days on average in the area.

Everyone staying on the same track contributes to a great danger of tourism: homogenisation. I certainly saw this dynamic when I was given nearly identical trap demonstrations on two different tours, Iguazú Extreme and Cabalgatas Ecológicas – granted, it was awesome to see that noose thingy in action twice… you know, the one that snares an animal and flings them, feet kicking, into the air on a springy sapling.

However, variety is not only the spice of life but also the reason for most travelling, and most options in this area – and on the tourist track in general – are shamefully under-utilised. And I wonder if golf courses, the utter opposite of natural variety, will soon destroy the biodiversity necessary for the ambay’s white bud to flourish, along with many other medicinal plants that have yet to be discovered.

In any case, the moon will continue to make Iguazú’s falls gleam and rainbows appear in the moonlit spray… probably. Debate currently rages whether or not to give the celestial light and natural beauty of the falls the competition of a laser light show coming from Brazil’s side. My advice: run through the jungle now, while it lasts.

Different packages through HI Travel can give you the most basic there-and-back-with-lodging trip, or a more extensively set-up adventure, including much of what is described in this article. Visit  www.hitravelargentina.com for more information.

Photo by Stuart Alley

If you’re travelling around Argentina, Misiones is sure to feature on the itinerary. For it is here, on the borders of Brazil and Paraguay, that the Iguazú Falls form the centrepiece of one of the most breathtaking natural settings in the world. But as the name of the province – Misiones – suggests, there are other important treasures to be found aside from natural wonders. Just a few hours south of the falls, hidden away in quiet rural villages or under the foliage of sub-tropical rainforest, lie the ruins of the Jesuit Missions.

The ruins are almost impossible to stumble upon. You have to seek them out. Many who have made the journey to the ruins have done so because their curiosity was ignited by a movie. That movie was called ‘The Mission’. 

The Mission is set in the 18th century during the Jesuit ‘reductions’, a programme by which Jesuit missionaries set up missions to teach Christianity to native tribes. It focuses on the story of a Spanish Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel (played by Jeremy Irons), who enters the South American jungle to build a mission and convert a Guarani tribe to Christianity.

In the dramatic opening sequence set in the Iguazú Falls, a Jesuit priest is tied to a cross by a Guaraní tribe and sent down river to the mouth of a giant waterfall, where he plunges to his death. Having been the person who sent the priest to convert the Guaraní tribe in the first place, Father Gabriel takes responsibility for the death of his fellow missionary, and climbs the Iguazú Falls to reach the Guaraní tribe. By playing a melodious tune on his oboe, Gabriel manages to pacify the tribe and begins his process of conversion and ‘civilisation’. Despite the success of the mission, it soon comes under threat from mercenaries who liase with Portuguese colonials to enslave the Guaraní for profitable and personal gain. Here the film merges with history, as the Jesuits find themselves not only defending their converted flock from merciless slave-traders but from the Catholic Church, which often felt compelled to respect the interests of key political powers whose support was vital to the Church’s survival.

Photo by Stuart Alley

These particular scenarios depicted in the film are based on events surrounding the 1750 Treaty of Madrid, which exercised the transfer of Jesuit Paraguay from the authority of Spain to Portugal. The movie’s narrator, Father Altamirano, is based on an actual papal emissary with the same name, who oversaw the transfer of seven missions that had been settled by Guaraníes and Jesuits in the 1600s. In the film, Altamirano comes to South America to decide the fate of the Jesuit Missions.  His responsibility is not an enviable one. A former Jesuit himself, he finds himself torn between his own sense of wonder at the success of the Jesuit Missions and the devastating political consequences were he to challenge the terms of a treaty signed by Europe’s most powerful nations. As well as recounting the inspiring but often tragic narrative of the Jesuit missionaries in South America, the film also reveals the moral ambiguity of organised religion at various levels.

Since its release in 1986, The Mission has brought South America to international audiences, and in doing so has enticed some of those audiences out of their seats to come to the feet of South America’s mighty waterfalls and historic ruins. Using the ruins as templates, the filmmakers reconstructed the missions as they would have looked and felt in the 18th century, creating some of the most bewitching and powerful settings in cinematic historical drama.

In the light of the movie, the ruins take on added poignancy by capturing both the grandeur of the missions at their peak and their untimely end at the hands of slave-traders and colonial militia. Taking perhaps the best-preserved mission site as an example, the ruins of San Ignacio still preserve some of the stylish ‘Guaraní baroque’ architecture in the entrance of the mission’s church, but also the legacy of the barbaric ‘bandeirantes’ in the crumbling, carved-up walls and smashed-up objects.

San Ignacio’s centrepiece was Italian architect Juan Brasanelli’s monumental church, 74m long and 24m wide, with red sandstone walls and ceramic-tile floors. Overlooking the settlement’s plaza, decorated by Guaraní artisans, it is among the finest remaining structures of its kind; the adjacent compound included a kitchen, dining room, classrooms and workshops. The priests’ quarters and the cemetery were also here, while more than 200 Guaraní residences – whose numbers reached 4,000 at the mission’s zenith in 1733 –surrounded the plaza. The restoration that commenced in the 1940s, and the UNESCO-funded Jesuit museum can take a visitor’s mind up to a certain limit in recreating the life of the mission. However, having seen the movie I was able to take that historical recreation a stage further.

Photo by Stuart Alley

As I walked around the ruins I replayed some of the movie scenes in my head, transposing them like a camera negative over the archaeological site. The missions are shown as vibrant, joyful and prosperous communities with schools, farming and agricultural innovations, family houses and workshops all centred on a grand church where the community sing, pray and worship. I remembered the scenes where the priests ate their meals in the quarters, the classrooms where the Guaraní children took their violin lessons, the workshops where they made the violins, and the panoramic shots of the imposing church, out of which echoed the haunting choral voices into the vast rainforests. As I gazed around at the heavily damaged artefacts, I recalled the movie’s climax, which depicted a battle from the Guaraní War of 1754-6, in which Guaraní tribes defended their homes/missions against Spanish-Portuguese forces implementing the Madrid treaty. Such evocative scenes, which were recognised at the Oscars for Best Cinematography, accompanied me during my visit to the ruins of San Ignacio, bringing to life the layout, colours, movements and sounds that may once have graced the mission.

At the peak of their powers, the Jesuits founded 30 towns, seven in Brazil, eight in Paraguay and 15 in Argentina, out of which 11 were in the province of Misiones. Today, six ruins of the Jesuit ‘reductions’ make up the circuit of the Missions. Four of those are in Misiones: San Ignacio, Santa Ana, Nuestra Señora de Loreto and Santa Maria La Mayor. Their status as UNESCO World Heritage Sites indicates their importance to the cultural history of South America. The director of The Mission, Roland Joffe clearly believed in the importance of preserving the memory of the work of the Jesuit missionaries, for all the moral complexity that such work implies. The political, religious and cultural issues touched on in the movie are as relevant today as they were in the 18th century, as Joffe explains:

“The film is about redemption, responsibility. It’s applicable to relationships between the peoples of Latin America, between those of European descent and those of India…it’s applicable between black and white races, and to colonial relationships right across the world.”

Though at first mention they may seem unappealing compared to the spectacular Iguazú Falls, the ruins of the Jesuit Missions are a lasting reward awaiting any traveller, and are vital to gaining not only an idea of the history of Misiones province, but of the enduring legacy of the Jesuit missionaries on the whole of South America.

Visiting the missions

Posadas, the capital city of Misiones province in striking distance of the border with Paraguay, is generally deemed to be the best base for visiting the Jesuit missions. Located 14 hours north of Buenos Aires, buses run several times a day to the capital.

Tours to the missions of Santa Ana, Loreto and San Ignacio Miní can be arranged in Posadas. For the more independent traveller, they are easily reached on local transport and each can be visited from Posadas in a day.