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 ethnic group, an ethnic group which developed a more complex culture between the
Amazon rainforest and the
Llanos. For unknown reasons, between the
15th Century B.C. and the
8th Century B.C., agricultural Arawak groups from the lowlands (present-day
Suriname) 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, the Arawak also migrated north and populated the islands of the
Caribbean Sea. This slow expansion resulted in their arrival at the islands of
Cuba and
Hispaniola (present-day island of the
Dominican Republic and
Haiti). 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, reveal that the region was populated by an Arawak tribe (known as the
Chané) with a ceramic-making culture. Writers such as
Diego Felipe de Alcaya, tell of a group living between the last buttresses of the
Andes 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 belongs to a language family called
Arawakan. 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 priests arriving from
Santa Cruz de la Sierra began evangelizing native peoples of the region in the 1670s. They set up a series of missions near the
Mamoré River for this purpose beginning with
Loreto. The principal mission was established at
Trinidad 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. ==See also==