“Historians and Etnographers”: Jesuits Writing in the XVIII Century. The Cases of Lozano and Paucke

Abstract

In the region of the Great Chaco, as in other geographical spaces, the Jesuit writing remained reflected in different sources. Inside the discourses of the “chaqueño” space it is possible to find the writings of Pedro Lozano and Florián Paucke, between others. The first one, was designated historian of the Company from 1730; he wrote between other works the ‘Descripción Chorográfica del Gran Chaco Gua- lamba’ referred exclusively to the ‘chaqueño’ space. Florián Paucke was missionary in the ‘Mocovíes’ reductions of San Francisco Javier and of San Pedro, from 1749 up to the expulsion of the Company in 1767. His statement ‘Hacia allá y para acá. Una estada entre los indios Mocobíes 1749-1767’, it details different moments of his priestly life. The aim of this work is to analyze how the speeches are constructed in relation to the space, in the works of both Jesuits from the historical statements but also from the record of the missioner life, which has an evident ethnographic perspective. To analyze the mentioned speeches, we propose to realize an historiographic analysis of these works from the social history of the historiography.