First, music; then, the word

about practicing catechesis repertoire with musical instruments in Brazilian Jesuit missions

Abstract

The process of catechizing indigenous children in Brazilian Jesuit missions was quite peculiar, certainly different from what happened in European colleges. Ignatian priests needed to learn the local language, adapt pedagogical processes and materials, and provide children with a religious experience of which they knew nothing. The use of music was essential to establish a closer connection, attractive to the Indians, while serving as bait for catechesis and strengthening the learning of doctrine. Although essentially vocal, much of the musical repertoire of catechesis was performed on instruments, particularly on recorders, wide-ly used by missionaries, especially in the first decades of their performance (1550-1610). In this communication, we intend to demonstrate that the teaching of musical instruments to indi-genous children, particularly recorders, was not only intended to provide an instrumental variation to the repertoire but also to establish a unifying element of response to doctrine. The lan-guage barrier and the actual understanding of Christian content were some of the greatest difficulties faced by the priests, but the performance of the music by the recorders in a way minimized such obstacles and provided a sense of success in missionary acti-vity. If the word is necessary to concretize and make explicit the thought, while music enhances its meaning, in the Brazilian Je-suit missions the roles seem to have been inverted: music served before as a resource of assimilation, and the word, in unknown language, constituting a complex text, was often accessory ele-ment and not fully assimilated.