Pilgrimage Through the Americas: Exploring San Ignacio, Argentina

Mission San Ignacio Miní

Only two Jesuit friars lived at the mission among over two hundred Guaraní natives. Today the ruins are a calm and tranquil place. I feel none of the pain and anguish I’ve felt at the missions in California. No crying out in torment from beatings and physical penance associated with Christianizing indigenous people. I hear Guaraní women, men, and children singing and dancing, giving praise to God, to nature, to life. They were happy at San Ignacio.

Main door way to the church of San Ignacio Miní

The compound is extensive and constructed of red adobe

The main plaza of the complex

At the sight I hear joyful sounds of many birds chirping and whistling to each other, leaves gently rustling and cracking in the breeze. A hand size iridescent blue morph butterfly and its partner come down from the heavens to dart and twirl in the ruins. These butterflies are attracted to the positive energy of the place. It was a place of cooperation, understanding, and genuine attempts by two distinct cultures to get to know each other and live in harmony and balance with the environment. There was no clash of cultures, no subordination of one lifestyle to the other. It was a place where each society freely gave to another what was needed for all to survive. I’ve never experienced the calmness, serenity and peacefulness at the sites I’ve visited where two different cultures encountered each other. The blue morph detects and seeks places of harmony. It has found it at San Ignacio.

Butterflies are attracted to the positive energy of the site

Different varieties of butterflies are everywhere

The Spanish attempted something different in Northern Argentina and Eastern Brazil. All other incursions by the Spaniards into the Americas were led by the sword. Conquistadors came with thundering guns, charging horses trampling natives, and glistening steel swords slashing bodies, severing limbs, spilling red hot blood to conquer the New World. The Spanish monarch tried something different. He sent Jesuit priests, only two to each location. They came with musical instruments, bibles, and love in their hearts.

Side view of the church of San Ignacio

Peace and Love

While at the site, I closed my eyes and hear lingering sounds of people working, laughing, talking about their abundance and the joy of living in this place. I hear the two padres thanking God for their blessings and asking for strength to show a good example of how a Christian life should be lived -- no judgements, no condemnations, no arrogance. It was hard work, with many longings for past lives filled with family, familiar landscapes, and religious rituals in great cathedrals. They asked themselves: Why can’t we build that here? Thus, San Ignacio Miní was raised from the dense green jungle and prospered. Until government authorities filled with corruption, greed, and shortsightedness rejected harmonious coexistence and imposed its belief in their own superiority of culture and values and expelled the Jesuits, confiscated the land, scattered and attempted to destroy the Guaraní. They did not succeed. The Guaraní still live!

All construction was done by Guaraní natives

View from inside the church ruins

Close up of floor tiles

After the Jesuits were expelled, Portuguese slave hunters came to San Ignacio, raided, looted and burned the mission compound. The Guaraní were not warriors, preferring to live in balance and harmony with each clan, so those not enslaved scattered into the dense jungle and resumed a life of living in the tropical forest. The jungle reclaimed San Ignacio and it lay in ruins until a photography and writer, Horacio Quiroga, explored the ruins, took photographs and showed the world what was being lost. It stimulated a world interest to save, refurbish and recognize the site as a “World Heritage Cultural Site”. It is located off the well traveled tourist path on the way to Iguazú Falls, but merits a visit. You’ll most likely have the place to yourself, to contemplate, to rest, and image that humanity is capable of living in peace and harmony with nature and with itself.

Guaraní natives selling their crafts, note the fellow on the right using

a mobile device to send a text

Three generations of indigenous Guaraní

Two young Guaraní fellows hanging out

The Guaraní sell crafts & orchids to tourists & travelers

In the center is a "blond" Guaraní young woman

Village of San Ignacio

On my walk to a supermercado to buy some bottled water and food for my travel to Buenos Aires, I’m stopped by Carlos, 65 years old, a retired bus driver. He’s with his 14 year old daughter Celeste. He greets me and offers me some “mate”. It’s a tea made from mate leaves and is drank throughout Argentina, the way North Americans and Europeans drink coffee. He recognizes that I’m not from the area and is interested to meet and know me. I take a photo of him preparing mate. He shares his tea with me, both of us drinking out of the same silver straw. It’s a practice that is not done in the USA, using the same straw, but he’s sharing his drink, offering me fellowship and friendship and I can’t resist. We end up conversing on a wide range of topics for over an hour.

The main square of the village at night

Freshly brewed mate

Carlos tasting the mate to make sure it's ready

Manny de enjoying the mate

. . . . and the friendship

Carlos tells me a harrowing story about driving his bus down a mountain when the brakes fail and he careens out of control down the winding dirt road. One side is mountain rocks, the other a deep abyss of over 6,000 feet. Carlos said he was scared and started to silently pray for God’s intervention. After several attempts of stomping on the brake pedal with no results, he began sweating heavily and felt he would go over the side of the mountain to a sure death with a bus full of passengers. He said a miracle happened. All of a sudden the brakes grabbed and held. He slowly came down the mountain road riding the brakes the whole way. When he stopped at the bus terminal, the mechanic said: “I don’t know how the brakes held, there was no brake lining left, and the bus shouldn’t have stopped”. Carlos believes it was through God’s help that he survived.

Carlos pointed out to his daughter what a great time we were having sharing time and stories with a traveler from California. He told her: “It’s a benefit to be more communicative and talk with people, that’s how we learn different thing”. I told him and his daughter about my life in the USA and about my travels through Latin America. The sun was going down and I could sense mosquitoes buzzing me, so I bid him and his delightful daughter good-bye. He said he really enjoyed are discussion and invited me to visit him the next time I come to San Ignacio.