The notions of "confession" and "sin" in the Confessonario de Arte y Gramática by Luis de Valdivia (1606) for the spiritual conquest of the mapuche people

Abstract

This study seeks to critically analyze the notion of “confession” and “sin” present in the colonial confessional discourse of Arte y gramatica (1606) by Luis de Valdivia. To this end, a methodology is proposed according to the principles of the Historiography of Missionary Linguistics, at its descriptive level of non-contemporary texts. Based on this reference, we work with the Critical Discourse Analysis in its macro and micro levels of enunciation, to identify the lexical-semantic behavior of the religious repertoire used in the examination of conscience that promotes the confessional performance in the framework of defensive warfare for the spiritual conquest of the Mapuche people. By way of conclusion, it is possible to identify strategies of untranslatability in the notions of "sin" and "confession" representations, with an impact on the moral, cognitive, cultural, spiritual and linguistic aspects of the Mapuche people. In this way, the forced installation of language for the process of acculturation and colonization of the imaginary for the purposes of spiritual conquest is evident.

Keywords: Confessional discourse – colonial – Historiography of Missionary Linguistics – Mapuche – Mapuzungun