El martirio y la Virgen de los Poyas y Puelches en la misión Nahuel Huapi (1670-74 y 1704-1717)

Abstract

In the colonial era of evangelization of the Kingdom of Chile, the Jesuits penetrated into Indian Patagonian lands founding mission was Nahuel Huapi as an extension of Chiloé missions, in order to take land and subjects across the mountains. The martyrdom of their first missionary Nicolás Mascardi death, became successors of the Jesuits in the current narrative while the original sources say otherwise. The Virgin became the icon of this mission under a Indian patronage: "Our Lady of Puelches and Poyas". The survival of your image in the fire that destroyed the mission became an emblem of "colonial Christendom" watered with the "blood of martyrdom." The alleged "discovery" of the image of the Virgin of the mission, built a new discourse of the Catholic Church in Bariloche through a Marian devotion resignified referring to past colonial Jesuit.