Corumbá Post Office - Dei werld mennoniten in Corumbá

– Didn’t understand? Almost daily, this dialect is spoken in Corumbá and research to be completed in 2022 attempts to identify how Mennonite relationships in this border region are –

Perhaps the above title is a bit confusing for almost all readers of Correio de Corumbá, despite the fact that many of them have direct contact with people who speak this dialect. The phrase is a free translation of “The Mennonite World in Corumbá” and was written using a virtual translator. A city researcher is studying the relationship between Mennonite peoples and the Brazil-Bolivia border, and ongoing research is expected to be completed in 2022.

Luiz Fernando Rodrigues Licetti, under the supervision of Professor Dr. Fabiano Quadros Rückert, is the researcher behind this unprecedented investigation in the region. He is developing work at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, as part of the postgraduate program in cross-border studies. His research began in 2020 and was impacted by the pandemic. He visited Bolivia and interviewed five Mennonites who live in the settlement of Nueva Esperanza, located 45 km from the city of San José de Chiquitos.

Mennonite settlement in Nueva Esperanza, Bolivia.

And despite the distance from Corumbá, around 200 km, the constant flow of Mennonites into the city is significant throughout the year. Even with research still in development, Luiz Fernando has managed to identify a few points about the involvement of this population which, in part, is “foreign” to both Bolivia and Brazil, but which has deep links with both. nations.

“There are six types of places where Mennonites are found relatively frequently here in Corumbá. and agricultural produce stores. These locations allow us to infer that Bolivian Mennonites primarily seek health services and agricultural equipment or supplies in Corumbá. Their transit through hotels, restaurants and supermarkets would be the result of two main objectives ”, explained the researcher.

Mennonites have lived around the Bolivian border with Brazil for just over 60 years. Over the decades, this population has become more cohesive in the region and some of its influence has come to be more intense in the neighboring country, while in Corumbá the relationship has become more commercial and less cultural.

Typical Mennonite house.

In the municipality of San José de Chiquitos, for example, a third of the local population corresponds to these foreign migrants. In addition, the very specific language of the Mennonites is a reality in this part of the Bolivian territory. Plautdietsch is a language common to the more than 7,100 inhabitants of the countryside of San José de Chiquitos. She is also called Low German and has a Dutch influence. However, in Brazil, Mennonites communicate in Spanish in places where they do business and only speak their own language among themselves.

“Within San José de Chiquitos, there are 3 villages, San Juan, Natividad and Motacusito. There is another municipality in the province of Chiquitos which has 5 settlements, they are located in the city of San Juan de Chiquitos, about 110 km from San José.The social structure of the population of this municipality is divided into groups of agricultural entrepreneurs, cattle ranchers, farmers, small agricultural producers, indigenous communities of Chiquitana with agricultural production as a means of subsistence, migrants from western Bolivia and Mennonite settlers dispersed in the five colonies ”, detailed the researcher, who visited a colony in San José.

Origin and history of migration
This population has sought, since the 17th century, places where it can live without religious persecution and with the guarantee of maintaining its centuries-old traditions, even while living in a foreign land. The origin of the Mennonites is German-Dutch. With the rise of Protestants in the 16th century, starting with religious reform, there was a subdivision identified as the Anabaptists. The interpretation of Christianity in a particular way and economic interests generated tensions and ruptures during this period.

Workplace in a melonite colony in Nueva Esperanza, Bolivia. Photo: Horacio Fernández

The Anabaptists hold the Lutheran doctrine, the principle of the free interpretation of the Bible, reject the worship of images, criticize the ritual of Holy Communion, and reject infant baptism. They also defend the right to choose their religious leaders. Also within the Anabaptists were the Upper Swiss-German Division, the Lower German-Dutch Division (of Mennonite origin), and the Hutterite Line.

Menno Simons, a theologian who adhered to Anabaptism in 1536 (16th century), was very representative in history and his followers eventually received the name of Mennonite Christians. The other heirs to Anabaptism are the Hutterites and the Amish.

The Mennonites of Bolivia originated in the second half of the 20th century from Canada, Mexico and Paraguay. “Before migrating and establishing settlements, Mennonites considered the willingness of the potentially host government to secure basic conditions for community self-reliance. By choosing new migratory destinations, there was a search for alternatives that would consolidate their economy without breaking with cultural and theological principles, ”explained Luiz Fernando.

Paraguay is currently the country with the highest concentration of Mennonites, considering the group of countries that make up Latin America and the Caribbean. The 2009 Mennonite World Conference reported that over 50% of them reside in Africa and Asia (37% in Kenya and Tanzania; 16% in Indonesia and India). The United States and Canada come second with 32%. The countries of origin, Switzerland, Holland and Germany, represent only 4%. The colonial population in Latin America represents a little over 10%, or in absolute numbers between 160,000 and 200,000 inhabitants, including 50,000 in Bolivia.

“In the Bolivian case, the government sought to attract Mennonites in 1926. In this context, Mennonite groups in Canada were unhappy with the interventions of the Canadian state. Paraguay also sought to attract Mennonite groups from Canada and Bolshevik-ruled territories to Eastern Europe. “. the governments had the same political objective: to populate the Chaco and to develop it for agriculture and breeding. By having better diplomatic contacts, Paraguay was victorious at that time”, analyzed the researcher.

It was not until 1954 that colonization became real and the following year 100 families settled in Bolivia, near Cotoca. In 1967 this movement became more cohesive and Mennonites from Mexico came to Bolivian territory because there was overcrowding in that country. Today, the majority of the population is in the department of Santa Cruz de La Sierra.