Songs in Catholic Missions

Catholic missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often used non-liturgical songs in their ministry. These songs normally had a vernacular text (either in the European language of the missionary or in a local language) and were intended for collective performance by non-specialists, with or without instrumental accompaniment. Typical examples are simple songs transmitting doctrine, taught and performed during catechetical activities. Missionaries, who had often been exposed to European devotional songs before their assignment overseas, almost invariably found that Indigenous people were fond of music and singing, and could be more easily attracted to the Christian faith in this way than by preaching. Songs proved especially useful because they facilitated the memorization, performance, and dissemination of the Gospel. Among the missionaries who wrote and employed songs are the Jesuits Francis Xavier (in Asia) and José de Anchieta (in Brazil), the Franciscans Pedro de Gante and Bernardino de Sahagún (in Mexico), and many others, working in such diverse environments as Latin America, New France, or the Philippines. Sometimes the missionaries adopted local melodies and musical practices, but more often they imported European musical styles. Notated sources are mostly lost, but numerous song texts are extant, and information about the use of songs can be gleaned from missionary literature. In fact, remarks about the success of the songs and their pervasiveness in the newly Christianized soundscape became a mainstay of missionary reports. The actual extent of the missionaries’ achievements in this field and their influence in the longue durée on the various communities, however, are often harder to determine. Missionary songs are in any case to be understood as part of an unprecedented spread of European musical practices during the colonial period, which in turn stimulated processes of musical hybridization and globalization whose consequences are still felt in the twenty-first century. Recent analyses have tended to problematize the phenomenon from a postcolonial perspective, sometimes emphasizing the concurrent silencing of Indigenous repertoires.