Juan Ramon Koenig, los aymaras refugiados en la selva y el descubrimiento de las provincias de yuromas y tanatas

Abstract

In 1655 an unusual finding took place east of the Andes Mountains. The report of its discoverer has gone unnoticed among historical and anthropological studies of early European incursions into the South American lowlands. It deals with the journey undertaken by the Flemish Jesuit Juan Ramón Koenig from the town of Hayupaya (jurisdiction of Cochabamba) to the provinces of the Yuromas and Tanatas Indians, adjacent to the lands of the Raches and Moxos. This article is devoted to the geographical, ethnohistorical and ethnological analysis of Juan Ramon’s manuscript, whose information on the native Yuromas and Tanatas and the Aymara fugitives from the mita of Potosí, who retreated into the jungle, is both fundamental and novel for reconstructing the indigenous history of the Andean-Amazonian foothill of present-day Bolivia.