Talk:Juan María de Salvatierra

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[edit] NPOV?

I appreciate this article, but I believe it needs some changes to meet Wikipedia's NPOV standard. To my eyes, it reads too much like an uncritical hagiography of Salvatierra. It uses effusive and affectionate language, for example, that he "soon mastered" a language spoken by the local indigenous people, and that he dedicated the Señora de Loreto mission "to Our Lady of Loreto, his special patroness through life." Is this an important fact, or a sweet detail from Salvatierra's life?

I think the bigger issue is that the article looks too-uncritically at Salvatierra's accomplishments. It uses phrases like "spiritual conquest" which are so loaded with meaning that it must be better explained. In what I saw as condescending language, it referred to Salvatierra learning a local indigenous language "from local indigenous people who could be induced by presents to come near." It gives the appearance that the indigenous people were simple children who were bribed with gifts to help; I suggest that it was possible the native people helped Salvatierra out of a desire to help him, human curiousity, or other motivations.

There is certainly no discussion as to what effect his proselytizing had on the indigenous people he wanted to convert. In the rest of the Americas, contact with Europeans brought trade and cultural syncretism; it also brought disease, exploitation, and conquest. Was any of that the case here? I know this is an article about Salvatierra, but he is noteworthy because of his work building missions explicitly for the conversion of the indigenous people of Mexico. What effect did his work have on those people? --Danspalding 07:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tarumari

The article mentions that Salvatierra was a missionary among the Tarumari people in Chihuahua. Is this another name for the Tarahumara people? They call themselves Raramuri, and "Taramuri" looks like a combination of "Tarahumara" and "Raramuri". The article also mentions that Fr. Salvatierra mastered the "native language". Any idea which one? Great article.--Rockero 16:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)