San Ignacio

The mission began far from here. Around 1610 the Jesuits José Cataldino and Simón Maceta founded San Ignacio among the Guaraní of the Guayrá region, in what is now the Brazilian state of Paraná. Raids by bandeirante slave hunters from São Paulo forced the communities to flee south in 1632, when Antonio Ruiz de Montoya led thousands of Guaraní down the rivers to new sites near the Yabebirí stream. After further moves the mission settled on its present site in 1696, and it was called Miní, small in Guaraní, to distinguish it from San Ignacio Guazú in Paraguay.

In the 18th century around 3,000 people, mostly Indigenous, lived in the mission. They made crafts and other goods that were traded along the Paraná, and built a church 74 metres long in red sandstone to the design of the Italian Jesuit Juan Brasanelli. After the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1767 the Jesuits left, the mission declined, and in 1817 it was destroyed, along with other missions in the area.

The ruins disappeared under forest until they were found in 1897. The modern town was founded on 18 January 1907 with the arrival of the first colonists, and the writer Horacio Quiroga settled on a farm by the Paraná in these years. Formal excavation and restoration of the ruins began only in 1940, and in 1984 San Ignacio Miní became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with other Jesuit missions in Argentina and Brazil.

San Ignacio's identity is bound to the mission. The carved red sandstone church front is a celebrated example of the Guaraní baroque style. An interpretation centre at the site tells the story of the Guaraní and the reductions, and an evening sound-and-light show uses projections on screens of water mist to recreate mission life. Craft stalls near the ruins sell local handicrafts.

The town is also linked with Horacio Quiroga, the Uruguayan master of the short story, who bought land here on the upper Paraná, served as justice of the peace in the civil registry of San Ignacio and drew on the forest and its people for many of his stories, among them the Jungle Tales for children published in 1918. His farm is now a provincial museum and cultural centre with an auditorium.

Daily culture is that of rural Misiones: Spanish with a Guaraní accent, chamamé at dances, tereré in the heat and the asado at weekends. Life is calm and neighbourly, and on summer weekends families head down to the river beach at Puerto Nuevo.

San Ignacio is a small country town and the head of San Ignacio Department; its municipality includes rural settlements such as Domingo Savio, linked by a provincial road. National Route 12, the main road between Posadas and Puerto Iguazú, runs past it, and buses, lorries and tourist coaches pass through all day.

The local economy rests on yerba mate, grown on farms around the town and processed in local mills, together with forestry, some mining and tourism to the ruins. A large share of residents work for the municipal, provincial or national state. When the price of yerba mate fell, many small farmers sold their land or turned to subsistence crops such as beans, maize and mandioca.

The rhythm of the day follows the heat: early starts on the farms, a long midday rest when the streets empty, and life outdoors again in the evening. Tourism brings a steady trade to guesthouses, restaurants and craft stalls near the ruins.

The food of San Ignacio is the cooking of rural Misiones, close to Paraguay's. Chipá, small cheese breads made with cassava starch, are eaten at breakfast and sold by street vendors. Sopa paraguaya, a dense cornbread with cheese and onion despite its name, and mbeyú, a cassava-starch pancake, are everyday foods, and mandioca, cassava, comes boiled or fried with almost every meal.

River fish from the Paraná are a treat: surubí, a large catfish, is grilled or stewed, and pacú and dorado are cooked over coals. Asado and chicharrón, fried pork, fill out the weekend table, and reviro is a simple, cheap dish of the region.

Yerba mate is the crop the town lives on, and it is drunk hot as mate in the cool hours and cold as tereré, often with herbs, through the heat of the day. Sweets include dulce de mamón, a papaya preserve, and cakes of cassava flour.