The marriages of Soconcho. Endogamy, land and community in three Indian towns of Santiago del Estero, 1750-1809

Abstract

The paper focuses on the alliance's mechanisms in three Indian towns of the Soconcho doctrine in Santiago del Estero province. Using tribute surveys and marriage records as sources, we have detected a pattern of community endogamy and even an "interfamiliar" one between spouses. Moreover, the alliances wkith families not belonging to the town's casta tributaria seem to respond to community options rather tahn to individual ones. Our main hypotheses is that the structuration of the alliance system must be taken as strategies related to the preservation of community lands (and of the same Indian towns in Santiago). Nor do we discard the fact that the above mentioned alliances responded to ancient marriage systems, in other words, as late as the beginning of the XIX century the conjugal prohibition was still in effect.