Una voz desde Sudamérica: sociedad, etnografía y religión en la obra de John Arnott

In 1925, John Arnott (1907-1971), a young Anglican of Scottish origin, arrived in Argentina. A field missionary with the South American Missionary Society, he spent the next 17 years in the Bolivian and Argentinian Chaco working among the Wichí, Pilagá, Toba and Guaraní Indians. Beyond his evangelical work, Arnott rapidly developed a stunning capacity to learn the native languages and even started to carry on ethnographic research into these indigenous cultures. This anthropological bias became even more marked with his ethnographic publications, the material collections he gathered for several international institutions, and his role as a consultant for renowned scholars such as Alfred Métraux, Jules Henry and Stig Rydén. By analyzing unpublished documents, we intend to show that Arnott’s ethnographical inclination did not originate in these academic interactions but was present in latent form since the very first moment he arrived in South America.