ABSTRACT
The Amerindian people known as Moxo (Mojo in Spanish orthography) inhabit the Moxo Plains (llanos de Mojos), a large lowland area of grassland and scrub forest in northeastern Bolivia. This area of about 181,000 square kilometers extends from the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Oriental (Eastern Range) of the Andes to the Guaporé River, the present boundary with Brazil, largely within the Bolivian department of Beni. The capital of Beni, Trinidad (named for the Holy Trinity), is its largest city. Other towns include Concepción (named for the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Magdalena (named for Mary Magdalene), and others with Christian names. These were three of twenty-one missions founded by the Jesuits, who controlled the area from the 1680s until their expulsion in 1767 (Claro 1969:9). According to a 1715 census, about thirty years after their first encounter with the Spanish, the Moxo numbered about eighteen thousand people (Steward and Faron 1959:254).
