Armentía, Nicolás

ARMENTÍA, NICOLÁS. - Friar Minor, missionary, explorer and bishop in Bolivia, b. in Bermedo (Spain) on 6 Dec. 1845, d. at La Paz on 24 Dec. 1919. He completed his humanistic studies in Eborrio. As a young man he had a conversation with the future Dominican martyr Berriochoa, to whom he subsequently attributed his vocation. Having left Spain because of the suppression of the religious Orders, he took the Franciscan habit in the convent of Amiens in 1860; in 1864 he set out for Bolivia, where, having joined the missionary college of La Paz, he was ordained a priest on 29 Apr. 1869. Besides theological studies, he had already cultivated astronomy, mathematics, geography and geology; then, having devoted himself to linguistic studies, he soon learned the Quichua, Aymara and Guaraní languages. Wishing to make contact with the Araonas and the Pacaguaras, he made an expedition from June 1881 until 1883; thus he was the first to navigate the Beni and the Madre de Dios along their entire length. The account of this expedition was published in La Paz in 1883. Asked by the government to continue his explorations, he was again on his way in May 1884. From this he obtained an exact map of the course of the Madre de Dios, of the Taramanu and of other rivers of lesser importance, and a complete knowledge of regions until then unknown and of the conditions of the tribes and of the groups of Araonas, Paraguaras and Cavinas. Forced by a great flood to turn back, A. did not wish to leave his explorations incomplete; therefore he descended the Madre de Dios in order to reach, afterward, the Pará, in Brazil (6 March 1886), and, in August, the city of La Paz, where he wrote up his diary, simple and modest, but of great scientific value. A.'s merits in geography, ethnology and linguistics were recognized everywhere. In 1888 A. was elected vicar and in 1891 guardian of the missionary college of La Paz; then commissary general and visitor of all the missionary colleges of Bolivia and of the religious province of St. Anthony de las Charcas. At the wish of the President of the Bolivian Republic, Pius X appointed him in 1911 bishop of La Paz. The consecration took place in Sucre on 24 Febr. 1912 with an imposing participation of the civil authorities and of the entire population. On the occasion of his death the scientific world offered praise and appreciation to his memory. An almost complete list of A.'s published works is found in S. Mendizábal, Acción Franciscana en Sucre, Sucre 1921.