Current use of lexical elements of a Spanish colonial ritual in Merida at the beginning of the 20th century

Many institutions came from Spain to the Americas during the conquest and colonization with the purpose of imposing Spanish order in the new lands. Rituals such as the possession of an encomienda performed the function of creating a social awareness like the aristocratic regime which functioned in imperial Spain, ensuring that the group owed allegiance to a figure in a hierarchical order (the King, represented by colonial functionaries). In this work we suggest that economic and social elements of this old order survive until the present day in the collective Venezuelan consciousness. These elements are present in the lexicon, albeit desemanticized, owing to the coexistence in our daily life of discourses that J.M. Briceno Guerrero has labeled "savage and European".