Native Brazil: Beyond the Convert and the Cannibal, 1500-1900

306 Pages·2014·5.469 MB·English

by  Hal Langfur

history • latin america
The earliest European accounts of Brazil’s indigenous inhabitants focused on the
natives’ startling appearance and conduct—especially their nakedness and canni- l
balistic rituals—and on the process of converting them to Christianity. This volume a
contributes to the unfinished task of moving beyond such polarities and dispelling the n
g
stereotypes they fostered, which have impeded scholars’ ability to make sense of Brazil’s
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rich indigenous past.
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This volume is a significant contribution to understanding the ways Brazil’s native peo-
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ples shaped their own histories. Incorporating the tools of anthropology, geography, cultural
studies, and literary analysis, alongside those of history, the contributors to this volume revisit
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old sources and uncover new ones. They examine the Indians’ first encounters with Portu-
guese explorers and missionaries and pursue the consequences. Some of the peoples they in- a
vestigate were ultimately defeated and displaced by the implacable advance of settlement. t
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Many individuals died in epidemics, frontier massacres, and forced labor. Hundreds of groups
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eventually disappeared as distinct entities. Yet many others found ways to prolong their inde-
e
pendent existence or to enter colonial and later national society, making pivotal though con-
B
strained choices along the way.
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HAL LANGFUR is an associate professor of history at SUNY Buffalo. He is also the author a
z
of The Forbidden Lands: Colonial Identity, Frontier Violence, and the Persistence of Brazil’s
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Eastern Indians, 1750–1830, as well as numerous articles about the native peoples of Brazil.
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cover illustration: Chiotay, Chief of the Xerente.
Courtesy of The Catholic University of America,
Oliveira Lima Library, Washington, D.C.
Native Brazil
ISBN 978-0-8263-3841-9
ISBN 978-08263-3841-9
90000
university of new mexico press
unmpress.com | 800•249•7737 beyond the convert and
the cannibal, 1500–1900
9 780826 338419

edited by Hal Langfur
Native Brazil

Native Brazil
beyond the convert and
the cannibal, 1500–1900
Edited by Hal Langfur
University of New Mexico Press E Albuquerque
© 2014 by the University of New Mexico Press
All rights reserved. Published 2014
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5 6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Native Brazil : beyond the convert and the cannibal, 1500–1900 / edited by Hal Langfur.
pages cm. — (Diálogos)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8263-3841-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8263-3842-6 (electronic)
1. Indians of South America—Brazil—History. 2. Indians, Treatment of—Brazil—
History. 3. Indians of South America—Brazil—First contact with Europeans.
4. Indians of South America—Missions—Brazil—History. 5. Indians of South
America—Brazil—Government relations. 6. Brazil—Colonization. I. Langfur, Hal,
author, editor of compilation.
F2519.N37 2014
981—dc23
2013034139
Cover and interior design by Catherine Leonardo
Composed in Minion Pro 10.25/13.5
Display type is Minion Pro
For Kerry, Bridger, and Devon
And to the memory of John Monteiro and Neil Whitehead

Contents
7
Illustrations ix
Introduction
Recovering Brazil’s Indigenous Pasts 1
Hal Langfur
Chapter 1
The Society of Jesus and the First Aldeias of Brazil 29
Alida C. Metcalf
Chapter 2
Land and Economic Resources of Indigenous Aldeias
in Rio de Janeiro: Conflicts and Negotiations,
Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries 62
Maria Regina Celestino de Almeida
Chapter 3
Colonial Intrusions and the Transformation of
Native Society in the Amazon Valley, 1500–1800 86
Neil L. Whitehead
Chapter 4
The Amazonian Native Nobility in Late-Colonial Pará 108
Barbara A. Sommer
vii
viii contents
Chapter 5
Indian Autonomy and Slavery in the Forests
and Towns of Colonial Minas Gerais 132
Hal Langfur and Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende
Chapter 6
Catechism and Capitalism: Imperial Indigenous
Policy on a Brazilian Frontier, 1808–1845 166
Judy Bieber
Chapter 7
Catechism and Captivity: Indian Policy
in Goiás, 1780–1889 198
Mary Karasch
Chapter 8
Indigenous Resistance in
Central Brazil, 1770–1890 225
Mary Karasch and David McCreery
Glossary 251
Bibliography 255
Contributors 273
Index 277
Illustrations
7
figures
1. Preaching to Brazilian Indians 3
2. Stylized portrayal of a cannibal feast 8
3. Indian soldiers escort captive women and children 15
4. Guarani women dressed for church 20
5. Bay of All Saints, Bahia 31
6. Jesuit missionary José de Anchieta 36
7. Ritual associated with Tupinambá cannibalism 43
8. Traditional palisaded village 49
9. Mission life exoticized by a European painter 66
10. Hunting fowl 69
11. Indian washerwomen in Rio de Janeiro 73
12. Village near Rio de Janeiro—Minas Gerais border 76
13. François Carypyra, a Tupinambá convert to Christianity 90
14. Some of Brazil’s diverse native peoples 94
15. Omagua Indians practicing cranial deformation 98
16. Types of indigenous dwellings 102
17. Louis Marie, an Indian leader from Maranhão 111
18. Amazonian village 115
19. Agriculture, lumbering, and fishing along an Amazon tributary 118
20. Ceremonial dress, scepters, and musical instruments 122
21. Puri and Coroado men and women 138
22. Botocudo family 145
23. Puri Indians in their hut 149
24. Botocudo practicing ritualized violence 153
ix