ABSTRACT
This article offers an alternative reading of Hampa afro-cubana: los negros brujos, by the Cuban Fernando Ortiz y Fernandes, and discusses the need to make the different ideas expounded by the author more complex. For this reason, it disputes the interpretations of some commentators influenced by his work. The article suggests some clues with regard to what Ortiz y Fernandes understood as forces capable of acting and manifesting themselves in the "bodies" of persons affected by the activities of those accused of being involved with magical practices and objects. It examines the creation of witches - as described by Ortiz y Fernandes - as an epistemic phenomenon and discusses the arguments and the practices and knowledge required for this purpose.
Subject(s)
Literature, Modern/history , Magic/history , Witchcraft/history , Anthropology, Cultural/history , Cuba , Famous Persons , History, 20th Century , HumansABSTRACT
O artigo oferece uma leitura alternativa de Hampa afro-cubana: los negros brujos, do cubano Fernando Ortiz y Fernandes, e discute a necessidade de problematizar as diferentes ideias expostas pelo autor. Para isso, contesta leituras de alguns comentadores influenciados por sua obra. O artigo sugere algumas pistas acerca do que Ortiz y Fernandes entendia como forças capazes de agir e manifestar-se nos "corpos" de sujeitos afetados pela agência dos acusados de envolvimento com práticas e objetos mágicos. Debruça-se sobre a criação dos brujos - conforme descritos por Ortiz y Fernandes - como um objeto epistêmico e discute os argumentos e práticas de conhecimento necessários à sua fabricação.
This article offers an alternative reading of Hampa afro-cubana: los negros brujos, by the Cuban Fernando Ortiz y Fernandes, and discusses the need to make the different ideas expounded by the author more complex. For this reason, it disputes the interpretations of some commentators influenced by his work. The article suggests some clues with regard to what Ortiz y Fernandes understood as forces capable of acting and manifesting themselves in the "bodies" of persons affected by the activities of those accused of being involved with magical practices and objects. It examines the creation of witches - as described by Ortiz y Fernandes - as an epistemic phenomenon and discusses the arguments and the practices and knowledge required for this purpose.
Subject(s)
Humans , History, 20th Century , Literature, Modern/history , Magic/history , Witchcraft/history , Anthropology, Cultural/history , Cuba , Famous PersonsABSTRACT
Este é um trabalho altamente original que combina fontes da história da Inquisição e da história da medicina (assim como muitas outras). Examina a enorme contradição de profissionais médicos treinados durante o Iluminismo português que utilizavam o aparato repressivo da Inquisição para eliminar seus competidores mais rústicos e (na sua maioria) iletrados: os curandeiros populares. Baseia-se em documentação de numerosos arquivos em Lisboa, Évora e Londres. O que está no cerne deste livro - e o distingue - é a análise da equação de interesses envolvidos na perseguição a curandeiros na Inquisição portuguesa. O autor demonstra que, por trás dessas perseguições, havia uma concorrência: de um lado, uma classe emergente de profissionais médicos formados; de outro, praticantes da cura nas comunidades. Sob a crescente influência dos primeiros, aumentam as hostilidades contra os segundos, aos quais são imputadas acusações e aplicados castigos
Subject(s)
Humans , /history , Magic/history , Medicine, Traditional/history , Physicians/history , Repression, Psychology , History, 17th Century , History, 18th Century , Portugal , Social Control Policies/historyABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The skull cult is a cultural tradition that dates back to at least Neolithic times. Its main manifestations are trophy heads, skull masks, moulded skulls and shrunken heads. The article reviews the skull cult in both pre-Columbian America and the ethnographic present from a neuro-anthropological perspective. DEVELOPMENT: The tradition of shaping and painting the skulls of ancestors goes back to the Indo-European Neolithic period (Natufian culture and Gobekli Tepe). In Mesoamerica, post-mortem decapitation was the first step of a mortuary treatment that resulted in a trophy head, a skull for the tzompantli or a skull mask. The lithic technology utilised by the Mesoamerican cultures meant that disarticulation had to be performed in several stages. Tzompantli is a term that refers both to a construction where the heads of victims were kept and to the actual skulls themselves. Skull masks are skulls that have been artificially modified in order to separate and decorate the facial part; they have been found in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. The existence of trophy heads is well documented by means of iconographic representations on ceramic ware and textiles belonging to the Paraca, Nazca and Huari cultures of Peru. The Mundurucu Indians of Brazil and the Shuar or Jivaroan peoples of Amazonian Ecuador have maintained this custom down to the present day. The Shuar also shrink heads (tzantzas) in a ritual process. Spanish chroniclers such as Fray Toribio de Benavente 'Motolinia' and Gaspar de Carvajal spoke of these practices. CONCLUSIONS: In pre-Columbian America, the tradition of decapitating warriors in order to obtain trophy heads was a wide-spread and highly developed practice.
Subject(s)
Ceremonial Behavior , Decapitation/history , Head , Indians, Central American/history , Indians, South American/history , Anthropology, Cultural , Art/history , Central America , Decapitation/ethnology , Funeral Rites/history , History, 15th Century , History, 16th Century , History, 21st Century , History, Ancient , Humans , Magic/history , Magic/psychology , Mandible , Masks/history , Preservation, Biological/methods , Skull , South America , WarfareABSTRACT
Based on the analysis of shrunken heads referred to our forensic laboratory for anthropological expertise, and data from both anthropological and medical literature, we propose a complete forensic procedure for the analysis of such pieces. A list of 14 original morphological criteria has been developed, based on the global aspect, color, physical deformation, anatomical details, and eventual associated material (wood, vegetal fibers, sand, charcoals, etc.). Such criteria have been tested on a control sample of 20 tsantsa (i.e. shrunken heads from the Jivaro or Shuar tribes of South America). Further complementary analyses are described such as CT-scan and microscopic examination. Such expertise is more and more asked to forensic anthropologists and practitioners in a context of global repatriation of human artifacts to native communities.
Subject(s)
Ceremonial Behavior , Decapitation/history , Head , Anthropology, Cultural , Ecuador , Ethnicity , Forensic Anthropology , History, 17th Century , History, 18th Century , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , Indians, South American , Magic/history , Peru , Preservation, Biological/methods , WarfareABSTRACT
O presente artigo objetiva discutir a crença e o consenso emtorno da ideia partilhada, entre aqueles que viveram nas Minas no curso doséculo XVIII, de que determinados indivíduos poderiam, por meio de feitiços,provocar uma série de males. Assim, as doenças de feitiço, conformeaparecem na documentação compulsada, pareciam bastante assíduas.Procurei igualmente analisar como eram descritos tais achaques provocadospelos feitiços: tolhimentos, dores, ligamentos, dentre outros. Estes se faziampresentes tanto nas denúncias levadas ao conhecimento de membros doclero no curso das devassas eclesiásticas (documentação sob a guardado Arquivo Eclesiástico da Arquidiocese de Mariana) como em tratadosmédicos publicados, sobretudo, nas primeiras décadas do setecentos. (AU)
Subject(s)
History, 18th Century , History of Medicine , Disease , Witchcraft/history , Magic/history , BrazilABSTRACT
The article analyzes the role of healing agents played by practitioners of magic and witchcraft in Mato Grosso society during the 17th century. It observes that magic and witchcraft were developed as competitors, alternatives or associated with other forms of healing (official and lay). It points out how such roles contributed to the process of subjugating its practitioners, especially Africans, Indians and their descendents, and were appropriated as an opportunity for survival in the colonial slave society. The pastoral visit made by Bruno Pinna in 1785 to Cuiabá and nearby areas served as the principal source of knowledge regarding the practices and practitioners of magic and witchcraft.
Subject(s)
Magic/history , Medicine, Traditional/history , Witchcraft/history , Brazil , History, 17th Century , Humans , Shamanism/historyABSTRACT
Analisa papel de agentes de cura exercido pelos praticantes de magia e feitiçaria na sociedade mato-grossense do século XVIII. Observa que magia e feitiçaria foram desenvolvidas como concorrentes, alternativas ou associadas a outras formas de cura (oficiais e leigas). Aponta que tais papéis contribuíram no processo de sujeição de seus praticantes, em especial africanos, indígenas e seus descendentes, e foram apropriados como oportunidade de sobrevivência na sociedade colonial escravista. A visita pastoral realizada por Bruno Pinna em 1785 a Cuiabá e adjacências serviu como fonte principal para o conhecimento das práticas e dos praticantes de magia e feitiçaria.
The article analyzes the role of healing agents played by practitioners of magic and witchcraft in Mato Grosso society during the 17th century. It observes that magic and witchcraft were developed as competitors, alternatives or associated with other forms of healing (official and lay). It points out how such roles contributed to the process of subjugating its practitioners, especially Africans, Indians and their descendents, and were appropriated as an opportunity for survival in the colonial slave society. The pastoral visit made by Bruno Pinna in 1785 to Cuiabá and nearby areas served as the principal source of knowledge regarding the practices and practitioners of magic and witchcraft.
Subject(s)
History, 17th Century , Humans , Magic/history , Medicine, Traditional/history , Witchcraft/history , Brazil , Shamanism/historyABSTRACT
Analisa papel de agentes de cura exercido pelos praticantes de magia e feitiçaria na sociedade mato-grossense do século XVIII. Observa que magia e feitiçaria foram desenvolvidas como concorrentes, alternativas ou associadas a outras formas de cura (oficiais e leigas). Aponta que tais papéis contribuíram no processo de sujeição de seus praticantes, em especial africanos, indígenas e seus descendentes, e foram apropriados como oportunidade de sobrevivência na sociedade colonial escravista. A visita pastoral realizada por Bruno Pinna em 1785 a Cuiabá e adjacências serviu como fonte principal para o conhecimento das práticas e dos praticantes de magia e feitiçaria.(AU)
Subject(s)
History, 18th Century , History of Medicine , Magic/history , Witchcraft/history , Homeopathic Cure/history , Medicine, Traditional/history , BrazilABSTRACT
The prehispanic medicines of Mexico are considered as testimony of the splendor of the Meso-American cultures; their great scientific advance and technical allowed them to accumulate a vast collection of clinical and pathological data based on the observation and experimentation. They integrated a nomenclature medical surgical that reflected their advance in those fields of the knowledge, where the anatomy and surgery occupied a preponderant paper. The medicine was known generically as ticiotl, of where it derives the term tícitl for the doctor. In their concept health-illness the limits among the magic, religion and the empiricism for natural causes were not clear, therefore they considered that the divine, human or natural origin of the illnesses influenced in an important way in its nature. Inside this complex causal system, the illnesses caused by the gods, spirits and celestial beings were considered as hot, while those caused by beings of the other realm were cold. The practice of the medicine had a very established organization designing a very advanced system of specialties that allowed them to accumulate a vast experience for the handling of chronic and acute illnesses in different progression phases, which managed with an integral therapy that had a plurality of resources of vegetable origin, animal, and mineral. The surgery was designated as texoxotlaliztli and its cures tepatiliztli. The surgeon was designated as texoxotlaticitl and it developed advanced techniques in the handling of sutures, wounded, drainage of abscesses, fractures and joint dislocations, pterygium, tonsillitis, circumcision, and amputations.
Subject(s)
General Surgery/history , Medicine, Traditional/history , Female , History, 16th Century , History, Ancient , Humans , Indians, North American/history , Magic/history , Male , Mexico , Phytotherapy/history , Religion and Medicine , Wounds and Injuries/history , Wounds and Injuries/surgery , Wounds and Injuries/therapyABSTRACT
A força da tradição é capaz de preservar costumes que caminham na contramão da trajetória sociocultural das populações urbanas atuais. Costumes como os rituais de sacrifício, apesar de muitas vezes condenados pela sociedade e de terem sofrido um sincretismo adaptativo, ainda guardam elementos tradicionais, confirmando sua importância como mediadores entre os mundos natural e sobrenatural. Um bom exemplo são as lutas rituais Tinku, identificadas em amostras esqueléticas pré-colombianas provenientes do deserto de Atacama, Chile, e que ainda persistem entre grupos andinos, com uma abrangência temporal de pelo menos 1.200 anos. O objetivo principal dessa luta é provocar o sangramento e a morte de seus participantes, oferecidos à divindade Pachamama para propiciar a fertilidade da terra e dos animais. Os rituais de sacrifício, como símbolos de identidade social, nos ajudam a conhecer melhor o ethos de sociedades passadas e atuais.
The power of tradition is capable of preserving customs that go counter to the social and cultural trends in today's urban centers. Though customs such as rites of sacrifice are often condemned by society and have undergone an adaptive syncretism, they still preserve ancient traditional elements that underline their importance as mediators between the natural and supernatural worlds. A good example of this is the Tinku ritual fight, identified in samples of Pre-Columbian skeletons from the Atacama desert in Chile, which continues to this day amongst Andean groups, having survived for at least 1,200 years. The main objective in this fight is that the participants bleed to death as offerings to the divinity, Pachamama, to assure the fertility of the land and the animals. When rites of sacrifice are understood as symbols of social identity, they give us a better understanding of the ethos of past and present societies, from a very particular perspective.
Subject(s)
Humans , Ceremonial Behavior , Magic/history , Religion , Indians, South American , Chile , Anthropology, CulturalSubject(s)
Child, Abandoned , Indians, North American , Race Relations , Rape , Social Change , Social Conditions , Witchcraft , Women's Health , Anthropology, Cultural/education , Anthropology, Cultural/history , Child , Child Welfare/economics , Child Welfare/ethnology , Child Welfare/history , Child Welfare/legislation & jurisprudence , Child Welfare/psychology , Child, Abandoned/education , Child, Abandoned/history , Child, Abandoned/legislation & jurisprudence , Child, Abandoned/psychology , Child, Preschool , Ethnicity/education , Ethnicity/ethnology , Ethnicity/history , Ethnicity/legislation & jurisprudence , Ethnicity/psychology , History, 18th Century , Humans , Illegitimacy/economics , Illegitimacy/ethnology , Illegitimacy/history , Illegitimacy/legislation & jurisprudence , Illegitimacy/psychology , Indians, North American/education , Indians, North American/ethnology , Indians, North American/history , Indians, North American/legislation & jurisprudence , Indians, North American/psychology , Judicial Role/history , Magic/history , Magic/psychology , New Mexico/ethnology , Prejudice , Race Relations/history , Race Relations/legislation & jurisprudence , Race Relations/psychology , Rape/legislation & jurisprudence , Rape/psychology , Social Change/history , Social Conditions/economics , Social Conditions/history , Social Conditions/legislation & jurisprudence , Social Dominance , Socioeconomic Factors , Violence/economics , Violence/ethnology , Violence/history , Violence/legislation & jurisprudenceABSTRACT
Mostra como os escravos africanos se dedicavam a magias e feitiçarias, também como uma forma de manter laços com sua distnate terra natal, tentando sobreviver e resistir às agruras do cativeiro.(AU)
Subject(s)
Medicine, African Traditional/history , Witchcraft/history , Magic/history , BrazilABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Artificial deformation of the neonatal cranial vault is one form of permanent alteration of the body that has been performed by the human being from the beginning of history as a way of differentiating from others. These procedures have been observed on all continents, although it became widespread practice among the aborigines who lived in the Andean region of South America. It has been suggested that the expansion of this practice started with the Scythians from their original settlements in central Asia and spread toward the rest of Asia and Europe, and it is believed that Asiatic people carried this cultural custom to America when they arrived on the current coasts of Alaska after crossing the Strait of Behring. The practice of deforming newborn heads was present in the whole of the American continent, from North America to Patagonia, but cranial molding in neonates was most widely practiced in the Andean region, from Venezuela to Guyana, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. METHODS: Intentional deformation of the head in neonates was carried out in different ways: by compression of the head with boards and pads; by compression with adjusted bindings; or by restraining the child on specially designed cradle-boards. PURPOSE: The purpose of head shaping varied according to culture and region: while in certain regions it was a symbol of nobility or separated the different social groups within society, in others it served to emphasize ethnic differences or was performed for aesthetic, magical or religious reasons. CONCLUSION: There is no evidence of any neurological impairment among indigenous groups who practiced cranial deformations in newborns.
Subject(s)
Craniocerebral Trauma/history , Culture , Indians, South American/history , Magic/history , Religion and Medicine , Skull/injuries , Adult , Child , Child, Preschool , History, Ancient , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Skull/anatomy & histology , South AmericaABSTRACT
This paper will explore the role and practices of magic-using folk healers - curandeiros and saludadores - in early modern Portuguese society. The article will examine the ambivalent place of the folk healer as a figure both central to and marginal in Portuguese popular culture. In considering some of the services offered by unlicensed popular healers and their recourse to the unorthodox magical means inherent in popular curing, the paper will investigate curandeiros and saludadores illicit sources of power. Further, this work will examine the prominence of men as folk healers in southern Portugal during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, by looking at the notoriety of Luso-African folk healers, the paper will assess the importance of race as a factor in the culture of Portuguese magical curing.
Subject(s)
Magic/history , Medicine, Traditional/history , History, 17th Century , History, 18th Century , PortugalABSTRACT
O objetivo é localizar o que o emaranhado de denúncias contra indivíduos envolvidos com práticas mágicas condenadas pela Igreja pode revelar sobre a sociedade mineira ao ser reunido numa amostragem de cunho estatístico.(AU)
Subject(s)
Medicine, Traditional/history , Magic/history , BrazilABSTRACT
A partir do título do congresso em que foi apresentado, 'Psiquiatria: da magia à evidência', o presente trabalho visa, de início, elaborar como se pensa filosoficamente hoje a noção psicopatológica de 'pensamento'. O conceito psicopatológico clássico que a mesa redonda comentou, 'Pensamento mágico: crianças, povos primitivos e esquizofrênicos', está no item 'Pensamento' das funções psíquicas da consciência. Vistos os fundamentos do conceito de pensamento mágico, confronta-se com o que da psicopatologia clássica foi revisto pela filosofia, pela lógica e pelas ciências da linguagem (a psicanálise, a clínica atual e a psiquiatria transcultural). Conclui-se que o conceito é passível de refutação e marcado pela ideologia do racionalismo pós-Revolução Francesa que excluiu esquizofrênicos, crianças e povos primitivos, tutelando-os e medicalizando-os. Trabalhou-se que o pensamento destes grupos humanos é radicalmente diferente e singular e, insistir no conceito clássico, tal como posto desde então, far-se-á tábula rasa destas subjetividades humanas, com o risco de se cometer genocídio em nome da razão (AU)
Subject(s)
History, Modern 1601- , Evidence-Based Medicine , History, Modern 1601- , Psychiatry , Schizophrenic Psychology , Thinking , Magic/historyABSTRACT
Intenta una primera y general aproximación histórica a la problemática de las llamadas prácticas hechiceriles coloniales y su persecución en el actual noroeste argentino. Periodiza procesos y denuncias, abordando el marco jurídico en el que se insertan. Esboza el perfil de los reos sobre la base de los datos de la muestra, aún provisoria e incompleta, de la que dispone. Una suerte de clasificación temática de los procesos y el análisis de casos presentados como paradigmáticos tienden a complicar la homogeneidad del perfil de los hechiceros.(AU)