"Já que a desgraça assim queria" um feiticeiro foi sacrificado: curandeirismo, etnicidade e hierarquias sociais (Pelotas - RS, 1879)

Abstract

On Wednesday, January 15, 1879, a slave born in the province of Pernambuco and who worked making salted meat in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, stabbed to death a freed African (of the Mina nation) who was renowned as a sorcerer and amulet maker. Court cases involving sorcerers provide windows into slave society in intimate detail. This article, based on an analysis of case studies, examines the relational field of possibilities in which captives lived, whether they were in prison or at work making salted meat. This kind of documentation also allows us to come closer to the market of beliefs and the role of sorcerers/healers in sociability and in contouring ethnic and social identity.

slavery; sorcery; ethnicity; social hierarchies; court documents