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Messianism and Protestantism in Brazil's Sertão

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Donald Edward Curry*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University College, New Paltz, New York

Extract

A “messiah,” as the term is used here, is taken to mean a person believing himself to be divinely called, as a result of a dream or a series of visions, to lead a group of people from some catastrophic set of conditions into a more perfect state of affairs. “Messianism” is a term used in a variety of ways but usually to characterize a religious movement led by a messiah. Sertão is a Portuguese word meaning simply “hinterland” or interior and is usually taken to refer to a region in Brazil known as the polígona das sêcas (drought polygon) which extends over an area of the states of Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe, Alagoas, and Bahia subject to periodic and unpredictable droughts.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1970

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References

1 Wagley, Charles, An Introduction to Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963 ), pp. 4749.Google Scholar

2 Research for this article was done during two visits to Brazil: a long one, from July 1964 through December 1965, on a National Institute of Mental Health Fellowship and a Public Health Service Field Grant, and a return visit in the summer of 1969 on grants from the American Philosophical Society and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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A complete account of the Fazenda Nova Vida is in preparation for presentation to the American Philosophical Society. Mr. Johnson graciously returned to Brazil in the summer of 1969 to assist the author in gathering data. He is anthropologically oriented and trained.

5 When Pedro Batista da Silva died in 1968 his lieutenants fought over who was to inherit the “kingdom.” A sergeant of police was beaten in the fray and solved the problem of succession with a submachine gun.

6 At the request of Antonio José dos Santos all of the names in this account are the actual names of people and places. Many of the original actors are now dead. Pastor Antônio believes that the publication of his story is a modern fulfillment of the prophecy made by Jesus to Mary Magdalene for having washed his feet and wiped them with the hairs of her head: “Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this … be told for a memorial… .” Matthew 26:7.

7 In transcribing the story from tape I have attempted to retain the Biblical flavor and the dramatic emphases of the narrative by using capitals in places and by supplying subsidiary information to the text when it was implicit in the context. It was obtained by interrupting his remarks from time to time.

The assembleias he talks about are not Assembly of God churches but small, local independent groups of Protestant-oriented peoples of Catholic or Spiritist backgrounds who have been recruited or taken over by charismatic figures.

8 One of the problems with converting money into U.S. equivalences is that comparable purchasing power is seldom specified, making the whole process somewhat invidious.

9 A cabra is the word for “goat,” and an epithet for a Protestant.

10 Antônio José dos Santos had been both a Catholic beato and romeiro. He had led a pilgrimage to Joaseiro and knew intimately the story and process of Padre Cícero's ascendancy.

11 Coronel João Sá is now dead. He was what Brazilians call a coronel de patente, or the equivalent of our “Kentucky Colonel.”

12 There is a distinct tradition in recognizing the differential status of prisoners in Latin America, as well as in the Mediterranean culture tradition to which Latin America is heir.

13 Fazenda Nova Vida has since acquired more land and fenced all of its holdings with barbed wire.

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33 Read, Patterns, pp. 128ff, 220ff; Willems, Followers, pp. 67ff, 83ff. A significant companion study for comparison with Emilio Willems’ data on the growth of Pentecostalism in Chile is Christian Lalive d'Epinay, Haven to the Masses (London: Lutterworth, 1969).

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37 This is the great hydroelectric project on the Rio Sao Francisco in the Brazilian Northeast, which is still in the process of construction. For an overview see Hirschman, , Journeys, pp. 5058.Google Scholar

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39 On the development of Presbyterianism in Brazil see Ferreira, Julio Andrade, História da Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil (São Paulo: Casa Editôra Presbiteriana, 1959), 1: 30-4, 37, 40, 46-8, passim.Google Scholar

An anthropological study of the agricultural frontier variety of Protestantism and an account of geographic and socioeconomic mobility among Protestants and Catholics alike is Donald Edward Curry, Lusiada: an Anthropological Study of the Growth of Protestantism in Brazil (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1968).

Crentes migrating from these interior churches carry with them a card to prove their good standing, and the receiving churches are supposed to maintain a file listing the originating churches. But I have seldom seen a large urban church which kept conscientious records, they tend instead to claim their membership as their own without much regard to the hard-working interior pastors.

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