Magic masculinities: magical-religious practices and sorceries in the ways of 'being and becoming a man' in Colonial Amazonia (1750-1773)

• Grant number: 21/05973-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2022
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Bruno Guilherme Feitler
• Grantee: Laís Prestes Redondo
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Studies on the phenomena of sorcery and witchcraft from a gender perspective are recent in the historiography about Colonial Brazil. As a category of historical analysis, gender theories make it possible to discuss the languages and relationships constructed between women and men in given historical events. Thus, during the visitation of the Portuguese Inquisition to the captaincy of Grão-Pará (1763-1769), not only women, but different men suspected of using witchcraft for their amorous conquests or for the purposes of protection and divination, attended the table of the visitor . In view of this, the present work aims, through the perspective of gender relations, to understand and analyze the inquisitorial processes of men involved in the manipulation of magical-religious practices. It is questioned how these practices allowed the construction of other types of masculinities in the colonial context, which fled from the models of a good Christian and husband. This implies also identifying whether there was a different perception when it was men or women who confessed to the manipulation of these beliefs and how the Pombaline government and the Portuguese Holy Office prescribed patterns of masculinity and matrimonial order in the colonial context through the regulations and legislation. Therefore, among the confessions and inquisitorial processes, obtained in the Book of Visitation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition to the State of Grão-Pará and in other documents of the Holy Office fund held by the National Archives of Torre do Tombo (ANTT), those referring to men accused of using amatory practices and similar.