World Christianity and Public Religion

World Christianity and

Interfaith Relations

Editor //
Richard F. Young
WORLD CHRISTIANITY AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS

Copyright © 2022 Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights re

served. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this
book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from
the publisher. Email copyright@1517.media or write to Permissions, Fortress
Press, PO Box 1209, Minncapolis, MN 55440-1209.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy
Bible, New International Version', NIV". Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011
by Biblica, Inc." Used by permission of Zondervan. Allrights reserved world
wide. www.zondervan.com The "NIV" and "New International Version" are
trademarksS registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Ofice by
Biblica, Inc."

Scripture quotations marked (KJV)are from the King James Version.

iStock
Cover image: Aclose-up of multiple candles in a vigil by Tammy616|
photo
Cover design: Kristin Miller (series design by Alisha Lofgren)

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-4849-7

eBook ISBN:978-1-5064-4850-3
 CHAPTER7
BETWEEN TEAS AND PRAYERS
DISOBEDIENT NARRATVESINOF TWO AMAZONAN
ROOT HERBALISTS S®O PAULO

Sandra Duarte de Souza

THE INVENTION OF THE AMAZON:

«THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING"

"Itwas very difficult! When Iarrived here [in São Paulo), I was a girl. The school
kids laughed at my accent, and even the teacher laughed at some words I used.
One dayIcame home crying and told my mom everything. She said that they
didn't understand anything.... She gave me some tea and put me to sleep"
Flora was born in Manaus, in the Amazon.' Her brief time ar school in São
Paulowas anything but friendly. The treatment received from her classmates
All excerpts from the interview with Flora contained in this text are highlighted by quotation
marks. The interview was held on June 5 and 7,2020.
2
Presencdy, the Brazilian Amazon consists of the federal stares of Amazonas, Acre, Parí, Amapá,
Roraima, Rondônia,and Tocantins.
3 Originally, my field research would be carried out in Belém, in the state of Pará. However, all
a
Ihad was a first reconnaissance trip in 2019 and access to a midwife and healer, the mother of
religious
Pentecostal pastor, who established in her healing practices important dialogues with intended
that I
systems formaly considered different from each other. The trip to the intervicw
pandemic caused by the
to conduct was scheduled precisely for the period when the Covid-19
project indehnitely
new coronavirus affected the world severely, andIwas forced to cancel theFor this reason, it was
long-distance conversation.
Since my contact had no access to the internet for
knew Flora (a fictitious name), an
necessary to refocus the research. Through a personal contact,PauloI since she was ten years old. The
São
Amazonian root herbalist who has lived in the city of
interviewee's availability, and at her request
aerview was conducted in two phases, according to the the publication of the material as long
we used the video call feature. Flora authorized cxperiences that only
as her identityWhatsApp did not allow the sensory
was kept confidential. The distance Flora for telling her story andthat ofher mother,
to
physical presence would allow, but Iam gratefulessential proposal.
Rosa. It was a greatlearning experience:and was for redesigning my initial

121
 Relations
ChristianityandInterfuith
1lorld mother wisely said.
times. As Flora's
and hertcacher
was repcated a few "They
didn'tunderstand anything."
was produced on a colonialist basis
understanding of the Amazon Amazon that was to be
The
Eurocentric vision invented an rep-
self-referent stood out and, with small
The
colonizers and colonized. One narrative
licated by bodies. It was a unique
instaled in people's minds and story
variations, was
it proved to be credible and indisputable. In her
objectified tothe pointthat Single Story
Chimamanda Adichie
alerts
"Ihe Danger of a
TED Global talk told, who tells them., when they're told,
the way stories "are
usto thefactthat dependent on power. Power is the ahil:
really
how many stories are told, are but to make it the definitive
stov.
another person,
not just totell the story of
chat Person.":
colonization produced one single story about the Amazon
The agents of
territory that shelters diverse people and is still far from beino
This immense imagination found in the literature
known for itscultural wealth inhabits the
of an almost virgin.
and art of travelers since the colonial period. The description
mysteries and riches
exuberant, and sparsely inhabited continent that hides
the middle of the sixteenth
appears in the letters written by colonial agents. In
European
century, the Dominican FreiGaspar de Carbajal, chronicler of the first
expedition along the entire length of the known Amazon River, reports that the
encounter of then lieutenant Francisco Orellana with the Indigenous peoples of
the region in 1542 involved continuous clashes. The description of such clashes
appeals to fantastic narratives like that of the Amazons. Carbajal refers to war
rior women, "very white and tall,with long hair, braided and curled around their
heads. They have very strong arms and legs, walk naked, covering their shame.
with their bows and arrows in their hands, making as much war as ten Indians."
The history of the Amazons and the region's riches is also recorded by Captain
Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdés in a 1543 letter to Cardinal Pietro
Bembo. After hearing the narrative from Orellanas own mouth, the captain
did not hesitate to give written form to that account. Acentury later, in 1639,
the Jesuit Cristóbal Acuña mentions these women warriors. These and many
other cxpeditionaries were active in the production of the imaginary about tne
Amazon and the peoples who inhabited it.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "The Danger of aSingle Story" TED global, 2009, hetps://
www.Synezio
ted.com/talks/chimamanda ngozi adichie the danger of a
Sampaio Goes Filho, Navegantes, Bandeiramtes, single_story/transcrip
Formaçáo lDas Fronteiras Do Brasil Diplomatas: Ensato o
Um
6 In addition to the chronicles (Brasília: FUNAG, 2015), 169. In
the mid-cighteenth century, about theFreiAmazons,
the Carmelite José de S.otherThereza also reported.
Ribeirowerementions
"indings" in alerter
dated 1768 theexistence of"a
nation of Indians with a tail." EJ. de SantaAnna Nery, Land of the
Amazons (Le Pays des Amazones], trans. George 303-4.
Humphery (London: Sands, 1901),
122
 Between Teas and Prayers
Such narratives, fed by:this and many other
Europeans the status of fact. The act of quasi-mythical sources, acquircd
I
among naming pcople, watcers, and lands
references, as occurs with the
bascd on Europcan Amazon, is an
che colonizing agencyin
Latin America, an cxpression
affirmation its territorial and cul-of
of
rural domain. The sclf-representation of the colonizer demands the
ofthecolonized, and this occurs based on self-referenced knowledge. translation
would be,in Shalini Randeria's words, "the pre-stage of the The other
Europcan self" or, as
Talal Asad translates it so well, "ever since the Renaissance the West
has sought
both to subordinate and devalue other societies,and at the same time to
their own humanity."9
find in
them clues to
The notions of heaven and hell, constitutive of the European
Christian
asmovision, produced tabulous narratives about the existence of monstrous
beings,afountain of youth, and inexhaustible mineral wealth. Neide Gondim
caferring to the imaginary of traveling chroniclers, demonstrates char "the
eacred places of biblical stories were also constitutive of the construction of the
imainarv. The miraculous warer that prevented aging and the abundance of
gold and precious stones cherished the dream of generations longing for having
wealth without physical wear and living forever. Corporal monstrosities-men
or beasts and even lonely women, the Amazons and the race of giants--were
recurrent themes in this imaginary framework which does not end with the dis
covery of America.""10
The discourses that invented the Amazon resorted to this imaginary and
called for the exoticization of difference. The measure for the classification of
che difference was Europe itself. The assumption that what was found over
seas was something to be domesticated, since it did not correspond to the self
referring expectations of the colonizers, marked the colonial enterprise.
Based on the records of the expeditions and their publication, the conflicts
among colonizers from different parts of Europe over the domain of the region
intensified as they aimed to explore and appropriate the wealth described by
the Spaniards. The Iberian domain was struggling with attempts by the Dutch,
mid
French,and English to explore the Amazon,and this extended from the
authorization of the
SIXteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. The
Greek mythology and refers to
Ihe term Amazons, which will later name the region, recalls
the shores of the Black Sea.
scauctive and fascinating women warriors who lived in Asia near Zur
Anthropologie:
Shalini Randeria, "Jenseits von Soziologie Und Soziokultureller
Sozialtheorie." in Ortsbestimmng
Ortbestimmung Der Nichtwestlichen Welt in Einer Zukünftigen
Gesellschaftswissenschaften Betreiben Wil, cd.
D Soziolgie: Wie Die Kommenden Geneation
Ulrich Beck and André Kieserling (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2000), 45. Anthropology the Colonial
Non-European Rule;" in
alal Asad, "Two European Images of
Encounter, ed. Talal Asad (London: Ithaca, 1973), 104.
Paulo: Marco Zero, 1994), 34.
Yeide Gondim, Invenção daAnazónia (S£o
123
 Relations
ad Inteofaith
WorldChristianity
Portugalto dedicateitselfto che expulsion of
Iberian
who tricd
alliance for
to sertle in the Lower
its
Amazon
dominion
government in expanding the middle ofthe
over
ended
che
up
Amazon from
favoring
the
checoPompertugiutoesres
oftheseventeenth
centuryto
Portuguese crown for the
eighteenth century,!1 The
affirmation and Cxpansion of i
its
begjnobjninegc-
Amazon teoverr itSocasry.
tives of the in this dispute over the
territorial
Portuguese empire were consolidated
domination in the region was ensured with the establishment of
were the main chroniclers of
missions, and theJesuits the
the Jesuit
in chatperiod. Amazon
The frst records
Amazonian peoples, their social
about the
cheir habits, and
The Amazon
cheir belief systems were produced especially by ormigsaniioznaratiioen,s.
was told by them. Just as che first expedition to the full length of
what would come to be known as the Amazon River was attended by areli-
Frei Carbajal, whoconstructed the narrative of Orellana's expedition, the
gious,
other expeditions were always accompanied by a church representative. It is not
without rcason that the colonization of the Amazon hadthe religious as its nar-
rarors, Inthe service of the crowns of Spain and Portugal, the religious orders in
addition to making efforts to guarantee the colonial political-economic order,
understood chat they had a civilizing mission that involved the conversion of
Indigenous peoples, which meant the imposition of Christian cosmoloe
Referring to representations of the devil in the writings of the missionar.
ies working in the Spanish Amazon between the seventeenth and eightenth
centuries, Francismar Carvalho explains the civilizing intention through the
idea of aspiritual conquest of the hellish Amazonian paradise. The missionar
ieswould be the saviors of the Indigenous peoples, "who were chained to the
worship of the devil who used the shamans to promote all sorts of conficts and
damage."1 The explorers added yet other characteristics to this imagery about
the native population. Reporting on his trip on the Amazon River in the 1740s,
CharlesMarie de La Condamine, aFrench botanist, characterizes the Indigenous
peoples as insensitive, stupid, fearful, and "enemies of work; among other
On this issue,see Tadeu Valdir Freitasde Rezende. "A Conguista e a Ocupação Da Amaoi
Brasileira No Período Colonial: ADefinicão Das Fronteiras" (PhD diss., University or Sao rauv
2006).
12 Francismar Alex Lopes de Carvalho, "Imagens Do Demônio Nas Missões Jesuíticas Da
Amazônia Espanhola Varia Historia 31, no. 57(December 2015):751. Here the emphasisis on
the construction of missionarynarratives abour rhe Ama70n in the colonial period, but
its
ant to point out the mediating place of the missions in this context. Cristina Pompa referstothe
missions as cultural mediators, the place of intercultural translation, demonstrating thecomplex
ity ofthe colonial "encounter" and the multiple agencies and symbolic recompositionsinvolving
this phenomenon. See Cristina Pompa, Religião Como Tradução: Misionários, Tipie Tapuia"No
Brasil Colonial (Bauru: Edusc,
2005).
124
 Between Teas and Prayers
aspects,l3 This imaginary about the native
population, despite
sensusanong the travelers, missionaries,, and not being a con-
explorers the timc, perpetuated
itselfthroughthe centuries. Albert Memmi shows how the
of
cion ofthe colonized as "lazy" proves useful colonial
to the construc-
lEnortrait as aworker wnle asqtality1ng the nativescolonizer, who builds his
as enemies of wowl, 4
the
From the
nineteenth,
middle
with
of
the
eighteenth century and especially the beginning of
of Brazil to
che opening "friendly nations and the lib-
eration of navigation on the Amazon River, the
region
increasing number of naturalists from Europe and the began to receive an
on some Brazilians also studied United States. In addi-
ethnography, such as the professor and poer
Concalves Dias (1823-64), an Indianist who developed research in the region.
Ae che service the Historical and Geographic Institute, Dias traveled on rhe
of
n:s Salimes and Rio Negro Rivers between 1858
and 1861. But it was nor
until the end of the nineteenth century, with the emergence of ethnology and
anthropology as disciplinary helds, that more systematic information was made
available about geography, Huviography, and Amazonian cultural expressions.
Ir was under the reign of Dom Pedro II (1840-89), aiming to
interiorize the
narion-state in the north, that research by foreigners on Brazilian soil received
incentives and economic support. His government was marked by nationalist
romanticism. According to Erik Petschelies, in order to legicimize and consol
idate his still young empire before the traditional monarchies of Europe and
respond to the demands of the Brazilian middle class for a national identity,
Dom Pedro II built the symbolism of the country based on the exaltation of
nature and the Brazilian Amerindians.5 Such a construction, however, did not
prevent the cmpire from decimating the Indigenous population, in both phys
ical and heritage terms, as well as culturaly. The echnographers of this period
developed cheir studies by responding to his personal demands and those of the
research institutions to which they belonged as well as responding to the politi
cal, economic, and symbolic interests of the empire.
Physician Karl von den Steinen (1855-1929) experienced this very situ
ation. Steinen made his first expedition in the Amazon region in 1884 and
published his studies in German in 1886. 16 He returned to Brazil in 1887
and followed the path of the waters of the Xingu River. Upon returning to

Meridional DescendooRio das Amazonas

Charles-Marie de La Condamine. Viagem na Anérica
13

(Braslia: Senado Federal, Conselho Editorial, 2000), 60. DoRetrato Do Colonizador, trans. Marcelo
Albert Memmi, Retrato Do Colonizado Precedido
Jacques de Moraes (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 200/).
Ethnography in the Context of the Brazilian
rk Petschelies, "Karl von den Steinen's
Empire" Sociologia eb Antropologia 8, no. 2(August 2018): 543-69.
zur Erforschung des Schingú (1886).
16
Duroh Central-Brasilien: Expedition
teinen published
125
 IWorld Chsttanity and Intefuth Relattons

Europc in 1888, he claborated on two workssthat resulted from this

"Dic Bakairisprache (1892) and "Unter den Naturvölkern
(1897). Steincn's two cxpeditions took place during the
period (1822-89). and the empire had an important role in
cxpe dit
BrLaeznitlriaalnbrasil en
on
it wished to cover and map the Amazon's territorial
extension and
imperiaa1
their
hnancing
control over the region and its inhabitants, among other
interest s. have greater
cntists obtained permission to make their expedition because
political motivation for secking future territorial t
cxpropriation
h ere For
waseigan clear
indigenous populations" on the part of the empire.' 7 and
control
Hence it
supplies, soldiers, and technical personnel to accompany the travclsalso
of
provided
,of
and his retinue. Once again, the act of naming asserted
Steinen
show deference to his imperial supporters, Steinen gave checolonial power. To
name of
ernor of the Province of Mato Grosso, Baro de Batovy, to a tributarytheofgov-the
Xingu River: Rio Batovy. He also dedicated his feld notes in
Brasilien" to Dom Pedro II. "Durch Central-
Karl and Wilhelm von den Steinen, Otto Clauss, Peter
Vogel,
Ehrenreich, among others, would influence the conceptualization of and Pa
knowledge and knowledge itself about the Amazonian population. forms of
inaryabout the Amazon would be assimilated by anthropology, sinceThetheimago
gins of this discipline were shaped by the European paradigm of civilization
Eurocentric anthropological readings treated the Amazon as exotic and stranoe
a land of primitives, of the good savage, of the uncivilized. Its population was
the "Other" to be srudied and civilized. The beginning of the twentleth century
brought to the Amazon more scholars interested in knowing and describing
the ways of life of the people of this vast and diverse region. Now the region's
Story was no longer told by missionariesat least not mainly. The emerg
ing anthropology took the place of (re)production of narratives about the
Amazon; however, the view was still influenced by the colonialist perspective,
which affected the very way it produced itsobjects of study. AsAsad demon:
strates when referring to the objectification of anthropological knowled.i
is generated in an unequal power relationship between the dominant and the
dominated culture.!9

7 Petschelies, "Karl von den Steinen's Ethnography." 553. of Wilhelm

18 The frst group of scholars who accompanied Karl von den Steinen was composed
andcartogcaphet
von den Steinen, his cousin, who was a draftsman, and Otto Clauss, a physician Vogel. whowas
In his second expedition, Steinen again counted on Wilhelm, inaddition to Peter
surveysand took
a mathematician, and the physician Paul Ehrenreich, who made anthropological
studiedfcld.
body measurements of the populations they met and photographss ofthe
Encounter,9-19.
19 Talal Asad, introduction to Asad, Colonial
Antbropology eb the
126
 Betwcen leas and Prayers
AT THE AMAZON: LEARNING TO
ALoOK UNLEARN
"Theythought that in
Manaus it was all jungle and that we
all were
ns
Anthropology forged by its relationship with
Indians."
be ignored in the way it constructed its colonialism,and this cannot
descriptions and produced its con
clusions about the societies studied. The historical
che emergence of anthropology constituted it as a conditions that favored
comfortable and reproductive place in Western power discipline that occupicd a
an impediment to the very structures, and this has
transtormatrion anthropological knowledge.
of
Divesting oneself from colonialist clothing implies
rhinking and the forces that maintain it. questioning hegemonic
In che 1970s, Asad had already raised this debate: "It is
because rhe now.
erful who support research expect the kind of understanding which will ulri.
lr confirm them in their world that
anthropology has not very casily
ermed to the production of radically subversive forms of understanding "20
The detachment of the main narratives that support
hierarchical systems
hased on ethnic-racial, class, and gender criteria has been the tonic of post
colonial theorists and, since the 1990s, of decolonial theorists who question
the epistemic basis upon which postcolonial studies itself is based. The expres
sion giro decolonial, or "decolonial turn, coined by Nelson Maldonado Torres
and added to the decolonial vocabulary, refers to "the openness and freedom
of thought and forms of life-ocher (economies-other, political theories-other),
the cleaning of the coloniality of being and knowing, the detachment from the
rhetoric of modernity and its imperial imaginary" The critique of the colo
niality of power isthe critique of colonialist epistemic universalism that defines
ways of thinking, knowing, being, and believing, perpetuating itself beyond
colonialism. Decolonial chinking explains the geopolitics of knowledge built
by colonial difference and insists on the location of knowledge and the authen
ticity of the epistemic agency of all peoples.
Decolonizing thought means going beyond the single history of hege
monic narratives, overcoming homogenizing discourses, and--fundamentaly
understanding that the coloniality of power, knowlcdge, and being crosses the lives
of colonized peoples and sertles in their bodies and subjectivities. Coloniality is
20
Asad, introduction, 17.
In Portuguese, we find two spelling forms: descolonial and decolonial. For some, the suppres
sion of thc "s" would be a way to differentiate the proposal to break with coloniality from that
related to the decolonization process.
Walter D. Mignolo, "ElPensamiento Decolonial: Desprendimiento yApertura. Un Manifiesto,
Capitalismo Global.
e Giro Decolonial: Relexiones Para Una Diversidad Epistémica Más Allá Del (Bogotá: Siglo del
Santiago Castro-Gómez and Ramón Grosfoguel, Biblioteca Universitaria
Hombre Editores, 2007),31.
127
 Relattons
andlnterfaith
WorldChrsthanty
matcriality of lifeand in subjective structures,
verifhedinthe
visualized bythe Eurocentric mirror} In it, multiple forms
of di storing the image
option domidemandsna
that is affirmation that the
tioninterscct, hence
Mignolos decolonial
sinceour (a vast number of people around
"learningto unlearn...,
brains have been programmed
by the imperial/colonial rcason"4 che planet
self-criticism of anthropology has made it
The contemporary
selt-representations that possible to
criticize thc very representations and invention produced
pologicalsubjects and "objects"
from an hierarchy che anthro-
and of
and the non-Western. Unlearning
what
the
has
main
been learned has
been theWeschaltern .
since Sources of
lenge of studies on the Amazon,
region were for alongtime the wricings of European
knowledge about the
colonizing expeditionar-
or those trained and influenced by
ies, missionaries, and researchers
references.5 As indicated by Cristina Pompa,6 the ethnological and European
logical knovledge about colonial Brazil was built on the basis of a anthropo-
framework external to this context, such as the conceptual
notion of religion, and drew
religious sources produced during the colonial expansion in the sixteenth andOn
seventeenth centuries in an effort to translate the native population for -l.
Europeans. This translation process, referenced in codes unrelated to thetrans-
lated, tends to essentialize colonial knowledge. The decentralization moven.n.
ofanthropological thought allows a better understanding of the translation pro-
cesses. This decentralization, however, is not simple, as it is not a mere movemenr
to change sources. It is about detachment from the colonialist imagination.
As we saw earlier, the imaginary about the Amazon is referenced in a histor
ical construction of this region and its people. Representations of the Amazon
generate familiarity in people as if they had already been there, to aplace remem
bered for its natural wealth, its biodiversity, and its inhabitants. Perhaps the
feeling of familiarity that one has with the Amazon, even if most people have

2 Anibal Quijano, "Colonialidade Do Poder,

Colonialidade Do Saber: Eurocentrismo e Ciéncias Sociais.Eurocentrismo
e América Latina, in 4
Lander (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2005), 126. Perspectivas Latinoamericanas, cd. Edgardo
4 Walter D. Mignolo, "Epistemic
Identity in Politics Niterói 22 (2007):Disobedience:
14.
The De-colonial Option and the Meaning o
Ihe term Amazon or Amazonia (Anazônia) in the
singular
vastness of the region is not just territorial. Samuel Benchimol also demands reflection. Ine
Lastern Amazon, Central Amazon, Northern Amazon. identihes eight subregions
Amazon, Amazon of the Highlands, Western Guiano-Orinocense Amazon, Soutne
limit oursclves to Amazon, and Pre-Andean Amazon, Dut
practices, languageshighlighting
and idioms.thatIninthisthis regard,
term issee
embedded diversity of lives,
Samuel aBenchimol, knowledges and
Amazónia: Um Ponco
antes e além Depois (Manaus: Editora da
26 See Pompa,
Religião Como
Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Z010)
27
Pompa will also show how the Tradução.
tion also
translated the translation effort was not a onc-way road: the native popula
European.
128
 Betwccn leas and Pvayers
chere. is in this permanent telling
never becn and retelling of a
construction of an imaginary that includes the idea of an uniquc story, in
the
chatisfullof
riches and, at thc same time, dangerous and
backward., enchanted place
anddominable population. This unique story continued to be toldwith by aFlora'
naives
colleagues: "They thought that in Manaus it was all jungle and that we
Indians."The Brazilian government's developmental policies from the
werc all
the idea that the Amazon was 1960s to
che 1980s reinforced basically a forest inhabited
by Indians waitingfor progres. This was che story that, in times of military dic-
tatorship.they also read in textbooks,, heard on the radio, and for those who had
television.
ond, saw on
Lor Flora, who is now sixty-five years old, her memory of her school days
was especiallyche memory of the violence experienced by being an Amazonian
São Paulo, because she is from aplace where the natives of the land are viewed
wich suspicion and contempt. Coloniality'srelations are also seen in the hier
archy established berween being from São Paulo and being from Amazonas 2%
The predominant imagery in Flora's school days places her in an unequal rela
tionship with the people of São Paulo City. It shows the colonial continuities
incontemporary Brazil. Her classmates from São Paulo City,or perhaps not
even from the city itself, learned the history of an Amazon fullof mysteris,
an almost impenetrable forest with dangerous waters, inhabited by "Indians"
ageneric term that hides the diversity of peoples, languages, knowledge, and
powers existing in the region.
fndio(Indian) is here acolonial category, and the meanings it carries affirm
an epidermal inferiority. In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, the
word indio activates the reductionist and racist imagery of a society built on
che basisof the dominant cultural grammar, asociety that activates the devices
of raciality"0 in order to forge the "Other" as nonbeing. The racialized pro
Cess of producing the nonbeing is the strategy of affirmation and reaffirmation
of being, as shown by Aparecida Sueli Carneiro," Thus, the racial difference
presents itself as a marker of power. The annulment of the "Other" guarantees
the existence of the racially hegemonic; therefore, unlearning what has been
learned about the Indigenous as nonbeings causes important fissures in the nur
turing and updating processof coloniality.
considered one of the
The city of São Paulo is known as the economic capital of Brazil and is
differen
most modern and developed cities in the country, a fact that has produced, over the years, Brazil.
regions of
tiations and hierarchies between those born in São Paulo and those born in other
Frantz Fanon, Pele
Here we take up Frantz Fanon's notion of "epidermization ofinferiority"
Negra, Máscaras Brancas, trans. Renato da Silveira (Salvador: EDUFBA, 2008), 28.
30 Concept constructed by Aparecida Sueli Carneiro based on the Foucaultian notion of°device."
31 Aparecida Sueli Carneiro, A Construção Do Outro Como Não-Ser Como Fundamento
Do Ser" (PhD diss.,University of São Paulo, 2005), 99.
129
 Interfasth Relat1ons
World Chrstan1ty and
"THEY HAD To
ON PLANTS,HERBS, AND PRAYERS:MEDICINE."
HAVEFATH. Ir WASN'T JUST THE
short. She left cven before
Floras school trajcctorv was
tarv school. For a long timc. the
shelving of books ncant
other knowledge. especially thar of she
the
her place of origin. Since n
compietingheincigemer
the Amazon. the "land of Indians," was often Flora wat
reminded of her trom
of "nonbeing Hence she
'resemble" the people of
wished to move away from her
São Paulo City, who, due to
roots and sought
coloniality,
conditior
or
themselves (and are understood by Brazilians from other regions) as a mode
of what it means to be "civilized (and part of humanity). It is hor ake
understand
but about being with those whose
ing like any "Paulistanian" and wa biotype
of life are close to the European. As Fanon states, referring to the
between Blacks and whites, "A black person wants to be white. Awhite
is encouraged to assume the condition
ofhuman being "32 persor relationsh1p
During her adolescence and youth, Flora was not interested in food,
customs, and other knowledge of the Amazon, includingher mothers reliotmusic,
medicinal knowledg, which was the object of constant family conlicts. The
daughter of a Catholic mother and father, Flora convertedro Pentess.
at the age of seventeen. The new faith brought some instability to the famil.
as Flora and her younger sister, who is also Pentecostal, began to criticize their
mother, Rosa, who prepared "bottled medicine"3$ for the neighborhood.
"Before. Iwas only ashamed, but at church the pastor said that this was witch.
craft, thar it was not from God. So we kept fighting with our mother to stop
making the bortled medicines. We were afraid."
The association of knowledge and manipulation of mnedicinal herbs with
witchcraft is another story learned and perpetuated over time. The abjection
of popular healing practices has marked the history of Brazil since colonial
times,with a long record of persecution of people accused of witchcraft and
even of inquisitorial visits with che purpose of identifying and punishing
such practitioners. During the beginnings of Brazil's republic at the end of
thenineteenth century, this became a topic to be addressed also by the new
political order. For some decades, there was a debate within different sectors o
witchcraft. As Paula
society on the legitimacy of practices until then considered
12 Fanon, Pele Negra, Máscaras Brancas, 27. wich
alcoholic ornot,
A
garaada(iterally"bortled") is aliquid chat mixes some sort of drink, bottledmediinc
different medicinal plants, and chat is used to treat various diseases. Some types of not regulacu
and
are administered orally, and others are for cxternal use. The prcparationis artisanal
by Brazilian health legislation. Even so, the bottled medicine is quite |popularin oursociety.
Reliqyianlak
*See Laurade Mello e Souza, 0 Diabo ea Tea de Santa Cruz: Fetiyd
Popular No Brasl Colonial (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1986).
130
 Betwccn Teas and Prayers
Monteroindicates, in addition to physicians, this debate
professionals,including representatives of the
Catholic involved different
at a decision abour the Church, whose task it
was to arrive
ament, it was widely-considered criminalization
self-evident
of thesc practices, because
that 'religion'... was onlv
the Catholic religion. The status of these other practices, which
chis model, was the subject of medico-legal evidently did not
ht
repression of the
controversies."5
practice of popular medicine served the interests of
denial andThe
given religion (Catholicism) andla: paradigmatic
scientific affirminga
ordination. Under the argument of Catholic morality and an
model for republican
free from "beliefs popular medicine was stigmatized. aseptic science,
The knowledge that involves the practice of blessing and the medicinal
use of plants is knowledge resulting trom amalgamated traditions--more spe
cifcally the traditions of the autochthonous peoples, quilombola traditions,
and singular and relatively autonomous appropriations and resignifications of
European Catholicism.* Thestigmatization of the wisdom of women healers
and root herbalists" by the hegemonic knowledge, wheher religious or sci
entific, highlights the process of the racialization of such knowledge. Modern
Western science and Christianity in its Eurocentricversion are the measure
of medical and religious knowledge and are sustained in the production and
reproduction of colonial difference, disqualifying and denying the medical
religious status of the practices of those healers and root herbalists.
Affected by secular medical discourse and by the idea that this is "greater"
knowledge, the knowledge that involves healing by blessing and the prepa
ration of botled medicines and other healing practices was and is still today
considered superstition. Stigmatization isoften of a religious nature, and pop
ular healing practices, involving more than the materiality of the formula and
evoking a complex system of beliefs, have been identified as witchcraft based
on a highly negative notion of what witchcraft would be. When affirming that
"the pastor said that this was witchcraft." Flora reconfirms what women who
are healers and root herbalists from different regions of Brazil report in differ
cnt testimonies. According to them,three insults are very frequent when they
are confronted by religious leaders or their followers: they are called sorceress,
Pluralismo Religioso No
Paula Montero,"Secularização e Espaço Público: AReinvenção Do
Brasil" Emografica 13, no. 1(May 2, 2009): 11. populares e pajelança cabocla na
On this issue, see Raymundo Heraldo Maus, "Medicinas César Alves and Maria Cecilia
Amazônia, in Saúde eDoenca: Um olbar antropológico, ed. Paulo Shirley da Silva, "Um cotidiano
73-81;Giselda
deSouza Minayo (Rio de Janeiro: Fiocruz, 1994), Remanescentes de quilombo
benzedeiros e raizeiros:
ado entre práticas c representações de (master's thesis, University of Brasilia, 2007); and
e Santana da Caatinga--MG/1999-2007"
Souza, ODiabo. traditional medicinc.
raizes, roots, for cures in
ginal term: raizeiras-women whouse
37

131
 andInterfaithRelations
Chrzsthanity
lirld
words are uscd as a way of
witch,and
macumbeina. Thesc
these women, l
and questioningtheir producing fear, dis.
medical and
of
qualifvingthe work hcalers are alsostigmatized,
but due to
gender spiri
Male
tualauthority. questioned.
0ssues, thcir
authorityisless and to the free exercise of
healing by blessing
The resistance to
agents of medical--scientiic popu
occurs both from
lar medicineafhrmation oftheir scientific authority in the instit
handlingutio ns
of plawho
nts
insist on the
and from religiousinstitutionsthat claim for themselves the title of exclusive
Melvina ArAraújo sums up this tension well.
mediators ofthe sacred.
agents of magical-religious
"The per-
healing has, on the one hand.
formance
vatedthe concern aggrathe
of the of religionstocontrol mediation with the divine and, on
other, the efforts of scientific medicine professionals to eliminate any magical-
the healing processes.""38
religious character from
The use of medicinal plantsis reported in different societies. In Brazil, the
colonizers documented the usethat the native population made of some herbs
to heal wounds and diseases. European travelers, missionaries, and naturalists
were also interestedin botany and the healing power of plants. Knowledge
about natural medicine also increased with the presence, due to slavery o
Africans in Brazil. Despite the existence of the intense scientific work of
loging Brazilian fora, it was only very recendiy that people sought to work in
amore systematic way with popular knowledge about plants. However, this is
srill done from asalvationist perspective, which, despite being well intentioned.
bears the mark of the superiority of scientific knowledge, which aims to "teach
the right way' to prepare natural remedies. The point is that when we refer
to medicine practiced by healers, we are dealing wich a more complex uni
verse. It is not just about knowledgeof the properties of each plant that is used.
The cure is possible because healers promote the intermediation between the
human and the sacred world. By disconnecting the knowledge about the heal
ing properties of plants from the cosmologies that surround this knowledge,
people break with the harmony of the healing process, which is directly
to the supernatural authority of the healer, her related
knowledge
plants, and the faith of those who seck her help, In Flora's
of the secrets of
to our home because they words, "People came
knew that my mother was spiritual....They had to
have faith. It wasn't just the
medicine."
Rosa was a native of
Lábrea. She was a Catholic, a midwife, and a healer.
Lábreaissaa city in the interior of
since its founding in 1881. the Amazon with a strong Catholichealer presence
Rosas mother was also a midwife and a and
3 Melvina A.
M.(Melvina Afra
Atelie Editorial, 2002), 126. Mendes de) Araújo, LDas Ervas Medicinais å Fitoterapia(Cotia:

132
 Between Teas and Prayers
|her knowledge
passed onto her daughter, who learnced how to deliver babies
bottled
and make prayers,teas, and medicines. According to Flora, the public
health system
tn rhe region where they lived was very
precarious, and peopleof
dro Rosa to take care of everything trom small injuries to the delivery
babies.In addition, the natural resources available for the
collection plantsof
bottled medicines favored the
for teasand elaboration
of a great diversity of
medicines. When they moved to Manaus, the capital of the state of
Amazônia,
cverything changed. The city was bigger, the neighborhood was unknown, the
workc of midwives was no longer in demand. and the natural resources were no
longer at hand as in Lábrea.
Bosa had to adapt herself. The preparation of bottled medicines did not
involve exclusively the manipulation of herbs. Rosa was ahealer. The whole
process, from the choice of plants to the consumption of the bortle, involved a
whole ritual that needed to be observed, thus guaranteeing the effectiveness of
-he medicine. Flora says her mother was "oneof those who prayed every day..
She was a midwife and praying woman, but when she went to live in Manaus
with my father, she did not deliver anymore. She just prayed and made a
few bottled medicines." Flora has some memory fragmentsfrom that time in
Manaus. She was still achild, but she remembers that the house was always busy.
The big change in the family's life occurred when her facher decided to
look for work in São Paulo in 1965: "Then everyone came here, my father, my
mother, me and my sister. .At that time there were only the two of us. Then
here in São Paulo, my brother was born." The decision to move to São Paulo
was related to the fact that Floras uncle, her father's brother, had already lived
in the city for some years. The family lived for acertain period in that relative's
house and then rented a house in the same neighborhood. Once again, Rosa
had to reinvent herself. Among che few belongings she had brought from the
Amazon, a bag of plants was her most precious treasure. This is the memory
that she made apoint of telling her daughters, her son, and later her grandchil
dren: "She always said thar she had carried her pharmacy from Manaus to São
Paulo. My mother never tired of telling that."
The medicinal plants would be the great link between Flora's family and
the neighborhood. In São Paulo, people from certain Brazilian regions are con
centrated in certain neighborhoods. This is because an important network of
SOndarity is created among people from the same region that facilitates facing
the difficulties resulcing from change. Mutual support among people from the
same region not only was essential for the first months of adaptation for Flora's
realized
ybut, as she reports, is so today. After some time, the neighbors
hat Kosa was a healer and began looking for her to ask for prayers and also
133
 Christiamity andlnterfaith Relations
World
otherremedies. Asthe demand increased,
recipesfor teas and donated. she
paringbottled medicines again. Initially,she the medicine. started
! pr
more peoplPeoeplebeganjx
fill withche medicinal drink. Later,
had to bring a bortleto bottled medicines, and she started
interested in her to
toappear
inexchangefor the
medicines and also money,
longer
since
enough
the
to
plants
meet she
the
receive
had in
gifts
smallbackyard of her house were no the
rhe neighborhood. It was necessary to purcnase some ingredients
atdof demand of
medicines were intended for the treatment of
at the market. The
lems: "Mother used to
make bottledImedicines for coughs, for several
urine prob-
for worms, for the uterus, evento get
pregnant....1I only
remember herintection,
women and children." treating
Rosas medical-religious authority was recognized by the people who
sought her, but this did not save from being called a witch and a
her
by other people in the surroundingarcas, especially by some evangelicals macumbeira
case in question, sorceress and macumbeira were words that activated the colo-
nial imagery of Rosa's accusers and that they used as resources for disounl:C
rion. accusation, and association with demonic forces. The enemy's producrion
takes place once again on a colonial basis. Rosa was an Amazonian wOman mdl.
medical power that was afit neither for modern science nor for religious
power
subject to indoctrination and discipline by the leaders of Christian churrhes
(Cacholic or Protestant). This meant that in the persistence ofher existence as
awoman in a patriarchal society, in the affrmation of her geographic-cultural
origin, in the insistence on maintaining her medical-religious practices, she
broke with che colonial logic that sums up the medical/scientific and religious
power in the generic, monochromatic, and monotheistic figure of the white
Christian man.
Flora, who had already suffered the violence of being stigmatized at school
for being an Amazonian, also lived with the dilemma of being the daughter of
ahealer and all that this means in people's imaginations. When her daughters
decided to become Pentecostals, Rosa did not try to stop them; she just asked
them to respect: what she did. Accordingto Flora, "She didn't like it very much.
She was sad but did not scold us. She only asked [us] to respect her git, tnat s
only did goodthings. But we kept asking her to stop doing these things.
Flora married ayoung man from her church, and this caused her to with-
draw from her mother. When she became Pregnant forthe first time, she started
to have serious blood pressure problems, andthe doctor prescribedabsolure
rest, as it Was arisky pregnancy. The fear of eclampsia andof losing the baby u
her to seek her mother's help wichout her husband knowing Rosa took care
of her daughter with teas and some prayers: "I was afraid. I didn't want to lose

134
 Betwecn leas and Prayers
Mother said she was not going to give me a
che baby. but Ihad to drink alot of tea bottled medicinc bccause
taking medicine, made from horserail, garlic,
I was She also did her prayers ...
and other plants. until I was fecling bertcr and the
baby was born well, without any problem."
This situation dramatically changed the course of Flora's life.
her, her mother was adamantin saying that now she was prepared.Atoccording
learn,
to
that
nowshe was "open." Flora had to unlearn to learn. Little by little, she
started to
getto know medicinal plants and formulas for preparing bottled medicine but
always hid this from her husband and the church

THEX DoN'T FIT IN THE CHURCH: "MY GIFT Is FOR EVERYoNE»

The coloniality of power constitutes a permanent process of subordination of
different forms of knowledge in the silencing of local histories. The trajecto
ies ofRosa and, later, of Flora are marked by this colonial insistence to deny
and disqualify knowledge that does not align with the dominant knowledge,
which isvalidated by science and institurional religion. The hidden pracice,
the insults, che repression at school, the threats from the church, and the disap
Droval of her husband are just some of the desperate manifestations of a colo
niality that depends on its reproduction to continue to exist and that does not
find that continuity in these root herbalists.
Rosa, despite claiming to be Catholic, did not go to church. According to
Flora, she said that "priests do not understand spirits and plants." It would have
been an honor to meet this woman who questioned the dominant understand
ings by saying that her daughter's schoolmates "don't understand anyching"
and the priests "don't understand spirits and plants."9 The pastor of the church
attended by Flora and her husband also did not understand. After many ten
sions, she stopped attending church, and over the ycars, her marriage broke up.
scientific and
Rosa and Flora resist the fractures of a colonialitythat constitutes
had to deal wich che
religious knowledge. These two Amazonians in SãoPaulo
São Paulo
colonial difference of being "from the jungle' ina 'stonc jungle: as difference
deal with the colonial
City is known. Two women who have had to
one that claimed to be Cacholic and
Of being women. Two root herbalists, religious
logic of these
another that claims to be Pentecostal, questioning the
Systems.
According to her, being a root
loday Flora claims to be a root herbalist. (benzedeira) has the orisons
healer
herbalist "is not the same thing as a healer. A
(prayers) of theCatholic Church. I don't pray!... Yes, yes, I say myprayers tor

ncver got backtotheAmazon.

Dona Rosa died in 2017 atcage eighty-one. She
39

135
 Relations
World Christianity and Interfuith
be healed, but it is not an orison. For Flora, this demarcation is
the person to practice: "I attend
healing [to everyone. I
important but not exclusive to her Catholic, if you are an Umbanda
don't ask if you are a Pentecostal, if you are a
everyone." She calls herself a Pentecostal even though she do
My gift is for
as a Pentecostal and
not ft in the church. Her insistence on asserting herself
cause embarrassment
her mother's insistence on asserting herself as a Catholic
for those religious institutions that do not see in these women the expected
obedience to their authority. In fact, disobeying was a fundamental movemenr
in Floras process, for only thus could sheunlearn to learn and weave new and
disobedient narratives.

136