The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

CHAPTER 3
Slave Religion and the Rise of
the Free Peasantry
wo generalizations are necessary to any discus-
Ti
sion of black slave religion in Latin America.
;
irst, the whites were apprehensive of the superlatural
powers of their subjects, and vice versa.
Second, religion was inseparable from magic,
and both permeated everyday life—agriculture, mining, economy,
healing, marital affairs, and social relations in general. The Inquisition,
for instance, regarded the occult arts that were drawn from the
three continents not as idle fantasies but as the exercise of supernatural
powers, including an explicit or implicit pact with the devil.
The African slaves brought their mysteries and sorcery, the Indians
their occult powers to cure or kill, and the colonists their own belief
in magic (Lea, 1908:462).
The magical lore of the European was joined to that of the despised
African and Indian to form a symbiosis, transformation, and
adaptation of forms unknown to each group. This process was most
obvious in beliefs concerning illness and healing. The Europeans
had few efficacious medical resources, and their curing depended
heavily on religious and magical faith: masses, prayers to the saints,
rosary beads, holy water, and miracles wrought by priests and folk
curers. The indoctrination of African slaves by Catholic priests focused
on curing, which exploited the miracle-yielding power of the
Christian pantheon to the utmost (Sandoval, 1956). Conversely, the
Europeans availed themselves of their subjects' magic, which was
not distinguished from religion. In fact, the Europeans defined African
and Indian religion not merely as magic but as evil magic. "It is
in this trance," writes Gustavo Otero, referring to the first days of