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

44 Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
blacks did not readily attribute evil to the "devil," at least not at first.
And even if they did, the attribution could have signified hostility to
the new order.
Describing the Apo ceremony among the Ashanti, William Bosman
wrote during the late seventeenth century:
Conjurors and Miracle-Mongers are no strange things amongst
the Negroes: they firmly believe in them, but in a different
manner from our European Ridiculous OpinionistS; who are
persuaded no Conjuror can do any feats without the help of the
Devil. For on the contrary, the Negroes do not doubt but that
'tis a gift of God, and though in reality it is a downright cheat,
yet they, ignorant of the Fraud, swallow it as a Miracle, and
above Humane power; but that the Devil may not in the least
participate of the Honour, they ascribe it all to God.
[1967:157-58]
Whereas the Spanish ascribed it to the devil! Perturbed by the
purely formal character of baptism and conversion, which impeded
rather than sustained indoctrination, the outstanding Jesuit Father
Alonso de Sandoval wrote during the early seventeenth century from
his post in Cartagena: "They worship the devil. . . and when sick they
invoke the names of Jesus and Maria" (1956:71, 82). As for "Guinea,"
he writes, there the devil held such sway and had so many aides that
those few people inclined to the Christian faith died without remedy
from sorcery or poison. Yet, by his own testimony, it was impossible
to proselytize without reinforcing the pagan premises of the potential
neophytes.
The enforcement of Christianity entailed those almost insuperable
contradictions that made social control difficult for colonialists everywhere.
The authorities constrained or suppressed some of the
most public expressions of popular religion—for example, the feast
days and funerals organized by the black cofiadias (religious brotherhoods)
and cabildos (councils)—which augmented the solidarity of
slaves and free blacks, encouraged liberation, and maintained an African
tradition in the New World (Acosta Saignes, 1967:202-5; Bastide,
1971:99). Yet, paradoxically, one of the reasons for allowing the
formation of such cofiadias and cabildos in the first place had been to
further control over the black population (Bastide, 1971; Ortiz, 1921).
The scanty accounts of Christianization suggest that conversion
and consolidation of belief remained little more than a formality
throughout the entire epoch of slavery. Indeed, Sandoval (1956:198)
echoed the common observation that the slave owners regarded