Religious “Cannibalism” in Brazil

Thomas Herrick & Connor Dickey

Religious “Cannibalism” in Brazil

The idea of a kind of figurative cannibalism between cultures, as defined in Oswald de Andrade’s “Cannibalistic Manifesto,” can be seen in Luís Alberto Pereira’s 1999 film Hans Staden. Indeed, the film explicitly contains and almost centralizes around the idea of literal cannibalism, but the idea of figurative cannibalism manifests itself in a number of ways. One of the key ways it does so is through the interactions between the two different religions portrayed in the movie. The “cannibalism” practiced here is more-so on the part of the indigenous. The argument can also be made that Hans adopted certain aspects of the native religious practices while he was being held captive. However, throughout Brazil’s history it seems that other religions, and never Catholicism, were the ones to “cannibalize” and mix with opposing traditions while Catholicism merely spread certain aspects of itself into other religions; staying quite essentially the same in its own European roots.

Concepts, Theories and Assumptions

Let us first discuss the religious practices of the indigenous. In many ways, they were similar to those practiced by North American natives when colonists first arrived there. It is essentially a polytheistic belief, comprised of many gods and spirits with particular emphasis on earth, nature, ancestors, and the stars. Witch doctors play a role in summoning and contacting the spirits, whether it be for religious ceremony or for healing the sick. In Hans Staden, however, we see an interesting interplay between the natives’ religion and Hans’s. Rather than rebuke his beliefs and ignore his God, they instead readily accept the Catholic God as a real deity, especially when they believe their misfortunes are due to Hans’s God’s anger with them. They even go so far as to ask for Hans’s God’s mercy from Hans in various points of the film.

It is apparent from the start that Hans is Catholic. We see him praying to God and, before long, claiming that his God is angry with the natives for holding him captive and harming him. In one instance, Hans remarks that the moon is looking down angrily at the natives, a sign that he is using their belief in natural deities against them. In this case, he may not necessarily have believed it to be true, but the natives did. Another similar case presents itself when the sick family asks Hans to perform one of his religion’s spells which would heal them. Of course, Hans makes up a bit of a silly ritual, presumably on the spot, to appease them and ensure his safety. Again, while he may not necessarily be cannibalising the native beliefs, he is assimilating to their culture through similar practice. On the other hand, a sign of Hans’s “cannibalism” occurs when he kneels down before his cross to pray for the rain to stop. When it does, he stands up and bellows out a primal call similar to one put forth by a native earlier when a tribesman and his wife had “been healed.” In this instance, he has not necessarily taken on the religious beliefs of the indigenous, but his practice of Catholicism has taken on certain elements of the native practice.

Authors

The film Hans Staden is based off the true story of Hans Staden, a Hessian voyager. His memoir gained widespread popularity at the time of its release (1557). Its mere title suggests something of the author’s attitude towards the indigenous and his experience with them; translated as “The True Story of and Description of a Country Populated by a Wild, Naked, and Savage Man-munching People, Situated in the New World, America,” (Staden). Indeed, his outlook was very ethnocentric and the tales he spread of his journey only helped these views to pervade in Europe. The publication is filled with woodblock illustrations depicting the cannibalism of the natives, among other things. This ethnocentric outlook fueled may have fueled the religious conversion efforts by the Portuguese in Brazil.

Perspectives

Hans Stadem portrays an easy relationship between different religions. The natives make no attempt to quell Hans’s beliefs or his practice of them, while Hans respects their deities and shows no intent to convert them. However, as we discussed in class, we know that the Jesuits came to Brazil with the purpose of converting the natives. This is a typical move in colonization efforts throughout history, for once the native population’s fundamental beliefs are in line with the colonizer’s, there is no religious war or strife to deal with. We see in Pero Vaz’s letter to Portugal’s king that conversion, whatever its end-goal, was a major concern for the Portuguese:

“For all that, the best fruit that could be gathered hence would be, it seems to me, the salvation of these people. That should be the chief seed for Your Majesty to scatter here...How much more so will it be if there is a will to accomplish and perform in this land what Your Majesty so greatly desires, which is the spreading of our holy religion.”

So, it seems that there is a history of religious cannibalism on the part of native populations and none on the Catholic colonizers. Instead, the European beliefs tend to “beat out”  the others rather than themselves in any way.

Still, we do see some resistance to total “cannibalism” in the time of the Afro-Brazilian slaves. While owners wanted their slaves to adopt Catholicism in its entirety, the slaves instead mixed it their own beliefs and traditions. This manifests itself in Boi Bumba which contains Catholic elements (St. John the Baptist), but which also contains pagan entities such as the witch doctor (Fryer). Boi Bumba and festivals like it remain today and will probably continue to be held, for as Julie pointed out, they are “very Brazilian.” While slavery-era practitioners did “cannibalize” certain elements of their masters’ beliefs, they still held onto part of their heritage. In the same way that Hans assimilated to indigenous religious customs but held onto his core beliefs, many natives and enslaved Africans took on Catholicism, but maintained fundamental elements of their traditional beliefs. In the words of Oswald de Andrade, “We were never catechized. We lived by a somnambulistic law. We made Christ to be born in Bahia. Or in Belém do Pará.” In essence, the “somnambulistic (meaning sleepwalking-state) law” is the “going through the motions” of those who adopted Catholic traditions but never in its entire essence.

Works Cited

De Andrade, Oswald, and Leslie Bary. Cannibalistic Manifesto. Vol. 19. N.p.: Latin

American Literary Review, p.g. 38-47. JSTOR. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20119601?origin=JSTOR-pdf>.

Fryer, Peter. Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil. [Middletown, Conn.]:

Wesleyan UP, 2000. Print.

Hans Staden. Dir. Luis A. Pereira. Perf. Carlos Evelyn, Ariana Messias, Darci Figueirido. Instituto

Português Da Arte Cinematográfica E Audiovisual (IPACA), 1999. Film.

Staden, Hans, and Neil LHarbsmeier, MichaelWesolowski, John Whitehead. Hans Staden's True

History [Electronic Resource] : An Account Of Cannibal Captivity In Brazil / Hans Staden ; Edited And With An Introduction By Neil L. Whitehead ; Newly Translated By Michael Harbsmeier. n.p.: Durham : Duke University Press, 2008, 2008. MU Library Catalog. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.

Vaz, Pero. "The Letter of Pero Vaz De Caminha." Letter to King Manoel I. 1 May 1500.

Hans Staden Paper

Stephanie Barth and Radiance Whelchel

LAS 204

Dr. Gandara

Due: 3/28/13

The Religious Messages of Hans Staden: The Importance of Nudity and Cannibalism

The film Hans Staden is based off of Hans Staden’s account of his real life adventures in Brazil in the 1550’s. Staden was a German sailor from Hesse who traveled to Brazil with a Spanish crew and ended up shipwrecked on the island of Sao Vicente (Hans-Staden-NYTimes.com, 2000). The movie was created in 2000 using the accounts written by Staten himself, which have been called into question by some scholars over the issue of his description of cannibalistic practices (Hans-Staden-NYTimes.com, 2000). Hans Staden depicts the capture of Staden by the Tupinamba natives and his life as a prisoner for nine months. There are several aspects of the movie which make it stand out from most films, namely the full nudity of the cast and the open discussion and depiction of cannibalism. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the role of religion as it impacts both of these aspects. Staden is able to use religion to keep himself alive much longer than he expected, lasting nine months until he is able to escape and return to Europe.

Religious Symbolism and Nudity

One part of Hans Staden which is rather shocking to see as an audience is the overwhelming amount of nudity in the film. It is unusual to see that much full body nudity in movies, but Hans Staden has it in the film to accurately depict how the Indigenous would have looked in the 1550’s. While this representation is important for cultural accuracy, it is also important to note that the nudity of the Indigenous majorly affected the first impressions made by the European colonists. In class we discussed what the bare bodies of the natives might have represented for the colonists, and even what they mean for the Brazilian identity today: nakedness can stand for innocence and purity, as well as honesty and having nothing to hide (Lecture by Dr. Gandara, 3-19-2013). This connection between nudity and purity is also made in “The Letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha” as Caminha describes his first opinions of the Indigenous he encounters in the first documented description of Brazil. Caminha describes the Indigenous as having “good well made faces and noses. They go naked, with no sort of covering. They attach no more importance to covering up their private parts or leaving them uncovered than they do to showing their faces. They are very ingenious in that matter” (Caminha, 1947: 22). Caminha then goes on to link this type of appearance to religion as he states, “for truly these people are good and have a fine simplicity. Any stamp we wish may be easily printed on them, for the Lord has given them good bodies and good faces, like good men” (Caminha, 1947: 25). When placed together it is easy to see the early religious and positive opinion the Europeans had from learning of the nudity of the Indigenous. As we have discussed in class, this positive view of the Indigenous was linked to the idea that these were the people of the Promise Land; that God had chosen these innocent, pure, and impressionable people to be taught Catholicism by the European missionaries (Lecture by Dr. Gandara, 1-22-13).

In the film, Staden is immediately stripped naked when he is captured by the Tupi (Hans Staden, 2000). Since the Tupi saw Staden as an enemy, this act could symbolize an attempt to make Staden more pure and open by stripping him of his sinful clothes. This Indigenous view of clothing is discussed in the “Cannibalist Manifesto”: “What clashed with the truth was clothing, that raincoat placed between the inner and outer worlds” (Andrade, 1991, 38). As we discussed in class, the view of clothing was negative as it was seen as a way of hiding what one is really after (Lecture by Dr. Gandara, 3-19-13). Although the Tupi were not Catholic, the religious idea of purity and innocence still applied to their actions. The movie does a good job of showing both positive and negative traits of the Tupi people. The use of nudity is a way of drawing out the positive side with this long standing and historical image of innocence and openness to God which is shown once the Tupi start to believe in Staden’s God. This belief comes from fear as disease and bad weather strike the Tupi and Staden is able to use this to his advantage (Hans Staden, 2000). The European view of the Tupi took a turn from the positive to the negative once they learned of the Indigenous cannibalistic practices (Lecture by Dr. Gandara, 1-22-13). Interestingly, in Hans Staden the negative traits of the Tupi seem to be shown through their cannibalistic traditions. The representation of cannibalism is the opposite of the representation of nudity as they show the two sides of the Tupi people.

Religious Symbolism and Cannibalism

Cannibalism is a main theme which runs throughout the entire film. Religion plays into this as it is depicted as the only thing which is able to stop the act of cannibalism in the movie. From the beginning, Staden is told that he will be killed and eaten by the Tupi at a feast ceremony (Hans Staden, 2000). This act is continuously delayed by bad fortune striking the Tupi people; first with disease, then with a never ending rain which is sure to make planting for the year impossible. Staden brilliantly hatches a plan to claim that he is the reason for these misfortunes because his God is unhappy that he is going to be eaten despite the fact he is not Portuguese, and therefore technically not an enemy. Another reason Staden gives for his God’s anger is the decimation of the cross he built (Hans Staden, 2000). Each time Staden makes his threats, the Tupi agree to treat him better and to rebuild his cross until whatever is ailing them slowly fades away. This continuous cycle eventually convinces the Tupi that Staden is a powerful man with a powerful God and that they should treat him more like an equal. This is shown through the relationship built between Staden and his girlfriend as well as his “father-son” type relationship with the tribe leader (Hans Staden, 2000). Interestingly, Staden eventually starts to believe in his own stories as his religion takes a turn from a cunning plan to actual real beliefs that God is protecting him. Staden uses his faith to keep his confidence during his dangerous nine month stay with the Tupi. Because of the delayed cannibalism and the drive which faith gives to Staden, religion is depicted in a positive light throughout the film as the only thing standing between Staden and imminent death.

Conclusions

The depiction of religion, nudity, and cannibalism shows that the film must have been directed at a non-Indigenous audience. The first line of the “Cannibalist Manifesto” states, “Cannibalism alone unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically” (Andrade, 1991: 38). In class we discussed the meaning of this line to be that cannibalism is a uniting feature of cultural history and symbolizes the mixing of the Indigenous, the Africans, and the Portuguese to create a Brazilian identity (Lecture by Dr. Gandara, 3-19-13). Hans Staden seems to have pieced together many different aspects of our class into one cohesive view. The religious aspect of the film, as shown through the nudity of the cast and the cannibalistic aspect of the plot, shows both the positive and the negative sides of the Indigenous people. Religion is depicted in a positive light as the savior from cannibalism, but we also see some negative aspects as Staden’s God is said to be punishing the Tupi with disease and bad weather. Overall, the film seems to give a well rounded perspective on culture through a religious lens as it shows both good and bad, though the prominence of Catholicism does seem to be aimed more at a European audience.

Works Cited

 

Andrade, Oswald, and Leslie Bary. "Cannibalist Manifesto." Latin American Literary Review ‘

19.38 (1991): 38-47. Web.

 

Caminha, Pero Vaz. "The Letter of Pero Vaz De Caminha." Portuguese Voyages (1947):

20-29. Web.

Gandara, Paula. "Class Lecture for 1-22-2013." Irvin Hall, Oxford. 14 Feb. 2013. Lecture.

Gandara, Paula. "Class Lecture for 3-19-2013." Irvin Hall, Oxford. 19 Feb. 2013. Lecture.

Hans Staden. Dir. Luiz Alberto Pereira. 2000.

 

"Hans-Staden-NYTimes.com." Hans-Staden - Trailer - Cast - Showtimes - NYTimes.com. N.p.,

2000. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.

(http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/206896/Hans-Staden/overview)