O legado afroindígena aos curadores da Pedreira: pajelança em processos criminais em Belém do Pará (1929-1933)

Abstract

The article studies the pressing of charges of “illegal practice of medical treatments” concerning African religious rituals in Pedreira district, in Belém, north of Brazil. The analysis focuses the police actions against the religious rites of cure, named commonly pajelança by agents of law enforcement, in criminal indictments produced in 1929, 1930 and 1933. In support to the research, we examined writings by regional intellectuals published in the 1930’s, which created representations related to the pajé (shaman) character. The research embraces an anthropological attitude in the examination of criminal files, following the historian Carlo Ginzburg, in order to scrutinize the dialogical clash between accusers, defendants and witnesses around claims of wizardry and witchcraft. The enquiry on the repression against popular crafts of healing, of African and Indigenous heritage, pursues the conflict of senses involving subjects in uneven positions, who produced meanings related to the semantic diverseness of pajelança.