Chapter 19 - Magic in the Postcolonial Americas

Summary

This chapter discusses the frictions that were created at the intersection of the imposition of medieval Catholicism. It talks about the incomplete evangelization of indigenous and African enslaved populations, persistence of indigenous and African religious and medical practices, as well as the latest frictions among practitioners about the direction that their religions should take. The first layer of postcolonial creole magic emerges as the result of more than three centuries of Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule in the Americas. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Inquisition in the New World turned its attention more to the political settling of scores than to theological heresy, and hence their proceedings became less public and dramatic. The chapter also discusses science and spirits, reflecting on the influences of non-religious economic and bureaucratic values on religious practices, especially those of consumer and welfare capitalism, in order to discuss the modernity of creole religions from an ethnographic perspective.