“For the salvation of the brazilian indian”

history, baptist missionarism and cultural de-characterization practices in the Tocantins River Valley

Abstract

The objective of this work is to investigate, from a historical perspective, the forms of evangelization and cultural de-characterization practices adopted by the Baptist missions with the traditional populations of the Tocantins River valley, from the travel reports of the North American missionary Lewis Mallen Bratcher published in “O Jornal Batista”, between the late 1920s and early 1930s. The reflections offered in this study start from theoretical and methodological notions originating from the History of Religions, supported by contributions from Sociology and Anthropology. This theoretical and methodological slide is due to the need to use the notions of "religion" and "civilization" in a historical-religious perspective, aligned with the propositions of the Italian school of History of Religions. The encounter between the Baptist missionaries and the traditional populations of the Tocantins River valley generated narratives characterized by the attempt to deconstruct and eradicate a symbolic system - of the indigenous cultures and practices found by the religious - in search of replacing it with another Christian and Protestant, the from which religious agents would condemn in their reports the beliefs and practices of those traditional populations.