A semiótica da fé: Manuel da Nóbrega e a conversão do signo

Abstract

This work intends to analyze the signification that Manuel da Nóbrega attributed to the indigenous he encountered in the New World and the echoes this would produce over time, leaving deep marks on Brazilian mentality and literature. This signification would ascribe to the indigenous an image convenient to the mission, starting from an interpretation of the “signs” found in the land and their habitants from a perspective based in the European Christian cosmovision. This interpretation would be radicated in Jesuit epistolary writing, shaped by the principles of Ars Dictaminis and by the regulations of the order that encouraged constant letter writing, which should edify readers, feed the information network of the Order, and reaffirm the mystical communion of the order. Thus, when Nóbrega came into contact with the natives, where he could observe the distinct contours of those societies, he instead noted ignorance, brutality, a lack of faith, literacy, and even power. The priest would ascertain that all these deficiencies pointed to a greater lack: a lack of God, and it was from this absence that all the others originated. Indeed, he noted along with his companions that those peoples showed signs of inclination to the conversion. Therefore, these peoples possessed a great void of belief, and there were priests present to fill it with the “true” faith. We will also analyze how Nóbrega had to reconvert his view of the indigenous peoples as his original formulas for “peaceful” preaching and tutelage failed, leading him to increasingly appeal for alignment with the violence of the colonizer. Our analysis also includes a traversal through time to perceive in José de Alencar's work the echoes of the signification that Nóbrega and his companions attributed to indigenous. Thus, we will analyze the presence in Alencar's Indianist literature of reflections of the perpetuation of those stereotypes that conveniently reduced indigenous for missionaries greedy to subject souls through catechesis and for european conquerors greedy to consolidate their dominance through violence. Stereotypes that diminished the culture and agency of indigenous that far from being mere elements of a distant folklore, has never ceased to exist and resist