Ritualistic disputes over dying and death between indigenous people and Jesuits in colonial Ibiapaba.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss about the funeral rites and the relation between dying and death based on the reports made by the clergy in Ibiapaba during the colonial period. Ibiapaba has the presence of various indigenous peoples,  French, Portuguese and Dutch people fighting, resisting and negotiating with each other in its past. The Jesuits also were active in Ibiapaba back then and the Capuchin tried to combat against the anthropophagic practices and the "beyond-death" visions of the Tabajaras (the main indigenous group in the area). The cultural clashes about death and dying also affected the healing practices of pajés/caraíbas and the European clergy who wanted to impose Chistianity upon these people that in a lot of cases understood those practices as death and not as improvement of life.