Shapes of “culture” and the sacred surplus: heritage formation and pentecostal conversion among the pataxó indians in brazil

Abstract

Exploring the emergence of two cultural forms among the Pataxó Indians from Bahia, Brazil—their recent elaboration on bodily adornment practices and the “rescuing” of their native language—this article examines the relationship between cultural heritage formation and Pentecostal conversion. Dwellers of the World Heritage Site of the Discovery Coast and epitomized as the Discovery Indians throughout the late 1990s, the Pataxó have been concurrently converting to Pentecostalism at an ever steadier pace. To the extent that each of these dynamics yields divergent bodies, styles, and aesthetics, I focus on the material interstices between Indianness and Pentecostalism: their critical conflicts, negotiated borrowings, and constructive convergences. I argue that while churches have been all the more seeking to incorporate indigenous cultural forms into their liturgies and doctrinal frames through a project of disenchantment, an indelible source of tension persists, a “surplus” resisting symbolic closure—for one can never be fully sure whether underneath the veneer of things lay “harmless culture” or diabolical power.

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