‘Caramuru’ and the second fall of the American indian

Abstract

America’s discovery evoked surprise and several questions about the notion of humanity, the meanings of History, the foundations of social organizations… In this line of thought many reflections arose (Thomas More, Montaigne, Rousseau…) making prominent the cultural differences and insisting on a rupture of perspective, be it to redefine the European télos, or to found their criticism of the Old-World. Within the Christian logic, to the contrary, there was a demand for the reintegration of the Amerindian to the sacred scriptures universe, demonstrating that God had not abandoned America – for He sent saints (e.g. Saint Thomas) and left many revelation signs –; however, the “American” or “Brasílico”, he was the one who had diverted from God and from the original sacred truth. Therefore, those who possibly didn’t live far from vestiges of the terrestrial paradise were submitted to a second process of condemnation, just as the Fall experienced by Adam and Eve. Perhaps the epic poem by Santa Rita Durão , Caramuru (1781), is the last example of this kind of reasoning inside the Luso- Brazilian colonial world in the moment that concept of “degeneracy” was being assimilated by the rationalism and scientific discourse within the Illuminist perspective and the civilizational politics of the 19th century.