Money and the Morality of Poisoning
(CSU, Chico)
This paper examines narratives about magical poisons concocted by an Afro-Brazilian sorcerer in Bahia, Brazil. Clients contract his services to avenge themselves on abusive husbands, expel unwanted tenants, and to crush romantic and commercial rivals. He claims the ability to chase people from their homes, shutter their businesses and even to kill. The payments rendered by clients help the poisoner to sustain his wife and children in the ever-precarious economy of the Northeast Brazilian interior. They also allow him to perform his devotions to the beneficent gods of Bahia’s Afro-Brazilian Religions.
Assault sorcery occupies a problematic place in the long history of the anthropology of Afro-Brazilian religions. The efficacy of poisoning may depend to some degree on pharmacologically active compounds in the poisons themselves. This makes it all the more troublesome. This paper asks whether it is possible to see poisoning as a moral act. Perhaps narratives about poisoning, such as the ones examined here uphold economic and conjugal mores and use supernatural violence to forestall interpersonal violence. Perhaps the poisoner’s art is a form of ethical practice that upholds the morality of Afro-Brazilian religions.