Apropriações e resignificações do mito de São Tomé na América: a inclusão do índio na cosmologia cristã

Abstract

Since the begining of the conquest and America colonization written that Thomas, during the apostolic period, would have been sent to that continent to preach the gospel to the Indians. Everything indicates that the myth appeared by the joint between a Christian and a native myth. During the XVI and XVII centuries withthe arrival of the Jesuits this myth suffered new appropriations and resignifications. The aim of this paper is to analyze the appropriations, resignifications and answer the specific problems of each historical moment. The ways that this research happened was by documentary analysis and the application of the etnohistorical method in which Iused material and etnological source. Thus, it was possible noticed that there were essentially two different moments on this process. The first was developed in the XVI century, in which the supposed presence of the saint was used to include the Indians in to the cosmological Christian logical. At a second moment, in XVIII century, the myth was used like an instrument of Jesuitical selfassertion, in which the missionaries became the sucessors’ identity of the apostle. Although the main analysis had privileged the time presented, it was noticed that the process of resignification was not totally interrupted so far.