Abstract
In this chapter we address colonial perceptions of African botanical knowledge and healing practices as expressed in the writings of two different social actors, both connected with the Portuguese empire in the Indian Ocean, both living in the island of Chiloane (Sofala, Mozambique) in the 1870s: Arthur Ignacio da Gama, a graduate of the Medical School of Goa (India) placed in Sofala in 1876; and Ezequiel da Silva, a third-generation Portuguese local teacher whose ancestors had first moved from Portugal to Macau (China) and from there to Mozambique. We analyze their writings within the context of the shifting European imperial politics in Africa and within a large-scale circulation of people, things, elements of knowledge, practices, and experiences across the Indian Ocean. They stand for distinct styles of circulation through the Indian Ocean: Arthur Ignacio da Gama was part of a flow of Goan skilled professionals who sought work outside Goa and saw themselves as part of a project of civilizing the world using modern standards, European medicine among them; Ezequiel da Silva belonged to the more mobile group of Indian-Ocean-born Eurodescendants who lived close to local populations and used local knowledge for practical purposes, including healing.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
There is a vast literature on the specificities of Goa—e.g. Teotonio de Souza (1979), Medieval Goa (New Delhi: Concept)
G. V. Scammell (1988), “The Pillars of Empire: Indigenous Assistance and the Survival of the ‘Estado da India’ c. 1600–1700,” Modern Asian Studies, 22: 473–489
Rowena Robinson (1988), Conversion, Continuity and Change: Lived Christianity in Southern Goa (Delhi: Sage)
Pratima Kamat (1999), Farar Far (Crossfire): Local Resistance to Colonial Hegemony in Goa, 1510–1912 (Panaji: Institute Menezes Braganza)
Angela Barreto Xavier (2008), A Invenção de Goa (Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais)
Robert Newman (2001), Of Umbrellas, Goddesses, and Dreams: Essays on Goan Culture and Society (Mapusa, Goa: Other India Press).
The ideological source of diose politics is expressed in Marcelo Caetano (1951), Colonizing Traditions, Principles and Methods of the Portuguese (Lisboa: Agência Geral das Colónias).
Claudia Castelo (1998), ‘O Modo Português de Estar no Mundo’: O Luso-Tropicalismo e a Ideologia Colonial Portuguesa (1933–1961) (Porto: Afrontamento)
Omar R. Thomaz (2002), Ecos do Atlântico Sul (Rio de Janeiro: Ed. UFRJ)
Cristiana Bastos (2001), “O Espelho de Goa: Paradoxos do Pantropicalismo Lusófilo de Gilberto Freyre,” in Brasil-Portugal: Entre o Passado e o Futuro—O Diálogo dos 500 Anos, éd. Amelia Cohn, Aspásia Camargo, and Boaventura Sousa Santos (Rio de Janeiro: ECM),pp. 133–148.
Using, as a source, the list of graduates provided by Peregrino da Costa, the combination of family names, and place of birth helps to identify the social background of most graduates. See C. Bastos (2006), “A Es cola Médica de Goa,” in Os Portugueses e o Oriente, ed. Rosa Maria Perez (Lisboa: Dom Quixote), pp. 167–192
C. Bastos (2007), “Medical Hybridisms and Social Boundaries: Aspects of Portuguese Colonialism in Africa and India in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 33(4): 767–782
C. Bastos (2010), “Medicine, Colonial Order and Local Action in Goa,” in Crossing Colonial Historiographies, ed. Anne Digby, Waltraud Ernst, and Projit Mukharji (Newcasde: Cambridge Scholars), pp. 185–212.
Paul Axelrod and Michelle Fuerchs (1996), “Flight of the Deities: Hindu Resistance in Portuguese Goa”, Modem As i an Studies, 30: 387–421.
See Maria Aurora Couto (2005), Goa: A Daughter’s Story (Harmondsworth: Penguin)
Angela Barreto Xavier (2008), A învenção de Goa (Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais).
Cristiana Bastos (2004), “O ensino da medicina na India colonial portuguesa: Fundação e primeiras décadas da Escola Medico-Cirúrgica de Nova Goa,” História, Ciência Saude—Manguinhos, 11(1): 11–39.
Engseng Ho (2006), The Graves ofTarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley: University of California Press)
Pamila Gupta (2009), “TheDisquietingof History: Portuguese (De)colonization and GoanMigration in the Indian Ocean,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 44: 19–47
Selma Carvalho (2010), Into the Diaspora Wilderness (Goa: 1556 Trust, and Broadway)
Stella Mascarenhas-Keyes (2011), Colonialism, Migration and the International Catholic Goan Community (Saligão, Goa: 1556 Trust).
Susana Trovão Pereira Bastos and José Gabriel Pereira Bastos (2001), De Moçambique a Portugal: Reinterpretações Identitárias do Hinduísmo em Viagem (Lisboa: Fundação Oriente).
José Fialho Feliciano and Victor Hugo Nicolau (orgs.) (1998), Memoria de Sofala (1790–1884), de João Julião da Silva, Zacarias Herculano da Silva e Guilherme Ezequiel da Silva (Lisboa: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses).
A. J. Socrates da Costa (1880), Os Medicos Ultramarinos: Mais urn brado a favor dos facultativos formados pela Escola Médico-Cirurgica de Nova Goa (Lisboa: Tip. Universal)
C. Bastos (2001), “Doctors for the Empire: The Medical School of Goa and Its Narratives,” Identities, 8(4): 517–548
C. Bastos (2002), “The Inverted Mirror: Dreams of Imperial Glory and Tales of Subalternity from the Medical School of Goa: Special Issue ‘Mirrors of Empire’”, Etnográfica, 6(2):59–76
C. Bastos (2007), “Subaltern Elites and Beyond: Why Goa Matters for Theory,” in Metahistory: History Questioning History, ed. C. J. Borges, and M. N. Pearson (Lisboa: Vega), pp. 129–141
C. Bastos (2007), “Medicina, império e processos locais em Goa, século XIX,” Análise Social, 182: 99–122.
Miguel Bombarda (1902), “Escola de Nova Goa,” A Mediana Contemporânea, série 2, 5: 93–95.
René Pelissier (2000), História de Moçambique: Formação e Oposição (Lisboa: Editorial Estampa).
C. Bastos (2013), “Das viagens científicas aos manuais de colonos: A Sociedade de Geografia e o conhecimento de Africa,” in O Colonialismo Português— Novos Rumos na Historiografia dos PALOP, ed. Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto and Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (Porto: Humus), pp. 321–346.
Joaquim d’Almeida Cunha (1883), Breve Memoria sobre a Medicina entre os Cafres da Provincia de Moçambique, offerecida ao Illmo Exmo Sr. Conselheiro Agostinho Coelho, Governador da Província de Moçambique (Moçambique: Imprensa Nacional).
A. C. Roque (2012), Terras de Sofala: Persistências e mudança. Contribuições para a História da Costa Sul-Oriental de África nos séculos XVI-XVIII (Lisboa: Textos Universitários de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian/FCT).
A. C. Roque (2011), “‘Breves Noções sobre a Medicina Cafreal do District» de Sofala’ Ou sobre o conhecimento que os Portugueses tinham das virtudes e usos das plantas e ervas medicinais na costa sul oriental de África na segunda metade do século XIX,” Anais de História de Além-Mar, 2: 228–229.
Paracelsus (1493–1541), quoted by M. L. Carrion (2000), Las hierbas del Monasterio (Barcelona: Oviedo, Ed. Nobel), p. 26.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2016 Cristiana Bastos and Ana Cristina Roque
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bastos, C., Roque, A.C. (2016). Medicine on the Edge: Luso-Asian Encounters in the Island of Chiloane, Sofala. In: Winterbottom, A., Tesfaye, F. (eds) Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137567581_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137567581_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-56269-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56758-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)