Manuel da Nóbrega’s information on Brazilian Indigenous religion

Record summary

Manuel da Nóbrega’s Diálogo sobre a conversão do gentio discusses missionary encounters and Indigenous religious life in Portuguese Brazil, including questions about spirits, ritual specialists, souls, and the conversion of non-Christian peoples. It is a useful early source for examining how boundary-crossing traditions were translated into categories such as demon, superstition, or natural error. The dialogue is overtly apologetic and intended to support Jesuit strategy, not to preserve an impartial folklore record. Its value lies partly in revealing the colonial process of classification and suppression.