Spiritual Currency in Northeast Brazil by Lindsey King (review)
For those fascinated by miraculous cures within the Catholic tradition, the pilgrimage sites that celebrate them, and the pilgrims who come there to testify to their miraculous experiences, this book will provide a very satisfying read. Lindsay King, an anthropologist with training as a folklorist, spent 15 years observing activities and interviewing pilgrims at the shrine of São Francisco das Chagas (St. Francis of the Wounds) in Canindé, a pilgrimage site in the impoverished rural backlands of the state of Ceara ́ in Northeast Brazil. She focuses on the votive offerings or ex-votos (known in Portuguese as milagres), artifacts brought by pilgrims as thanks for their miraculous cures. Drawing on Appadurai’s formulation of “the social life of things,” she uses these objects of material culture as a focal point for exploring the pilgrims’ stories, the sources of their ill health and suffering, the underlying belief system that supports their practices, and the aesthetics of this folk art.