Heathen Sight and the Problem of Anti-Africanness

Abstract

In his 1615 account of the Upper Guinea Coast Etiópia Menor e descripção géografica da Província da Serra Leoa, Portuguese priest Manual Alvares described at length the so-called superstitions of the Susu, Temne, and other inhabitants of the region which rendered the Ethiopians in need of the light of Christian intervention. According to Alvares, their superstitions were those common to all heathen and paralleled those of the Moor and the Turk, heretics, and the Jews who resisted Catholic missionaries' evangelistic efforts on account of their incapacity for reason (262, 344-345). Consigning Ethiopia and its peoples to the realm of unbelievers, the priest proceeded to rally his fellow Christian brethren to the cause of enlightening those people who were bound to repeat the folly of their foreparents by adhering to ancestral traditions.