Feitiçaria: Terminologia e Apropriações

Abstract

This paper discuss the definitions and concepts of the terms related to witchcraft and the context in which they arose, as well as their relationship with the notions of socerer. Initially, it is analyzed the essays of William Pietz, entitled "The Problem of the Fetish", this work has been published between 1985 and 1988 and discuss the difficulties of the Europeans in apprehend the African religious practices. In the same oeuvre is examined the appropriations of the word fetish by authors who lived in the age of enlightenment in occidental countries. The objective of this article is provide subsidies on understanding the African witchcraft and ritual practices based on historical data, analysis of ethnographic, sociological and psychoanalytic approaches. On the other hand, its keeps the aiming of understand the logic behind the way of thinking of West and Central Africa people in terms of their religious practices and the relations between this logic approach and the appropriations of western terms on their primary vocabulary.