The Mandinga Experience: Illusion and Proof in the Inquisition Case of Patrício de Andrade, 1690

Abstract

Abstract:

In 1690, Capeverdean freedman and servant Patrício de Andrade was sentenced to exile by the Portuguese Inquisition for putting on performances of bodily invulnerability so convincing that no one could believe he had not made a pact with the devil. These performances, which he called experiências (from experientia meaning both experience and experiment), had a purpose: to demonstrate the protective powers of the amulets he made and sold, later known as bolsas de mandinga. But Patrício, as he sought to prove to the inquisitors, was an illusionist and swindler, whose experiences relied not on diabolical assistance, but on his own dexterity, artifice, and pretense. This article reconstructs and analyzes these performances inside and outside the space of the inquisition tribunal, showing how mandingueiros like Patrício both dramatized and promised a solution to pervasive fears around violence and bodily insecurity in Lisbon and across the empire, and mastered a vocabulary of experiential proof that, before the law, put considerable pressure on existing regimes of verification.