Martyrdom, Witnessing, and Social Lineages in the Tamil Country

This article examines the martyrdom of the Jesuit missionary Saint João de Brito (1647-1693) and the beginnings of his cult, at once embedded in the local dynamics of the Tamil country and extending towards broad imperial horizons. How did a Portuguese Jesuit, an agent of modern global Catholicism, become such a locally anchored figure? And how did the last moments of Brito’s life initiate a Tamil devotion that has lasted for over three centuries? A diverse array of sources is used to address these questions: the multilingual archives produced during early inquiries in support of Brito’s canonization (particularly the witness statements of his catechists), a missionary treatise in Tamil, and a life of Brito composed in Tamil by one of his catechists and preserved in a palm-leaf manuscript. Two conclusions emerge from this study. In the early eighteenth century, witnessing a martyrdom could be a means of acquiring a certain degree of sanctity, and thus a spiritual and social authority transmissible within family lineages. Moreover, by witnessing Brito’s life and death, Tamil Christian laymen found a way of inscribing their own lives into the history of Catholicism on both local and global scales.