Os animais do estado do Grão-Pará segundo um manuscrito do jesuíta Antônio Moreira (ca. 1750)
Born in Lisbon, on 28 May 1710, Antônio Moreira entered the Company of Jesus on 19 February 1728. In that same year, still a novice, he left the Portuguese capital as a member of the 46th mission of Jesuits destined to the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão. He received the sacred orders in Maranhão (S...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo
2011-12-01
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| Series: | Arquivos de Zoologia |
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| Online Access: | https://www.revistas.usp.br/azmz/article/view/60057 |
| Summary: | Born in Lisbon, on 28 May 1710, Antônio Moreira entered the Company of Jesus on 19 February 1728. In that same year, still a novice, he left the Portuguese capital as a member of the 46th mission of Jesuits destined to the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão. He received the sacred orders in Maranhão (São Luís) on 15 August 1745, afterwards acting as a missionary in the Tapajós river and as a teacher of philosophy and theology in the Company’s college. Due to a Decreee of the Marquis of Pombal, determining the expulsion of the jesuits from the State of Grão-Pará, he was deported to Portugal on 28 November 1757, being incarcerated in the Fortress of Almeida, where he would die (1760 or 1761). Among the papers that were confiscated from him by the Portuguese authorities, was included a small essay about the natural products of Pará, consisting of 12 unnumbered folios, mostly dedicated to the vertebrates of that region. Now deposited in the archives of the Torre do Tombo, in Lisbon, this manuscript deals with at least 108 distinct animals (26 mammals, 46 birds, 15 reptiles, 20 fishes and one scorpion), a not at all negligible quantity, classified as "quadrupeds" (29 species), "fishes and marine animals" (14 species), "birds (46 species) and "snakes and poisonous animals" (9 species). Although his descriptions are frequently precarious, incorporating inaccurate information just from hearsay, the text is notwithsdanding extremely relevant by the passages dedicated to the biology, distribution and abundance of the animals mentioned, their use in local manufactures and importance as food or in popular medicine, constituting one of the few known documents written in Portuguese dealing with the Brazilian fauna in the 18th century.
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| ISSN: | 0066-7870 2176-7793 |