Like Fire and Earth: Cremation and the Christian Cult of Relics in the 16th Century

Abstract

The text highlights the clash of two entirely different ways of dealing with the dead human body in Goa in the sixteenth century, when Catholic veneration of saints’ relics met the Hindu practice of cremation. The arrival in 1554 of the first whole and reportedly undecomposed body of a Christian saint-to-be, namely the Jesuit Francis Xavier, must have been perceived as something extraordinary and shocking in a context where even in the second half of the sixteenth century the Portuguese had not yet completely succeeded in eradicating Hindu cults and religious practices. The text first sheds light on the antiquarian enthusiasm for burial customs that differed from Christian ones, then discusses three case studies from Goa, highlighting how objects can tell us more than can be found in written sources about transcultural negotiations in the contact zone.