I think we can all agree that Jean de Léry is one of the more culturally conscious writers/explorers that we’ve studied this semester.  I mean, we’ve come a long way from Columbus invoking biblical idolatry to justify burning natives’ sacred ceremonial objects.  As Professor Serrano mentioned last week, The Four Voyages is more of an egotistical self-ethnography than it is a truly useful anthropological study.  Léry, on the other hand, is able to weave into the main exploration/Villegagnon chronology a vast array of ethnographical observations about the Tupinamba people.

However, despite Léry’s comparably superior ethnography, he can never completely escape his Western Christian background.  This is particularly evident in Chapter Sixteen about “What One Might Call Religion Among the Savage Americans.”  Quoting Roman philosophy as a counterpoint, he writes, “Although the adage of Cicero is held by all as an indubitable maxim… I find myself at a loss in applying it to them” (134).  Léry just can’t seem to wrap his mind around the Tupinamba having a “religion” but not worshipping a god of any kind.  He does give them some credit by referencing their beliefs about the afterworld and Aygnan, but he still explains them through Christian metaphor.  It seems impossible for him to analyze anything about the Tupinamba’s religion without doing it through the lens of his own.

I do think metaphor is acceptable in defining something new, because, truthfully, how can we not?  We all use our own personal experiences to interpret novelty.  What is NOT acceptable is using personal experience to invalidate the experience or beliefs of others.  I can think of plenty of religions that don’t believe in a God-like (See? Metaphor! I can’t help it!) figure, Buddhism perhaps being the most well-known.  Religion is humanity’s attempt to explain the unknown; if nobody knows the unknown, let’s not pretend that there’s a right way of explaining it.