Overview

In Insignificant Things Matthew Francis Rarey traces the history of the African-associated amulets that enslaved and other marginalized people carried as tools of survival in the Black Atlantic world from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Often considered visually benign by white Europeans, these amulet pouches, commonly known as ""mandingas,"" were used across Africa, Brazil, and Portugal and contained myriad objects, from herbs and Islamic prayers to shells and coins. Drawing on Arabic-language narratives from the West African Sahel, the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European travel and merchant accounts of the West African Coast, and early nineteenth-century Brazilian police records, Rarey shows how mandingas functioned as portable archives of their makers' experiences of enslavement, displacement, and diaspora. He presents them as examples of the visual culture of enslavement and critical to conceptualizing Black Atlantic art history. Ultimately, Rarey looks to the archives of transatlantic slavery, which were meant to erase Black life, for objects like the mandingas that were created to protect it.

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9781478017158

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"""In short, Rarey has produced an important contribution to the discussion of the religious life of Africans at home and in the Diaspora. It is a book full of insights into both the religious culture of the Inquisition as well as that of the makers and users of the bolsas. Rarey’s attention to detail and the force of his reasoning about it is sure to be a starting point for further investigations."" -- John K. Thornton * International Journal of African Historical Studies *"

""In short, Rarey has produced an important contribution to the discussion of the religious life of Africans at home and in the Diaspora. It is a book full of insights into both the religious culture of the Inquisition as well as that of the makers and users of the bolsas. Rarey’s attention to detail and the force of his reasoning about it is sure to be a starting point for further investigations."" -- John K. Thornton * International Journal of African Historical Studies * ""Rarey’s examination of his evidence is fascinating, his writing, eloquent and complex. . . . Altogether, Rarey’s book builds on remarkable archival work in Portugal, Brazil, and the United States, enhancing our understanding of the ways in which enslaved Africans attempted to attenuate the effects of slavery and gain renown for their control of forces and materials eagerly sought by wider segments of society."" -- Rosa de Jorio * Africa Today * ""Rarey has written a study of amulet making that reads as a history of human flourishing and an archive of aspirations for emancipation under some of history’s most crushing circumstances. It will no doubt inspire scholars for years to come."" -- Joseph Hellweg * Africa Today *

Author Information

Matthew Francis Rarey is Associate Professor of Art History at Oberlin College.

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