Objects of Catholic Conversion in Colonial Buganda: A Study of the Miraculous Medal
Adorned with an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other Christian emblems and text, the miraculous medal has been an important object of Catholic intercessory prayer since the mid-nineteenth century. The religious and social history of the medal in Europe is relatively well known. However, few sc...
| Published in: | Journal of religion in Africa |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2021
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| In: |
Journal of religion in Africa
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Buganda
/ Catholic church
/ Mission
/ Miraculous medallion
/ Material popular culture
/ Kulturelle Aneignung
/ History 1880-1950
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| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBN Sub-Saharan Africa KDB Roman Catholic Church NBJ Mariology RJ Mission; missiology ZG Media studies; Digital media; Communication studies |
| Further subjects: | B
miraculous medal
B Missionaries B Material Culture B Uganda B Catholicism B East Africa |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Adorned with an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other Christian emblems and text, the miraculous medal has been an important object of Catholic intercessory prayer since the mid-nineteenth century. The religious and social history of the medal in Europe is relatively well known. However, few scholars have connected the medal’s emergence with the spread of the European mission in the wake of nineteenth-century colonial expansion. This article uses the medal to shed new light on the material, corporeal, and gendered aspects of the Catholic Christianization of present-day Buganda, where it fulfilled a variety of functions for missionaries and Baganda alike. For missionaries it served as a key item for proselytizing and propaganda. For some Baganda, meanwhile, it played pivotal roles in a newly emerging form of local religious identity politics. Object analysis of an extant version from Buganda also reveals the medal’s material diversity and offers important insight into local agency in the reception and reshaping of Catholic objects. Thus when viewed in non-European contexts, miraculous medals were far more dynamic and multifaceted than has previously been understood. |
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| ISSN: | 1570-0666 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion in Africa
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12340197 |