Deaths and Rebirths

Chapter 10, “Killing Zumbi (Again),” brings the narrative fully into the nineteenth century and describes how influential white authors wrote about African words, including multiple definitions of Zumbi (and zumbi) in a way that helped preserve a wide range of meanings while also attempting to correct, overrule, and narrow those meanings to their liking. The chapter is framed with two late nineteenth-century references to birds: one from Angola and the other from Minas Gerais. The first example gives way to a broader discussion of the Portuguese empire and the way that European authors who traveled to Africa shaped intellectual production in Brazil. The second illustrates the way that different meanings of Zumbi could combine and allow Black Brazilians to preserve and convey a broad set of beliefs and histories.