1. Introduction: The relic state
2. Incorruption (1554)
3. Canonisation (1624)
4. Secularisation (1782)
5. Resurrection (1859)
6. Commemoration (1952)
7. Conclusion: Xavier and the Portuguese colonial legacy
Bibliography
Index

This book is a study of the complex nature of colonial and missionary power in Portuguese India. Written as a historical ethnography, it explores the evolving shape of a series of Catholic festivals that took place in Goa throughout the duration of Portuguese colonial rule in India, which had as its centrepiece the ‘incorrupt’ corpse of São Francisco Xavier (1506–52), a Spanish Basque Jesuit missionary-turned-saint. Using a diverse range of source materials produced over the long duree of Portuguese colonialism in India, the book documents the historical and visual transformation of Xavier’s corporeal ritualisation in death from a small-scale religious feast arranged by Jesuit missionaries, into an elaborate celebration of Xavier’s canonisation organised jointly by church and state, and finally, into a series of ‘Solemn Expositions’ designed by colonial officials at regular centenary intervals, including the last colonial exposition of 1961 staged amidst Goa’s liberation and integration into postcolonial India.

The book focuses on six ritual events staged at critical junctures in 1554, 1624, 1782, 1859, 1952 and 1961, examining them through the use of Xaverian biographies, European travelogues, royal decrees and Jesuit letters, a state commissioned book dedicated to Xavier, Goa guidebooks, newspaper articles and medical reports among other sources. Due to its historical and anthropological breadth, it will appeal to a wide ranging readership: both those interested in Portuguese colonial history and Jesuit missionary history as well as students and academics of historical anthropology and ritual studies.