Sympathy for the Devil: Devil Sickness and Lore Among the Tohono O'odham‪.‬

It is unlikely that Europeans would have succeeded in the conquest of the New World were it not for the introduction of Old World diseases (e.g., smallpox, influenza, malaria) that undermined the structure and functioning of native societies. In 1492 the vast majority of Amerindians relied on oral rather than written traditions to interpret life and its mysteries. The death of countless elders--the main bearers of Indian culture--created a window of opportunity for the invaders, including Mendicant and Jesuit missionaries, who popularized alternative narratives about the known and invisible worlds (Burkhart 1989; MacCormack 1991; Reff 2005). Along with the Gospels, the friars and black robes insisted on a myth of a fallen angel who was cast from paradise to earth--there to wage a war against the one true God for the souls of humankind. Paradoxically, Satan was powerful yet powerless: while he had no power of compulsion, he was capable of all manner of deception and was relentless in his pursuit of followers who would worship him as God (J. B. Russell 1984, 1986).