‘Toutes sortes de vices’: Possession, Healing, and Religious Convergences in Early Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia

Abstract

In the fall of 1810, two young Acadian women exhibited signs interpreted by their predominantly Catholic community as a possession or enchantment by threatening spiritual forces. Family and neighbours banded together and performed unorthodox rituals that offer historians of religion and of Acadia the opportunity to analyze several Atlantic influences on this rural parish. It is an intriguing case in the religious and social history of Nova Scotia that demonstrates multiple cultural aspects in convergence. The Acadian community’s history and its location on a colonial fringe connected its members with diverse ritual knowledges. This article argues that the nature of the girls’ symptoms and the methods that the Acadian community used to bring healing reached beyond lay Roman Catholicism. The Acadians were influenced by New Light evangelical theology and baptismal spirituality from New England, as well as African diaspora spiritual elements from a nearby Black Loyalist settlement.