Arquivos de Zoologia (Dec 2011)
As “Adnotationes” do Jesuíta Johann Breuer sobre a história natural da missão de Ibiapaba, Ceará (1789)
Abstract
Born on 15 June 1718 in Cologne, Germany, Johann Breuer entered the Society of Jesus in 1713, being sent in 1741 as a missionary to Northeastern Brazil. Up to the year 1745 he accompanied Faher Gabriele Malagrida, S.J., during his preaching trips through Pernambuco and Paraíba and remained for some time in Rio de Janeiro in 1743. Most of his actvities, however, were performed at the Mission of Ibiabapa, Ceará. In 1757, following the expulsion of the jesuits, Father Breuer was deported to Portugal, where he was made a prisoner until 17 January 1777, then returning to his native city, where he died on 13 August 1789. In that same year Christoph Gottlieb von Murr published Breuer’s Adnotationes, a series of observations allusive to the texts of the Jesuits Franz Xavier Veigl and Anselm Eckart. In addition to constitute a rare testimony about the fauna of Northeastern Brazil in the 18th century, Breuer’s comments call attention by mentioning some early attempts to control the leaf-cutting ants (Atta spp.) and by including one of the first known references to the use of tools by Brazilian monkeys, his report probably referring to a species of Cebus (Primates, Cebidae).
