FREE: (2) VINTAGE RELIGIOUS MEDALS

As his research evolved, so did the title and thrust of his dissertation, to what he now refers to as “Black Ecstacies: Remembering the Diaspora Through St. Martin de Porres.”

Born in 1579 in Peru, de Porres was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed African slave from Panama. He spent part of his youth in servitude to a surgeon/barber, where he learned some basic medicine.

At age 11, he wanted to join a Dominican priory, but was rejected because descendants of Africans were barred from becoming full members of religious orders. Instead, he took work as a “donado,” or lay brother, at the priory, performing janitorial services for the right to wear the Dominican habit. He spent so many hours sweeping the priory that he was derisively dubbed “Brother Broom.”

But de Porres also continued to practice medicine, welcoming poor and enslaved Africans into the priory – where they were forbidden to be – to feed and heal them.

Brother Broom as a cultural icon
From 1935 to 1940 in and around Harlem, Padilioni said, de Porres’s presence was practically everywhere one looked.

He has seen photos of people dressed like de Porres attending costume parties. There was an official Martin de Porres Guild. There was an off-Broadway play about his life. There was a halfway house connected to a church where strung-out jazz musicians went and in the process of drying out learned about de Porres. Street vendors sold statues of de Porres.

The Journal of Negro History and The Journal of Negro Education published articles about him.

“They like the fact that this black person might become a saint in the biggest and maybe oldest institution in the world,” Padilioni said. “You have the factor of the ‘saintly American negro,’ as they were describing him. These are not Catholic people; he has appeal outside of the church.”

He was even popular in the Harlem gay subculture.

“By this point, the Catholic Church clearly wanted him to become a saint, and was putting out its own stories,” Padilioni said, adding with a laugh, “but the queer Harlem angle certainly wasn’t the direction the Vatican wanted to go.”

The first medal is Saint Martin de Torres of Peru.The second is a copy of a Swiss coin, Confoederatio Helcetica, Latin for "Swiss Confederation"

Helvetica coin 1 piece" 20 walking confoederatio helvetica" 1931
$3.46

I'm pretty sure these are Roman Catholic religious tokens basically my grandparents used to carry around for good luck with all the many 'saints'!

F& w