Religion et athéisme dans l’«Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil» de Jean de Léry

This article focuses on chapter XVI of Jean de Léry’s Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil with a view to identifying the fundamental questions and issues at stake and highlighting how they are at the heart of the discussions about supposedly religionless peoples that developed during early modernity. It uncovers Léry’s ambivalent attitude towards the alleged religion of the Tupinamba of Brazil and how he explains the contradictions that can be detected between some of their beliefs and their feelings about a power beyond them.