Traditional riverine medicine in female voices

Abstract

This article analyzes the biographies of three riverine women whose research is based on their social roles in providing care through traditional medicine. Their “life stories” show their own perceptions of how they construct and reconstruct their healing practices to address illnesses, always involving interactions with the environment and with religious traditions (most notably pajelança, Catholicism and Pentecostalism). The islands of Murutucum and Combu in Belém are the anthropogenic environments in which these specialists reside and work, watershed ecosystems for several rivers in Pará and a small portion of the Amazon River that drain into the Atlantic Ocean. The traditional cures present on these islands were analyzed from the narratives of these three specialists over a period of almost two years, with incursions, interviews and various types of in situ observations. The social and environmental framework and different religious expressions are seen to directly influence the diagnosis and therapeutic treatment proposed by these women, who have different yet complementary knowledge despite inhabiting the same ecosystem and being part of the same social group.