Sagrado feminino: rituais, rezas e representações das parteiras e das rezadeiras Salgadinho-PB (1960-1980).

Abstract

The job of giving birth / praying demonstrates the ancestral heritage of the human being in relating to the others, it stands out as an experience of largess “to the exchange, and that even today partly surpasses the notion of individual interest” (MAUSS, 1974, p .188), midst of difficulties and challenges in the paths of residents of a small municipality with fragile public health policies. In Salgadinho the office has been present since the founding of the municipality, as a result we can emphasize that the history of this place is in tertwined with the memories of midwives, children and parturients of the municipality in the countryside and in the city. In view of the above, we show in this work, the important contributions of women to the formation of the society Salgadinho, working with local oral history, in this municipality. We immerse ourselves in the narratives of the trajectories of these women caregivers, discovering their knowledge, their practices and their means of relating to the sacred, taking as a time frame the period in which the practices adopted by them in the exercise of their profession were more intense, from 1960 to 1980. The fieldwork with testimony collection was carried out in the homes of these women located in the different communities that make up the municipality of Salgadinho - PB, we used the methodology of Oral History, and through interviews we weave the individual and collective memories of these women, giving visibility the relevant social roles and the power of the midwives and prayers of Salgadinho, in the life trajectory of many local families, assuming a life and death power over the bodies of women and children in Salgadinho.