THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGIOUSITY AND HEALTH RELATIONSHIPS IN THE PRACTICES OF TRADITIONAL CHILDREN CAREERS

Abstract

In this article are shared discoveries coming from dialogues with quilombolas: healers, midwives and priests of religions of African matrix. These dialogues with quilombola caretakers took place in four states: Belém; Maranhão; Minas Gerais and Bahia, in seven quilombos, in Brazil. These dialogues took place within the scope of the Quilombola Protagonismo Project in the Fight for Health and Social Rights, which had as one of its objectives to identify traditional practices of Care, Health Promotion and cultural manifestations. This article aims to give greater visibility to the importance of religiosity in the health care of traditional quilombolas caregivers. As methodological procedures, with these social actors, individual interviews were used. The practices undertaken by these social actors merge much more deeply with their convictions and practices in the field of spirituality and religiosity than with the oral transmission of knowledge by their ancestors, differently from what was initially expected, therefore the present article privileges this cut. Another conclusion was that these actors are community leaders considered important by their communities, and also, despite the manifestations of religious intolerance inside and outside the quilombos, they are aware of their importance in the fight for quilombola rights.