Práticas de cura e o protagonismo feminino na medicina em Goiás colonial

Abstract

Based on historiographical research, it is understood that the health conditions of the female population in colonial Goiás reflected the severe geographical isolation of the captaincy, transforming the bodily experience of women into a space of institutional abandonment. The absence of academic professionals decentralized the act of healing, transferring it to the field of religious syncretism and popular knowledge. Mary Del Priore (1988) highlights that, in this context, physical pain was frequently reinterpreted as a test of faith. Furthermore, based on the formulations of Joan Scott (1986), it is noted that the gender asymmetries prevalent in modernity subjected these women to labor and reproductive exhaustion. Investigating this reality requires confronting the documentary erasure pointed out by Michelle Perrot (1995), since official sources have historically silenced the daily lives and traumas of this group. In the face of such gaps, the crucial role of healers, midwives, and traditional healers in the colony is reinforced. In a territory vulnerable to endemic diseases and the impacts of mining activity, the division between science, mysticism, and religiosity did not exist; these women acted as a vital bridge between human fragility and divine intervention, transforming physical suffering into a sacred and comforting rite.