Ventos do mal: sopro da cura: cosmovisão, doença e cura entre os Felupes da Guiné-Bissau

Abstract

This paper aims to approach the social construction of disease and its dynamic behavior within the felupe community of Guinea Bissau. Starting with the felupe cosmovision it is expected to understand the conception of the disease as a social evil - a result of a transgression or fault towards group ethics -, its representations, images, experiences, and analyze the therapeutic routes taken, envisaging the resolution of evil and the reestablishment of equilibrium. Within this frame of mind, an etiological plurality of evil emerges in the nosologic frame (as a function of the signs that change the biological order), conditioning the quest for the resolution of evil among the amañen au (healers), which preside the rituals on the reparation/sacrifice locations (the sacred altars, ukin) asking for God’s intervention (Emitay) or the respective spirit (bakin). The presented ethnographic research was based on interviews of several social agents (patients, families and healers) in the village of Suzana, north Guinea Bissau.