The healers of the Island of Santa Catarina from Oswaldo Cabral to our days

Abstract

The practice of cure through a folk healders (“benzedeiras”) is still used in various social spaces and its popular origin is consolidated before official medicine. The use of herbs, gestures, prayers and objects of the female daily are tools used in the “benzimento”. This study intends to analyse the practices of cure through “benzimento” to diseases using as source the work of the historian and folklorist Oswaldo Rodrigues Cabral, at Florianópolis, capital of Santa Catarina. We intend through this study to understand how it is constitute the function and representation of the “benzedeiras” in the society in front of official medicine.