“I'm a jack of all trades! ”: Life and work of Maria Souza

Abstract

This article reflects on the female role in the Lower Amazon from the perspective of gender based on the history and life memory of Maria Souza, a woman living in the region of Valéria, whose traditional knowledge, life trajectory and work constitute a possibility of listening to the voices of Valéria, voices that come from the headwaters, the forests, the rivers, the lake, the stream, the ancestral memory, the maternal voice of the Great Mother, of mother nature. Maria Souza, is a woman farmer, fisherwoman, midwife, bezendeira, healer, owner of a saint's feast, parceleira, mother, wife and as she says “I'm a dick for every job”. This expression shows the potency of this Amazonian woman. Her life trajectory, struggles, resistance and work in the region of Valéria are portrayed in this study from the perspective of oral history and history of gender relations, with the aim of making visible the complex social practices of women from traditional communities of the Lower Amazon, in the time contemporary.