The Maternal Philosophy of the Women of Bom Jesus - Essay Example

Chitralekha Shalom English (U.S Wednesday, August 31, Nancy Scheper Hughes: Death without Weeping The maternal philosophy of the women of Bom Jesus. The author mentions (page 15) that “more than three hundred babies died during 1965 alone” and the bells of Nossa Senhora das Dores tolled for each one of them. Most of the deaths “were senseless and unnecessary.” But, (page 16) “I learned, as they did, to ‘conform’ and to tell myself that, after all, perhaps it was ‘meant’ to be so.

In all, those years provided a powerful experience of cultural shaping.” The author writes (page 8) “Often I groped blindly to understand and act within a context of radical, sometimes opaque, cultural difference as well as within a situation of economic misery and political repression” and this inner conflict flayed the author’s sensibilities initially. But, this rampant casualness of the mothers, “and with the gentle coaching of my Alto friends, I eventually learned to ‘distance’ myself from the deaths and to pick and continue, as they did, with the strands of my life.

” As she says (page 16) that the sheer “moral outrage” gripped her when she went back home among what we know as a moral society. The incident of delivery of Lordes’ baby, the older women neighbors “more interested in bleeding the rest of the chicken for the birthing meal” and Vladimir digging a grave outside the hut for the yet to be born infant, gives a clear picture of the complicity of the Alto women in the death of infants and babies. The stark reality is again related by the author (page 10) “Whether they worked on the plantations or in the homes of the rich, Alto women had to leave their babies (even newborns) at home unattended or watched over by siblings, sometimes barely more than babies themselves.

These constraints on infant tending, imposed by the economic realities of Alto life, contributed to an exceedingly high infant and child mortality.” In the make-shift crèche that the author helped develop, the infants were tended to and fed with a pap-like milky gruel made from Food for Peace donated powdered skimmed which were “fortified as best as we could with vitamin A drops.” Sick infants were given mingaus “made from fresh goat’s milk donated by Alto women.” The older babies and toddlers could feed on a “stew” made of donated carrots, onions, potatoes and squash added to Food for Peace bulgar.

Sometimes this was made more relishing with scraps of beef and entrails donated by the local butchers. Alto babies “thrived” in the crèche (page 12). Compare this to earlier scenes depicted in (page10) “Smoky, fly-infested huts, hungry toddlers, and hungry goats competing for leftovers served in tin plates on the dirt floor.” Mothers bear the excruciating pain of a child birth and yet live on. The relation between a mother and child is eternally connected, yet extreme conditions and environments can compel a mother to naturally choose survival and seek refuge in religious beliefs to soothe the critical pain of losing a baby or child.