Amazonian Cosmo-Climatology: friaje (Coldness), Menstruation and Female Murui Connections

Abstract

Starting from the narrative of Teresa Faerito, a wise woman of the Murui indigenous people living on the Peru-Colombia border, the paper examines Amazonian climatological conceptions revealing the forces and dangers latent in the coexistence of human and nonhuman forms of menstruation. It explores the connections between menstruation and the periods of the year known as friaje (coldness), that usually occur between June and July in that Amazonian region. Which mode of embodying-knowing is put into action through the flow of menstrual blood? What are the female perceptions of their bodies extended to the otherness of other beings? The research methodology follows the dialogical interaction with Teresa Faerito to show how indigenous female cosmo-climatology articulates body practices and knowledges, where the extension of the experience of the body-person to the body-territory, and vice versa, is key to understanding the entanglement of beings involved in the “world´s menstruation”.