The Power of Blood: The sickness and Spiritual Vulnerability in Southern Guyana

Abstract

In this article, the author puts the existing literature on gendered personhood and space and the relationships between bodily fluids and the spirit world in dialogue with a specific ethnographic account of the sickness in Southern Guyana. The sickness is a spiritual illness that befalls Amerindian girls living in boarding school dormitories in Guyana that manifests in repeated violent fits. By exploring the reactions of community members and parents to this unusual illness, and how they link it to the power of menstrual blood, the article grapples with gendered personhood and transformation and what it means to come of age for young Amerindian woman in the face of rapid social change.