The Sanumá-Yanomami medical system and indigenous peoples’ health policy in Brazil

The purpose of this study is to discuss how the Sanumá indigenous people, a subgroup of the Yanomami linguistic family, located in northern Roraima State, Brazil, interacts with and relates to the public policy for indigenous people’s health. Missionaries and Brazilian government and non-governmental organization employees are the agents with whom the Sanumá had to deal during the implementation of a healthcare policy. The ethnography of this interrelationship, permeated by moments of epidemic outbreaks, clashes, and attempts at collaboration, raises questions on the implementation of health services in indigenous territories.

Health of Indigenous Peoples; Indigenous Health Services; Cultural Anthropology