Power, danger and liminality: moon, stars and women among the Toba of western Formosa (Gran Chaco, Argentina)

GÓMEZ, CECILIA PAULA

Gilching

Conferencia; International Conference of the Société Européenne pour l'Astronomie dans la Culture.; 2010

Among the Western Tobas of the province of Formosa women will hardly talk to strangers about certain topics including those related to the celestial sphere. Their knowledge about this topic is usually important though the Tobas tend to transmit it through the men. However, a process of change has been noticed after many years working in the field, when women were asked about the Moon in one-to-one conversation. When talking about Moon with the Tobas, everything seemed to point to women and they felt free to express fully their knowledge about it. Moon is thought to be a masculine entity in charge of "making women". This idea is directly associated with women´s first menstrual period. Thus, in the representational level Moon is clearly responsible for women´s first menstrual period. Several representations and taboos are linked with this event. From this point of view certain characteristics associated with women are analyzed, specially those which express women´s power, feminine danger and liminality since females are regarded as entities that mythically came from the sky.