Reima: food prohibitions in fishing communities in Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

This ethnographic study examines the various meanings of the term reima describing a quality of certain foods that is believed to cause physical discomfort or ill health. In Bahia, Brazil, the foods considered to contain reima generally come from the rural hinterland, jungle, mangrove forests and sea, and this paper examines their biosocial importance in the lives of artisan fishing and shellfish harvesting communities. In these communities, the notion of reima is part of a traditional set of beliefs about the relationship between food, the body and physical wellbeing which co-exists with the experience of official health services and the consumption of industrially processed foods. Specifically, reima constitutes an ethos about foods that cause physical harm to the body and can also provoke adverse reactions at a social level. Clinical medicine considers reima to resemble human allergies, whose symptoms can be treated, but local communities believe that there is no cure for reima and that only time can restore a person’s health. The research shows that reima is understood to be the disciplinary consequence of violating a food prohibition under circumstances where the quality and quantity of some foods or combinations of foods must be controlled to ensure people’s general health.