Banho de Cheiro

In this video, we meet 71-year-old matriarch Maria Luciene Gama Santos, an “erveira” from Northern Brazil. She appears in a green shirt, wearing a necklace and glasses, surrounded by plants she regards as living beings rather than possessions. Her garden, called “Katumawa Iwi,” becomes one of the stages for the practice of banho-de-cheiro—a traditional Brazilian ritual where nature and ancestral knowledge intertwine.

With gentle respect, Maria asks each plant’s permission, reminding us they are not products but partners. She shows that banho-de-cheiro, an herb bath, is not a recipe negotiated; it is a collaborative process shaped by diverse local customs, where people share and learn instead of imposing which knowledge is “best.” In this video, we are presented a dynamic practice tied to communities in a collaboration network.


CREDITS:
Maria Luciene Gama Santos, Erveira, Rezadeira of the Religious Rito of Sairé, Godmother of the Chá de Carimbó Group, and Vice President of the Association for the Defense of Human Rights and the Environment in the Amazon.
Fernanda do Canto is a graphic designer, museologist, and filmmaker at Tombô Productions in Brazil.
Rogerio Satil is a museologist specializing in social development


This video was commissioned as part of the research and development for the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum exhibition, SMELLING THE BOUQUET: PLANTS AND SCENTS IN THE GARDEN, May 2, 2025 to March 31, 2026, by Nezka Pfeifer, Museum Curator.


TRANSCRIPT:
“Have you ever taken a banho de cheiro? Not yet?
You really should! It gives off wonderful energy.
People like it when we
touch their heads like this and moisten them a bit.

I am Maria Luciene Gama Santos,
71 years old, a retired teacher,
mother of five daughters and one son,
grandmother of eight granddaughters and one grandson.
Here, it’s matriarchal.
Here, women are dominant!

We are here in the Katumawa Iwi space,
which means ‘health of the earth.’
In this space, I grow medicinal plants,
I grow them to sell and I also
use them to prepare the banho de cheiro.

I live here.
My home is very simple,
but I believe that people who come here
feel very good
just by smelling the aroma of the plants, oxi!.

So, I have aromatic plants:
oriza, rosemary, goatweed (catinga-de-mulata), lemongrass (capim santo), lemon balm (erva cidreira),
hortelãzinho, hortelã vick, hortelã chama,
purple basil, white basil—
all of these are aromatic,
and they are plants used to make banho de cheiro.

Harvest time: always in the morning or late afternoon,
when the plants are resting
or when they are beginning to open their leaves,
because, besides everything, I have to ask permission, right?
Plants are alive.

I put the leaves in here, crumble them all,
and then I add a little patchouli essence
and a little priprioca essence.

Priprioca is a… it’s a tiny root,
a little lump that you crush,
and it has a very, very gentle scent.

I learned to work with plants from my grandmother
when I was still a child.

I went to Santarém to work as a teacher,
so I paused my work with plants for a while.
Later, we created a group—
Conquista de Ervas Medicinais—
a group that also worked with medicinal plants,
and we sold them at fairs.
That gave me a great love for plants.
Then I visited various communities—
we didn’t go there to teach, we went to exchange experiences,
because each community has its own customs,
and each community knows which plants they use.

So we asked: Which plant do you use?
What is it good for? Look, it has more properties too!
This really strengthened our knowledge, right?
Both theirs and ours,
and this sharing was always very pleasant.

I am part of a group called Chá de Carimbó,
I am the godmother of the Chá de Carimbó group,
and sometimes I bring some plants to raffle off
to people who dance Carimbó really well.
There is always banho de cheiro at the Quintas do Mestre,
where the Chá de Carimbó group is located.

We have various plants that give us energy,
that are good for the soul, for the spirit.

They take away…
like, they take away sadness.

My grandmother used to say: “When you can’t catch anything,
you go fishing and catch nothing,
you go hunting and catch nothing, you are Panema.”
So it takes away the panemice!
Banho de Cheiro also brings that strength
you are in need of.
“Today my day will be great
because I took a banho de cheiro.”
“I will have a night of good dreams
because I took a banho de cheiro.”