When biomedicine appears not enough: local moral worlds and spiritual healing in Hunza valley of Pakistan
Asian Journal of Medical Humanities 2026 Fatima Maqbool, Inayat Ali
Abstract In Hunza, Gilgit-Baltistan, Bitans (shamans) continue to treat illnesses that biomedicine may diagnose yet appealingly leaves experientially unresolved: recurrent miscarriage, spirit possession, infant mortality, and mental condition often attributed to nazar (evil eye), jinn (supernatural beings), or pari (fairies). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Karimabad and surrounding...