Ethno medicine and Shamanic Practices in the Ecuadorian Amazon: Journey through the Imaginaries of Health, Disease, Healing and Healing
Patricio Trujillo Montalvo
International Journal of Integrated Medical Research November 15, 2022 DOI: 10.57181/ijoimr/vol9i04/76 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnographic analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Key findings | Amazonian healing practices integrate sacred plants and shamanic rituals to restore balance between body and spirit, countering magical contamination from enemy arrows. |
Abstract
The use of sacred plants with high hallucinogenic power characterizes one of the forms identities of the peoples of the Amazon. The imaginaries about disease and death processes are seen as an internal rupture, product of magical agents, generally related to arrows that are sent by enemies and that cause contamination that produces ills or damages in the body. The shaman, turned into a specialist, will be in charge of extracting, taking out or sucking these arrows that cause damage in order to restore balance, the healing of the sick person that is carried out through an elaborate ritual of ingesting a sacred plant that allows him to know the body and above all the spirit of the patient. This article proposes to discuss the importance of healing the body, but above all to heal the sick, both their bodies and their spirits, restoring a lost balance. Through ethnographic stories, we try to analyze the relationship between knowledge, the use of sacred and medicinal plants as the way in which Amazonian groups, despite several years of contact maintain a philosophy of balance between body and spirit, in order to heal, maintain well-being and health.
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Plantas con madre": plants that teach and guide in the shamanic initiation process in the East-Central Peruvian Amazon. Curanderos, apprentices, and herbalists in East-Central Peru, including Mestizo,... | 2011 | Qualitative study | n = 36 |
| Purging and the body in the therapeutic use of ayahuasca Healers and participants in shamanic tourism contexts of the Peruvian Amazon and... | 2019 | Ethnography with literature review | n = 227 |
| The Globalization of Ayahuasca Shamanism and the Erasure of Indigenous Shamanism Western tourists and indigenous peoples in Iquitos, Peru | 2016 | Ethnography | |
| Shamanism and Rock Art in Far Western North America Historic hunter-gatherer cultures of California and the Great Basin | 1992 | Ethnographic review and analysis | |
| Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals Ayahuasqueros and Western participants in shamanic tourism in Iquitos, Peru | 2012 | Ethnography |