Indigenous Concepts of Health and Healing in Andean Populations: Understanding the Relevance of Traditional Medicine in a Changing World

By: Elizabeth Currie and John Schofield

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Synopsis: This book uses archaeology and ethnohistory to explore the evidence for the survival of ancestral beliefs and practices related to health and healing in Indigenous Andean communities.The authors argue that through determining the nature of the survival of beliefs around health and healing, important insights are gained into how people develop adaptive strategies for survival in a way that allows a continuity of identity and integrity. The book works through various stages of research to arrive at its conclusions. Firstly, through archaeology and ethnohistory, it establishes a ‘baseline’ of key ancestral (pre-European) Indigenous Andean beliefs related to health, illness and healing. It then proceeds to review the evidence for the survival of these ancestral beliefs and practices related to Indigenous pre-European Andean epistemologies and ontologies. Analysing the results of the first two sections, the final part reflects on the narratives around ancestral beliefs and practices and how they influence lived experience in the contemporary world. In essence, this book deals with the question 'How do people manage change?', a universal question relevant to humanity at any time, and stresses the need to recognise the significance of cultural diversity, intangible heritage and plurality.This interdisciplinary study is for researchers in ethnohistory, anthropology, medical anthropology, archaeology, history, heritage and Indigenous studies.