Las Caras del Curanderismo: Doña Flora and Don Pancho
The practitioners of traditional medicine I met while in Peru are not only fascinating people, but have an incredible wealth of knowledge about medicine and the world around them. To learn more about their lives, continue reading! Note: I have changed their names to protect their privacy.
Doña Flora
Another elderly indigenous woman (photo by Luke Robinson)
Doña Flora lives in the hamlet of Cajamarquilla, a twenty minute walk outside of the small city of Carhuaz and roughly two minutes from La Casa de Pocha, where I stayed in Peru. She resides in a mud-brick home with her son and his family--his wife and four children.
Her home consists of four small rooms surrounding a main, open courtyard. In the courtyard, stacks of cages line one wall. In these cages are guinea pigs and chickens, and more chickens run loose throughout the home. The dirt floor is covered with droppings, but Doña Flora's young grandson does not seem to mind as he chases his puppy around, shoeless.
Doña Flora has been practicing the shoqma de cuy for years, since she was young and learned it from her grandmother. People from the surrounding areas bring her a guinea pig from home for the process, and she does not ask for much more. Occasionally they will also bring her a sack of potatoes or oca, but there is no set fee. For my shoqma we brought her some potatoes we harvested earlier in the week.
With only a couple teeth left, Doña Flora still has a big, ready smile. Her voice is high and squeaky but kind, and her Spanish is almost impossible to understand. Thankfully we had our director with us to translate the Spanish-Quechua mix, otherwise I would have had a difficult time understanding what was wrong with me according to the cuy.
Doña Flora is illiterate, can hardly speak Spanish, and is not "integrated" into the Peruvian economy. The services she offers, however, do more than help her community. She keeps alive medicinal traditions that have their roots deep in Andean history and conceptions of health.
Her home consists of four small rooms surrounding a main, open courtyard. In the courtyard, stacks of cages line one wall. In these cages are guinea pigs and chickens, and more chickens run loose throughout the home. The dirt floor is covered with droppings, but Doña Flora's young grandson does not seem to mind as he chases his puppy around, shoeless.
Doña Flora has been practicing the shoqma de cuy for years, since she was young and learned it from her grandmother. People from the surrounding areas bring her a guinea pig from home for the process, and she does not ask for much more. Occasionally they will also bring her a sack of potatoes or oca, but there is no set fee. For my shoqma we brought her some potatoes we harvested earlier in the week.
With only a couple teeth left, Doña Flora still has a big, ready smile. Her voice is high and squeaky but kind, and her Spanish is almost impossible to understand. Thankfully we had our director with us to translate the Spanish-Quechua mix, otherwise I would have had a difficult time understanding what was wrong with me according to the cuy.
Doña Flora is illiterate, can hardly speak Spanish, and is not "integrated" into the Peruvian economy. The services she offers, however, do more than help her community. She keeps alive medicinal traditions that have their roots deep in Andean history and conceptions of health.
Don Miguel
Curandero with flute (photo by Theresa Stanton)
Don Miguel is a man who makes his living as an urban curandero. He lives in Huaraz, a twenty minute drive from the house that Doña Flora calls home. Though he lives in the city, however, Don Miguel will go treat anyone he can, no matter how far. He is known around the area for his healing skills.
Don Miguel tells us he first practiced midwifery, and was then sent to work in a hospital to do menial labor, not allowed to practice because he was not a formal doctor. He lent his knowledge to doctors there and was eventually asked for help in delivery and then trained professionally. He is proud of how far he has come, and continues to use the knowledge he gained from older curanderos--this knowledge has also been very useful to "Western" doctors.
I first meet Don Miguel when he comes to perform a traditional Andean ceremony thanking the apus for the safe arrival of our group in Peru and entreating the deities for continued safety and favor. He then returns a few days later to take us through a guided tour of the area, showing us how each different plant could be used for medicinal purposes.
A couple of weeks following, we travel as a group to Don Miguel's home and practice in Huaraz. This is similar to a small warehouse, probably 20 feet by 30 feet, with one window. Tarps divide the room into a sleeping area for he and his wife, a sleeping area for the children, an area to see patients, and another area where he keeps his books and treatments (including dried up snakes and colorful herbal mixtures). The family also has a dog and a few cages of squeaky guinea pigs (as do all Andean families). I am surprised to see that though Don Miguel has more education and patients than Doña Flora, his home is not much bigger. It is in the center of town, however.
Don Miguel shows us around his home, pointing out different treatments and herbal concoctions and their uses. He has two patients this day, two young girls with stomach problems. They lie in the back with herbal spreads on their stomachs to relieve the pain. They say they have been there before and this cure worked. Don Miguel tells us that he does not turn people away because they cannot pay--he does what he can to help people and they give him what they can afford.
Smiling, Don Miguel takes an old book off the shelf and shows us where he has been quoted as a curandero with lots of traditional knowledge. He says he has also been interviewed frequently by scholars visiting the area wanting to know more about his work. Some of Don Miguel's specialities are midwifery, fixing organs that have been shifted in the body, treating aches and pains, and creating herbal remedies. He has recently taught himself "iridology," a type of diagnostic that involves analyzing a patient's irises to identify disease in other parts of the body.
Interesting fact: I visited Doña Flora and Don Miguel for diagnostics, and they both told me the same thing. They do not know each other.
Don Miguel tells us he first practiced midwifery, and was then sent to work in a hospital to do menial labor, not allowed to practice because he was not a formal doctor. He lent his knowledge to doctors there and was eventually asked for help in delivery and then trained professionally. He is proud of how far he has come, and continues to use the knowledge he gained from older curanderos--this knowledge has also been very useful to "Western" doctors.
I first meet Don Miguel when he comes to perform a traditional Andean ceremony thanking the apus for the safe arrival of our group in Peru and entreating the deities for continued safety and favor. He then returns a few days later to take us through a guided tour of the area, showing us how each different plant could be used for medicinal purposes.
A couple of weeks following, we travel as a group to Don Miguel's home and practice in Huaraz. This is similar to a small warehouse, probably 20 feet by 30 feet, with one window. Tarps divide the room into a sleeping area for he and his wife, a sleeping area for the children, an area to see patients, and another area where he keeps his books and treatments (including dried up snakes and colorful herbal mixtures). The family also has a dog and a few cages of squeaky guinea pigs (as do all Andean families). I am surprised to see that though Don Miguel has more education and patients than Doña Flora, his home is not much bigger. It is in the center of town, however.
Don Miguel shows us around his home, pointing out different treatments and herbal concoctions and their uses. He has two patients this day, two young girls with stomach problems. They lie in the back with herbal spreads on their stomachs to relieve the pain. They say they have been there before and this cure worked. Don Miguel tells us that he does not turn people away because they cannot pay--he does what he can to help people and they give him what they can afford.
Smiling, Don Miguel takes an old book off the shelf and shows us where he has been quoted as a curandero with lots of traditional knowledge. He says he has also been interviewed frequently by scholars visiting the area wanting to know more about his work. Some of Don Miguel's specialities are midwifery, fixing organs that have been shifted in the body, treating aches and pains, and creating herbal remedies. He has recently taught himself "iridology," a type of diagnostic that involves analyzing a patient's irises to identify disease in other parts of the body.
Interesting fact: I visited Doña Flora and Don Miguel for diagnostics, and they both told me the same thing. They do not know each other.