have dedicated their lives to shamanic rituals. These rituals include learning
with the aid of drums, maracas, chanting and body paint. Another variety
of shaman is one known as the ‘chaman de agua’ (water shaman) whose
illness has been converted into a piranha tooth, an animal bone or other
object such as a plant seed. For all types of shaman, certain costumes and
private or secret ‘energy protectors’ are used that are relevant to their
formation. These may be made of a variety of natural materials such as
feathers, seeds, bones or minerals.
Approach to healing
The relationship between the traditional healer and his or her patient is not
limited to the treatment of an illness, xor y, but is immersed in a socio-
cultural context within the environment. The traditional healer considers
health in general in an integral form. This includes the spiritual and phys-
ical state of the patient’s health and how it relates to a specific environment.
The latter is almost always associated with sacred spaces or locations such
as the Maloca, where the transmission of knowledge of the environment and
the surrounding forest is narrated. The traditional practitioner is expected
to treat both physical and spiritual ailments. The diagnosis and treatment
take the form of seeking possible causes of the pain or discomfort that the
patient is experiencing – this may be a result of physical causes, illness or
disease, or can be suspected because someone has ‘sent’ it.^1 In general tradi-
tional healers exchange knowledge between cultures and recognise different
forms of diagnosis and healing in order to cure many illnesses.^1 The same
applies to their ability to prescribe and apply remedies and healing
techniques.
Diagnosis
As already indicated, there is a vast difference between the medicine prac-
tised by traditional medicine practitioners in the Amazon tropical forest and
western medicine. In modern or western medicine the initial diagnosis is
made by the practitioner listening to the patient’s description of symptoms,
as well as a physical examination. The causes of the illness or discomfort felt
by the patient are related directly to the function of the human body. In
contrast, indigenous traditional medicine has other forms of diagnosis
because the causes of the illness are variable: sometimes these coincide with
modern medicine but in other cases they do not, e.g. ‘bad eye’ (el mal de
ojo), ‘bad wind’ (el mal viento) and ‘bad air’ (‘el malaire’) are believed to be
caused by someone, perhaps an enemy or witch, sending the illness to the
person concerned. Other conditions may be caused by hunting or fishing to
excess. The cure is based on conjuration, or methods such as ‘sucking’ the
Traditional medicine used in the Colombian Amazon forest | 69