Medicine women, curanderas, and women doctors /

What does a native American or Hispanic traditional healer have in common with a mainstream American doctor? Possibly more than would seem likely, if the doctor is a woman open to knowledge from outside the Western tradition. This unusual book uses the techniques of oral history to present the personalities and ideas of 10 women healers, six of whom work in traditional ways within their southwest communities, four of whom question modern medicine from within the profession. The result honors all their visions. This is fine scholarship, but even more, it's written smoothly and with great heart. A good antidote to books that, however popular, mistake or exploit traditional healers' knowledge. Notes, bibliography; to be indexed. --Pat Monaghan

``When we do not communicate, we are ill,'' asserts Navajo medicine woman Annie Kahn. Her belief that interpersonal relationships, good or bad communal energies, affect one's physical health is echoed by Hispanic curanderas , or women healers, interviewed for this cross-cultural report. Both the Amerindian and Hispanic traditions agree also that the transgressing of spiritual laws causes illness. Most curanderas , it seems, believe from an early age that they were predestined to channel the healing graces of God or the saints, using medicinal plants, herbs, charms and rituals. Counterposed to these traditions are what the authors call ``AMA American Medical Association medicine,'' yet the white professional women physicians interviewed here appear to be moving beyond a mechanistic, clinical approach. Instead of dissecting female healers under an anthropological microscope, the authors of this rewarding survey approach traditional medicine as a living entity with its own internal laws. Perrone is a photographer, Stockel a New Mexico Human Services administrator, Krueger a psychologist. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this well-structured if somewhat limited collection, women healers of the American Indian, Hispanic, and ""mainstream-America"" cultures describe their experiences as care-givers in the male-dominated world of modern medicine. The Navajo, Apache, and Cherokee medicine women, three Hispanic curanderas (healers), and four female doctors interviewed here all agree: traditional western-style medical practices leave too little room for a caring, humanistic relationship between doctor and patient--a relationship that in some cases might serve to heal the patient more efficiently than modern drugs or technology. Nothing new there, though the authors' own reverential commentary, strongly reminiscent of 60's accounts of conversations with East Indian gurus, fails to acknowledge that fact. Fortunately, however, to get permission to interview the healers the authors had to agree to ""interpret"" their actual statements as little as possible: the result is near-verbatim accounts (of the women's introduction into the healing profession, the initiation tests they were required to pass, and their spiritual position as cohesive elements in often distressed communities) that make for some fascinating reading. Both the Indian medicine women and the Hispanic curanderas give modern medicine credit for curing many illnesses, while acknowledging that faith plays a major role in their own, often psychological, brand of healing. The female AMA doctors, for their part, readily admit that folk healing sometimes works. They also agree on the need to further integrate ""masculine"" progressive medicinal techniques and ""feminine"" nurturing and individual caring as a means to greatly improved health care in this country. One might wish for a couple of comments from the opposition, if there is one, but this is a valuable resource nonetheless. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.