International reporting
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon: when traditional and western medicine complement each other
Audio 02:31
A woman from the Waura indigenous village in consultation with a doctor from the NGO “Doutores da Amazonia” (Doctors of the Amazon) © Sarah Cozzolino/RFI
By: Sarah Cozzolino Follow
2 mins
In the Xingu Indigenous National Park in the Brazilian Amazon, traditional medicine takes precedence over Western medicine.
During the pandemic, the figure of the indigenous healer has been particularly important.
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From our correspondent Sarah Cozzolino, back from Xingu, in the Brazilian Amazon,
In a tiny room, on an improvised gynecological bed in the Waura village, Camilla comes to consult.
She has had a stomach ache for two years, ever since she took medicine to prevent her period, because she is one of the healers in the village.
“
We use a cigar to treat the sick.
It is the cigar that shows us everything.
The spirit speaks to us, it tells us what pain the patient is feeling, what spirit is hurting him
,
”
she explains.
Camilla is one of the six village
pajes
located in the Upper Xingu region.
Among the natives, there are several types of healers, the
pajés
, like Camilla, a kind of shaman who dialogues with the spirits, or the
raizeiro
, who specialize in teas made from plants and roots.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, these traditional healers were in great demand, as explained by Caio Machado, founder of the NGO “Doctors of Amazonia”.
“
They have started to use their traditional medicine again, especially root teas.
Something that stood out to us a lot last year, when we went to an area where nearly
10,000 natives lived who drank this tea, was that of the
10,000, only two died.
Even non-natives started drinking this tea.
This shows how strong traditional medicine is
”.
During the pandemic, the NGO's team of volunteer doctors, mostly from São Paulo, worked with indigenous healers.
“
The indigenous culture is millennial, they have never needed our medicines before.
They started needing it when they got in touch with us.
We are the ones who brought them these diseases, and it is up to us to treat them with our medicines
,
”
explains
Caio Machado
But contrary to the recommendations of barrier gestures to fight against the spread of Covid-19, the natives have retained their way of life in the community.
Tapi is the cacique, the chief, of the Yawalapiti people.
His father, Aritana, a great leader of the indigenous struggle in the Xingu, died in 2020 from Covid.
“
When the Covid 19 arrived, we were told that we had to live apart, but that was not possible.
We can't undermine our social organization, get away from our family.
It was not easy to adapt a rule that came from the city inside our villages
”, underlines Tapi
.
In these remote regions, access to basic care is sometimes very complicated and hospitals are several hours away.
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Brazil
Health and medicine