| Contents |
The vexing problem of difference and classifications in anthropology and the local ethnographic setting -- Herbalism, medicine, and curing : medicine women's concepts of wellness, illness, and healing -- Touch, body, and senses -- Word and deed: oral traditions and the mythico-history of herbal medicine -- Medicine women, gender, and physical and social reproduction over the life course -- Natural imagery (arboreal tropes) in herbalism : plant uses in nature and culture -- Medicine women, sacred places, and Al Baraka ritual benediction -- Medicine women and Islam : relations with marabouts -- Medicine women and other "shamans" : herbalism, the spirits of the wild, divination, and power -- Changes in the wind : medicine women's relations with established biomedicine -- Herbal healing, modes of thought, and gender. |
| Review |
"A twenty-five-year veteran of field research in Niger and Mali, anthropologist Susan J. Rasmussen examines the female-dominated practice of herbalism in the seminomadic Muslim communities of Tuareg. Medicine women, known as tinesmegelen, diagnose by touch and treat their patients - mostly women and children - with leaves, bark, and roots from trees associated with ancestral spirits. In addition to healing, they relate oral traditions, offer marital counseling, protect patients against potential domestic violence, and practice divination." "Rasmussen draws the reader into this fascinating world of medicine women through interviews, guided conversations, life histories, illustrative case studies, and, most importantly, the words of the healers and their patients. As a participant-observer, she shares her own experiences with descriptions of the treatments she herself received. Then, moving from a focused analysis to a broader contextual frame, she addresses central questions in anthropology about gender, knowledge, and the interface between religion and medicine."--Jacket. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-212) and index. |
| LCCN | 2005020691 |
| ISBN | 0875806104 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780875806105 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
