Healers, Curanderas and Medicine Women

An international view of women healers and their work with herbs, touch, stones, rattles, smoke, wands, and knives, and their many ways of removing energies of illness from the body. We look at ecstatic healing ceremonies, and a widespread theme of medicine women whose curing power was so great that they were able to raise the dead.

We look at healers from Mexico, the Philippines, Namibia, California, Korea, South Africa, Hungary, Wisconsin and medieval Europe; and healers among the Aztecs, Kirghiz, Karok, Hupa and Yurok, Irish and Welsh, Thai, Ainu, Tibetan, Black Carib and Dayak healers.

Because most of these are indigenous traditions photographed by outsiders, a section on Decolonizing the Foreign Gaze is included, along with a look how people keep their old ways alive while incorporating elements colonial religions in some places. The show looks in greater depth at some well-documented healers: Maria Sabina (Mazatec, Mexico); Essie Parrish (Kashaya Pomo, California); Katjambia (Himba, Namibia) and Teresa Urrea, la Santa de Cabora (Sonora (Mexico).

90 minute live visual presentation by Max Dashu, with extra time for questions and discussion. Requires digital projector with VGA connector cable, screen or light wall, and a dark room.

 

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