4.3.4.1 Native medicine: disease categories
Pollock explains that Madiha have two major disease categories. “External” diseases are those that have publicly visible symptoms, e.g., on the skin. “Internal” diseases are those with internal symptoms of discomfort or pain (Pollock 1985).
External diseases are considered mild and are believed to have an identifiable physical origin, such as a cut, bruise or insect bite. They are treated with plant medicines. Introduced infectious diseases with skin symptoms, such as measles or smallpox, are included in this category (Pollock 1985).
Internal diseases are believed to have a mystical origin. They can be treated only by the shaman. Plant medications are ineffective. Infants with internal diseases are usually diagnosed with epetuka’i, which is caused by a parental food taboo violation. It is caused by the parents’
consumption of male animals that are underground spirits (tokorime) (Pollock 1985:122). It is an illness of the child’s digestive system, signaled by abdominal pain and diarrhea.
Adults with internal disease are usually diagnosed as victims of sorcery (dori). Dori is a substance in the bodies of shamans, who are always men (Pollock 1985). The substance can be mystically introjected into an enemy, where it becomes lodged, remaining there like a stone. The stone causes sickness and can be fatal. Some forms of dori disease are incurable (Pollock 1985).
Bacuzzi, an elderly former shaman in Santo Amaro village, bitterly told me once that his dori had been depleted by enemies in other villages and this is why he was no longer able to cure.
Pollock mentions two other diseases categories, but which his informants were very unsure about and which no identifiable cases were reportable. These are sicknesses that result from fright and from an aphrodisiac that men secretly apply to women’s hammocks and which is
potentially poisonous. The poison sickness can be cured only by ayahuasca shamans. Pollock’s Madiha informants claimed that only their neighboring Pano Indians (e.g., Huni Kuin) had knowledge of poisons and had this kind of shaman (Pollock 1985).
4.3.4.2 Native medicine: treatments
External diseases are treated with plants. The leaves are applied directly to the location of the sore. The leaves may be crushed, boiled or chewed. The curative potential of the plants derives from their strong smell. Certain industrial medications, such as mercurochrome, are valued because of their strong smell and red coloring. Mercurochrome is applied directly to wounds (Pollock 1985).
Madiha also value injections highly. This is because the injection delivers the curative substance directly into the flesh (Pollock 1985). In contrast, oral medications are potentially effective only for certain digestive disorders that are not caused by sorcery or taboo violation, and for relieving certain internal pains (Pollock 1985).
Plants and industrial medications are not considered effective for treating dori and epetuka’i. Only the shaman can cure these diseases. The shaman extracts the pathogenic substance by sucking repeatedly at the area of the patient’s body where the disease is lodged, usually where the pain is strongest. The process is identical for adults with dori and for children with epetuka’i (Pollock 1985).
D. Silva (1997) also notes that Madiha are skeptical about the efficacy of oral medications. He provides an account in which oral antibiotics he provided for a sick child were disdained. The son of Sapo, shaman of Santa Júlia village, was very sick. D. Silva gave him some medications and explained how to take them. When he visited the boy two or three days later, he found the bag of medications intact hanging on the wall. He questioned Sapo, who
claimed that the boy was indeed taking the medications but that he was not improving (1997:21).
When the health missionaries stopped at the village two weeks’ later on their way back to the city, Sapo admitted that the boy had not been taking the medications because he vomited the first time he took them and the mother did not insist (Silva D. 1997:21).
Pollock explains that industrial medications are only sought for external diseases or for internal discomforts before the diagnosis of dori or epetuka’i (Pollock 1985:131). Such medications are believed to be ineffective for the latter diagnoses (Pollock 1985:132). Pollock also explains that surgery is believed to have the function of attempting to remove dori, as physicians do not know how to perform shamanic extraction (Pollock 1985:132). This description is coherent with my own field experience. For example, when I met Adão on my first trip, the nurse explained to me that he had Hepatitis B. He had a large inflated abdomen and the health workers were exasperated trying to persuade him to go for surgery in Rio Branco. He steadfastly refused, claiming that the shaman had already removed the “stone” (pedra). He died very shortly afterwards.
4.3.4.3 Native medicine and cosmology
Madiha cosmology recognizes five levels: two sky levels (meme etseni and meme tsueni), a celestial aquatic level (patso dzamarini), ground level (nami) and underground level (nami budi) (Silva D. 1997; Pollock 1985:59).
The sky level has two echelons. The lower level (meme etseni) is where the clouds drift and the birds fly. Above this is the blue and black sky (meme tsueni) where the stars are. These levels do not have much cosmological significance (Silva D. 1997; Pollock 1985). Just between the two sky levels, there is an aquatic sky level (patso dzamarini), which has large lakes and rocks. When the rocks are struck, the water from the lakes splashes down as rain upon the
ground level. This level is the home of the culture heroes who created the world. The heroes are remote beings, no longer involved in the affairs of humans (Pollock 1985).
Humans, plants and animals live on the ground level (nami). The spirits or souls of dead (or unborn) humans and animals live in the underground level (nami budi). The underground level is identical to the ground level, with forests, rivers, animals and villages. The people in the underground villages lead a similar life to those in the ground level. These people are not the dead humans from the ground level, but essential socially virtuous beings who are summoned during the healing rituals (Pollock 1985:59-60).
Shamans use tobacco snuff to see the underworld and interact with its inhabitants. When humans die in the ground level, the shaman conducts the soul to the underground level. There, the soul is eaten by the peccaries and transformed into a peccary. Souls of dead people that have not been led to the underground level (e.g., witches/sorcerers who have been denied proper burial) are left to wander the ground level for several days until they are eaten by a jaguar and become transformed into one (Silva D. 1997; Pollock 1985). Shamans also periodically summon the souls of the dead up into the ground level, where they are reincarnated as peccaries, thus ensuring the availability of game for the men to hunt (Lorrain 2000:297; Silva D. 1997; Pollock 1985).
The spirits in the underground level play an important role in the healing ritual and are also implicated in the cause of epetuka’i disease. Except for shamans, men are excluded from the healing ritual. The ritual occurs at night, with a circle of women surrounding the sick person, who sing the songs and who present the healing spirits with manioc beer (a taming substance) and tobacco snuff. The shamans (always men) come in from the forest into the village clearing dressed in palm fiber costumes, embodying the spirits from the underground. They approach the
sick person, drink the manioc beer, snuff the tobacco, and proceed to discover and suck out the pathogenic dori substance lodged in the victim’s body. The shamans work individually, coming out from the forest and returning to it one by one. They also sing as they work (Pollock 1985:125-129).