By Dario Pignotti, Latin American Summary, January 12, 2023.
Healer and healers from the Kolla, Huarpe, Amaicha, Diaguita, Charrúa, Guarani and Mapuche peoples shared their knowledge at the Adán Quiroga Archaeological Museum and at the Pueblo Perdido site.
The capital of Catamarca was the headquarters last weekend of the Second Congress of Ancestral Medicine, organized by the Council of Indigenous Healers of Argentina (Cosindia). The Council brings together healers and healers from the original peoples and was formed 4 years ago as a space for intercultural transmission. The first meeting was held in The Toldos in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Catamarca 12 spoke with Mamay Kantuta Killafrom the Quechua community Ayllu Mayu Wasi, member of Cosindia and the Council of indigenous Amautas of Tawantinsuyu.
“We provide attention to interculturality and we transmit the knowledge of this ancestral medicine to all brothers and sisters and to the entire community as well, with the intention of providing a more integrative and multicultural health service,” said the healer during her visit. to Catamarca.
Mamay explained that ancestral medicine is the one that is transmitted from generation to generation in the native peoples. “It is not mixed with knowledge of alternative therapies or with other cultures. We are not healers either, because healers mix with Santeria,” the woman said.
In this sense, he explained the variants that exist: “Our ancestral medicine is practiced with plant medicine in tizanas, preparations, macerates, plasters; with the medicine of animals, with their fats, for example; with the medicine of the stones, with the vibration of their energy; with the elixirs; with the medicine of fire; with the medicine of the word also because we heal the psychological part with the spiritual word; with the medicine of the earth, poultices with medicinal muds; with the medicine of the water to balance the internal waters, to purify, make flowering baths, medicinal baths; there are many ancestral medicine practices and they are all medicines from mother earth, our Pachamama, they are not chemical medicines”.
One of the activities of the Congress consisted of a walk to recognize native medicinal plants.
Mamay pointed out that through the meetings they seek to value an alternative way of healing with “a medicine that our mother earth gives us and that is not expensive, we simply have to get to know it and get to know the healers of our towns who are in the territory”.
In this sense, he expressed the importance of “knowing the indigenous intercultural health centers that exist at the service of original ancestral health that is complemented by university medicine.”
Tayta Wari Rimachi (Quechua Kolla People), Tayta Antonio Cruz (Diaguita Calchaquí People), Grandmother Ernestina Valderrama (Amaicha People), Tayta José Charquiagu Jofre (Huarpes) and Grandfather Mario Toro (Quechua) were also present.
