This is a translation of conversations between Dr. Jose Gushiken and Eduardo (Tuno) Calderon, a native curandero, or healer of mental, spiritual, and physical disease. Tuno's description of this Table remains one of the most complete discussions of this important gateway into other worlds. Tuno also introduces colleagues and mentors, the practice of the curandero from Peru to Guatemala, family, herbalists, mountain fastnesses. He explains the uses of native plants, some of them with surprising hallucinogenic effects; and other objects with familiar, almost pedestrian provenance, like Tabu perfume, water, rocks, whiskey, or tobacco. This study will interest anthropologists, folklorists, physicians, historians of medicine. Facing page translations.

A fascinating glimpse at a day in the life of a Peruvian shaman, Eduardo el Curandero relates the philosophies of a Peruvian shaman and illustrates the medicinal use of natural drugs. This revised version of Eduardo el Curandero includes an updated preface, an 'in memoriam' section devoted to the life Eduardo Calderòn, and new photographs of Eduardo's healing artifacts.

In a uniquely personal account of the lives and healing arts of female shamans in northern Peru, the author alternates diaristic writings about her own experiences with ethnographic description. These alternate with chapters in which she describes the crisis that rocked her identity, her first contact with a female healer, and her own tumultuous but ultimately rewarding healing journey under two female shamans. 17 photos.