History of Latin American Dermatology

ROBERTO RAMPOLDI BESTARDthe Americas, but they shared a magical and religious tradition and had similar conceptionsof disease, the same theoretical foundations and equal healing practices.From time immemorial, man has attempted to understand the world around him, balancingthe empirical and the magical. The healer was the lord of life and death. In thisway, the cause and the origin of diseases were considered magical phenomena that werehandled by the spirits, whose representatives on earth were the shamans, sorcerers orhealers, who acted as interpreters of the unknown and therefore held sway over themagical nature of the world.Ideas and practices with a shamanic content have been repeatedly described amongmany indigenous peoples of the Americas. They constitute the survival of very ancientbeliefs, originating in the neo-Siberian region of Asia, which arrived with the populationthat emigrated from that continent. Pi Ugarte maintains that despite the timespan of developmentand the vast area of dispersion, the beliefs present elements in common whichare deeply rooted, and underpin very similar ceremonies 32 .Abella offers an interesting narrative of an experience that confirms the above. Membersof the Pay Tavyterá and Aua Chiripá Guaraní ethnic groupings were given colorsand asked to draw medicinal drugs of the forest. Behind them they drew the correspondingprotecting spirits, without eyes; the eyes, they stated, they lend to the personwho approaches, and imbue him with energy. In our country, in the locality of Durazno,pictograms with a human form have been discovered with also lacked eyes.The shamans’ knowledge of the spirits of nature and of the healing properties of plantsconferred authority on them, as well as the obligation to provide answers. Shamans werethe executive arm of magic. The condition of shaman was not reached by anyone who sowished; it could only be attained by people who had been born with certain abilities, as asignal that their powers belong to, and originate from, the supernatural world. Theshaman seeks diverse means of communication with the divine; in this regard, the oneiricworld is of great importance. Ceremonies are held aimed at coming into contact with thespirits, which lead the shaman into a state of trance or ecstasy, guaranteeing entry intothe other world in order to heal the patient, or to counteract the harm caused by anothershaman. The shaman could also create illnesses, or evil spirits 33 .The Guaraní called the shaman pajé, ñanderú or pai 21 . One of the Charrúa shamanswhose name has come down to us was Chief Senaqué, who was taken to Paris in 1831.In 1753, Father Marimón described practices carried out by the Guenoa and Minuane:“The sorcerers graduate on Mount Ybiti María; the Guenoa infidels gather there,make their quivers, pierce themselves, bore through their bodies and commit a thousanddevilries, until Satan appears to them visibly, there at the top of the hill” 27 .The shaman’s healing abilities are aimed at expelling the noxious entity affecting thepatient, attempting to neutralize it so it won’t cause further harm. This determines theshaman’s victory or defeat: the face-off between good and evil spirits, which are actuallythe main parties to the confrontation between health and disease, life and death.As regards the concept of disease, Indians related it to three main causes: a) thosegenerated by live, evil people (particularly other shamans); b) those emerging from theinner struggle between the (negative) “animal soul” and the (positive) “divine soul” of theindividual himself; c) those produced by “spirits” and supernatural beings in nature. Anyundertaking to heal the victim required the shaman’s therapy 33 .The procedure for capturing the patient’s fleeing soul and the concrete handling appliedto his body, such as the suction or “sucking” of the skin at the height of the stomachto extract substances that were harming him (mystical missiles, stones, thorns,insects) were common practices. Blowing, rubbing, heating or burning, were also characteristicamong many American native peoples, including the Guaraní and Patagonians.Techniques including ecstasies, fasts and sundry mortifications were common to otherethnic groups in the Americas, including the Indians of the North American prairies 32 .396