Maya Bonesetters

Servando Z. Hinojosa is a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is the author of In This Body: Kaqchikel Maya and the Grounding of Spirit and coeditor of Healing by Hand: Manual Medicine and Bonesetting in Global Perspective. Servando G. Hinojosa is a retired educator and an active sculptor, muralist, and illustrator.

[A] well-written, well-researched ethnograpy of bonesetting among Guatemalan Maya…Recommended. (CHOICE) [Maya Bonesetters] is an important document of an often overlooked Indigenous healing practice that will be of interest to scholars and students of medical anthropology, Mesoamerica, and anyone with an interest in contemporary health care challenges in Latin America. (Journal of Anthropological Research) [Maya Bonesetters] adds rich detail to our understanding of the accommodations that Indigenous healers often make to the challenge of biomedicine, how they will accept and integrate into their practice new ideas, new terminology, new medicines, and even new technology...This is a strong work presenting ideas about the contemporary context of Indigenous medicine that approaches the topic from the angle of empiricism and pragmatism. As a contribution to the anthropology of healing it is invaluable. Scholars of the Maya will find great value here as Hinojosa takes the reader into the villages and therapeutic spaces of pain and suffering that are relatively undocumented. (Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research) Maya Bonesetters should appeal to anthropologists and those in the disciplines of natural medicine, indigenous healers like curanderas, and individuals with traditional healing in their ancestral memories...This is a fascinating book for use by anthropologists focused on the Americas, and is a resource for those in other disciplines, sociology, psychology, with an interest in natural healing and its connection to social and mental health...Without a doubt, this is a highly absorbing book. (Journal of Global South Studies) The most important contribution of this book is its focus on a healing tradition that has not received the academic attention it deserves...In his convincing discussion of the injustice of this omission, Hinojosa restores the bonesetters to a valued position in Mesoamerican ethnology and medical anthropology in general...this study represents an advance in recognition of indigenous healing knowledge and techniques. As indigenous knowledge is increasingly valued, the bonesetters and their skills in diagnosing injuries, massaging muscles and restoring movement will be more widely accepted, not only in Guatemala but around the world. This book is more than a first approximation to this healing tradition and the changes it is facing in its coexistence with biomedicine; it is also a tribute to this important area of humanity’s knowledge. (Social Anthropology)

• Preface and Acknowledgments  IntroductionChapter 1. Bonesetting over TimeChapter 2. Empirical Forms of Maya BonesettingChapter 3. Sacred Forms of Maya BonesettingChapter 4. Challenges and Changes in the Injury LandscapeConclusion  Appendix. Traditional Medicine and Bonesetting: Integration and LessonsNotesReferencesIndex