Jampiris and Yachajs : Andean Ethnomedicine

Kallawaya herbalists have dealt with the symptoms of Chagas’ disease for many years. Kallawaya herbalists and diviners practiced as early as the Wankaris and Incas, with a healing tradition that dates back to A.D. 500. Even today, these diviners and traveling herbalists are recognized for their curing techniques in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru (see Bastien 1987a). Kallawayas live in the Province of Bautista Saavedra in northwestern Bolivia near the Peruvian border. Approximately 120 herbalists (jampiris) and sixty diviners (yachajs) continue to practice the rituals and herbal healing that have been passed down by their ancestors for over a thousand years.

Andeans have effectively adapted to Chagas’ disease for thousands of years, illustrating that traditional medical systems can work independently of biomedical systems, and perhaps even more efficiently and economically, and that it is not necessary that Andeans understand Chagas’ disease in terms of Western biomedicine. Conversely, Americans rarely understand how Kallawaya medicine operates. Medical systems are peculiar to different cultures, as they function within environmental and sociocultural parameters. Kallawaya curanderos, for instance, provide valuable lessons about the relationship of disease to environment. They symbolically express that Chagas’ disease spreads through deforestation, impoverishment, and urbanization bringing T. cruzi, vinchucas, animals, and humans into proximity. Chagas’ disease results from this disorder and must be washed away in the river. These ancient medicine men drive home the lesson of an uncared‑for earth.