Tuno el Curandero/Tuno the Healer : Maestro de la Medicina Folklorica en la Edad Moderna en Peru (3rd ed.)

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.

Looking first and briefly at Calderon's life and initiation into the mysteries of "curanderismo" the reader get a wonderful insight into the centre of curing, the "Mesa" or "table", an altar that stands at the nexus of many universal forces: good and evil, the living and the dead, harm and blessing, witchcraft and medicine, male and female, curse and cure.

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, whisky, or tobacco.

This study should interest anthropologists, folklorists, physicians and historians of medicine.