Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE KALLAWAYAS: MEDICINE MEN OF THE ANDES
The Cordillera Apolobamba is home to Bolivia's smallest and most mysterious ethnic
group: the
Kallawayas
. Inhabiting half a dozen villages in the Upper Charazani Valley, the
Kallawayas are a secretive caste of traditional
herbal medicine practitioners
, thought to
number just a few hundred, who are famous throughout the Andes for their healing powers
- even more so since UNESCO declared their “Andean cosmovision” (ie the totality of
their belief system, encompassing every aspect of life) a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intan-
gible Heritage of Humanity in 2003. The enormous
ecological diversity
of the Cordillera
Apolobamba means the Kallawayas have a vast natural pharmacy of plants to draw on,
while the region's proximity to the tropical lowlands has also given them access to the
vastmedicinalresourcesof
Amazonian shamanism
.IndividualKallawayasmayknowthe
medical properties of over nine hundred different plant species, a knowledge that is passed
from father to son. Some historical sources credit the Kallawayas with being the first to
use the dried bark of the cinchona tree, the source of
quinine
, to prevent and cure malaria;
taken to Europe by the Jesuits, quinine remains to this day the basis for most treatments of
the disease. More recently, scientists have studied chemicals derived from herbs used by
the Kallawayas as possible treatments for
HIV
.
For many centuries the Kallawayas have wandered through the Andes collecting herbs
and bringing their specialist medical skills to local people. Individual healers roamed
huge
distances
, often on foot, travelling to Peru, Chile, Argentina and as far as Panama during
the construction of the canal, as well as the length and breadth of Bolivia. Most Kallawayas
are also powerful
ritual specialists
, combining their skills as herbalists with the supposed
ability to predict the future and diagnose illness by reading coca leaves. Although the main
language spoken in their communities is Quechua, and many also speak some Aymara or
Spanish, the Kallawaya medicine men famously speak a secret tongue known as
Machaj
Juyay
, which is used only in healing rituals and other ceremonies. Some researchers be-
lieve Machaj Juyay is related to the secret language spoken in private by the
Inca ruling
elite
. Certainly, the earliest post-conquest chroniclers linked the Kallawayas to the Incas.
One wrote that the Kallawayas were brought to Cusco to act as herbalists and carry out im-
portant religious ceremonies and divination rituals for the Inca rulers; another claimed they
had been charged with carrying the litter of the Inca himself. Other evidence suggests that
the Kallawayas date back far into
Andean prehistory
: in 1970 archeologists uncovered
a skeleton in the Charazani valley which had been buried with recognizable Kallawaya
paraphernalia - this was carbon-dated to between 800 and 1000 BC, two thousand years
before the rise of the Inca Empire.
These days the Kallawayas no longer wander as far and wide as they used to, and their
numbers are thought to be dwindling, as fewer sons acquire their fathers' knowledge.
