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Curing and Healing: Medical Anthropology in Global Perspective. Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1999. vii + 224 pp.
Everyday Spirits and Medical Interventions: Ethnographic and Historical Notes on Therapeutic Conventions in Zanzibar Town. Tapio Nisula. Saarijarijarvi: Transactions of the Finnish Anthropological Society 43, 1999. 321 pp.
Some Spirits Heal, Others Only Dance: A Journey into Human Selfhood in an African Village. Roy Willis with K. B. S. Chisanga, H. M. K. Sikazwe, Kapembwa B. Sikazwe, and Sylvia Nanyangwe. Oxford: Berg, 1999. xii + 220 pp.
The Straight Path of the Spirit: Ancestral Wisdom and Healing Traditions in Fiji. Richard Katz. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 1999. 413 pp.
Healing Makes Our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Cultural Transformations among the Ju!'hoansi. Richard Katz, Megan Biesele, and Verna St. Denis. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1997. xxv + 213 pp.
HELLE SAMUELSEN
Department of International Health
University of Copenhagen
These books represent solidly ethnographic approaches to the study of healing and demonstrate the empirical richness of this field of medical anthropology. While Strathern's and Stewart's textbook covers a range of issues including healing, the other four are monographs on the relationship between humans and spirits in southern and eastern Africa and Oceania.
Curing and Healing: Medical Anthropology in Global Perspective is an introduction to medical anthropology written for undergraduates and graduate students, as well as other academic readers. The book is organized into 13 thematic chapters enlivened with extensive case studies; there is a list of questions for each chapter at the end of the book that serve as study and discussion guides. Positioning the book in relation to other introductory books in medical anthropology, Strathern and Stewart stress the significance of in-depth ethnographic studies. Much of the material presented as case studies is based on their own fieldwork among the Hagen and Duna people in Papua New Guinea, and all photos in the book are from Papua New Guinea. However, they also draw on colleagues' work from other parts of the world.
Chapters 2 and 3 deal with humoral systems, starting with an overview including the Hippocratic tradition and humoral systems in Latin America, Japan, and India, followed by a description of the humoral system as perceived by the Melpa in...