Herbal medicines and voodoo-like treatments are the cure for witchcraft among a remote Caribbean village, says a Ball State University professor.
Marsha Quinlan, anthropology professor, has visited the island nation of Dominica on five trips since 1993, studying the medical practices of the society.
"Witchcraft is something that everybody in the village fears," Quinlan says. "It is like a preoccupation for them."
Villagers believe their illnesses are caused through witchcraft while bush medicines and herbal remedies are used to cure them.
Quinlan's case study was published in her book "From the Bush: The Front Line of Health Care in a Caribbean Village."
The book is the first case study of medical anthropology exploring folk medicine in the Caribbean.
"For most illnesses, the people would rather treat themselves," she says. "I have done chemical research on their treatments, and there is reason to believe that they are effective."
People find ingredients for herbal medicines either in the forest or in their own herb gardens.
Quinlan says there are free government clinics on the island but they can be reached only by a four-wheel drive vehicle, which no one in the village owns.
"Many view going to a doctor as an invasion of privacy, though there are things needed that we take for granted like pain killers and antibiotics," she says.
Quinlan says people will go to the doctor for serious cases like cancer, though in a village of 500 people, only two have had cancer.
"Accusing someone of practicing witchcraft is very serious and is usually used as a last resort," Quinlan says.
If neither bush medicine nor a doctor can cure an ailment, a voodoo-like priest who practices religious magic is contacted.
The priest will find out who the witch in the village is or blame the illness on the spirit of a dead person, which Quinlan says causes feuds.
For an extra fee the priest will try to reverse the hex brought on through witchcraft.
Quinlan first visited Dominica while her husband was helping his advisor with a case study on child health while in graduate school.
Quinlan's husband is Robert Quinlan, also an anthropology professor at Ball State.
"I began talking to the women who were congregating at the river to wash their clothes," she says. "They would talk about the people in their family who were sick."
Quinlan says the villagers' view of medicine has religious components.
"If you have been sinful, you might get paid back by having a disease. If you confess and move on then your life will return to normal," she says.
Quinlan says that this parallels western practices and is evident through the abundance of prayer to deal with illness in our society.
Quinlan received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Missouri - Columbia and has been an assistant professor at Ball State for one year.
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