Natural Medicine & Healing Knowledge of the Incas

The Inca culture inherits knowledge never achieved by any other culture throughout the geographical scope of the new continent. Their knowledge served to prevent diseases, cure them, and above all, to understand their causes, origins, and how they affected people all in natural ways.

The Empire protected and sponsored Inca medicine, directing and fostering the medical school through its religious establishment. It was not a private activity, but a health service that aimed to have a number of “Hampej” or healers for a specific territorial area.

In Inca times, medicine was highly specialized with general medicine healers, women attending to childbirth, dream doctors treating mental illnesses, surgeons, trepanners, and more.

They considered illness to originate from an imbalance between humans and nature, their social environment, or supernatural causes. Instead of treating it directly, they rigorously observed it: using divination with coca leaves, maize, ashes, examining objects extracted from the body, organic or inorganic, conversing with the sick, relatives, acquaintances, and studying cosmic forces.

Pain manifesting illness

Common illnesses that Paqo Masters often discuss:

• “Susto” is an illness caused by supernatural beings that steal the soul or spiritual strength of the patient. The fright caused by an accident was called “phahuac,” was less important, and was cured with what was called “jampuy.”
• “Kaik’a” refers to illnesses caused by the harmful and penetrating influence of deceased relatives, who drain the energy of the sick person.
• “Laik’a” is the result of harmful actions by one person against another, leading to the most serious illnesses.
• “Mal de ojo” is the involuntary or deliberate action of an “eye-catcher” that causes nausea, sadness, insomnia, and even death.
• “Aya huayra” is a sudden gust of wind that causes facial paralysis, pneumonia, hemiplegia, etc.
• “Mal de agua” is a serious illness that originates from contact with or prolonged exposure to water. It causes pleurisy, dropsy, and dehydration.
• “Chucaque” is a disease that occurs in states of high tension or extreme embarrassment. It manifests with headaches, nausea, vomiting, lack of energy, and irritability. The patient’s scalp sticks to the skull, causing sharp pains. It also leads to loss of moisture in the belly’s skin, which sticks to the internal organs.
• “Ira” is an exacerbated mental and psychological reaction that produces feelings of disgust and rage, nausea, jaundice, and fever.
• “T’iray” refers to abruptly turning a child, causing internal organ disturbances such as displacement of the heart or some viscera.
• “K’echo” is physical overexertion that inflames the joints and causes severe pain.

Natural healers

• “Altomesayoq” translates to “authentic Hampej.” They are indigenous and have counterparts in the Shaman of the coast and the Yatiri of the jungle.
• “Adivino” or “Huatoc” is a person with divination powers who can predict certain events using various instruments such as coca leaves, seashells, maize, etc. They can uncover thefts and find missing persons.
• “Herbolarios” are the majority who treat minor illnesses using herbs, whether through infusions, poultices, diets, purges, etc. It’s worth noting that herbalists also use other natural elements such as animals, soils, and minerals.
• “Huesero,” also known as “Sirkaq,” heals through poultices, massages, and bandages. They can heal anything from a sprain to the most severe fracture.
• “Pampamesayoq” practices their craft typically in rural centers, performs offerings to Pachamama (Mother Earth), and is knowledgeable about the protective hills and sacred sites of the area.

Hot and cold illnesses

Natural philosophy and medicine seek balance between opposing influences that can harm well-being and cause illnesses. These extremes can originate from natural, emotional, or supernatural sources. Warm medicine heals cold illnesses and vice versa.

In Andean medicine, there is no incurable illness. What the earth takes away, the earth gives back. However, the confidence of the “Hampej” relies on the transmission of conviction between the paqo and the patient, in their methods and resources.

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References:

Candia Muriel, C e Iwaki Ordoñez, R (1994) Magic and Natural Medicine. Cuadernos Andinos Nº13.