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This Provisional PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance. Fully formattedPDF and full text (HTML) versions will be made available soon.
The use of magical plants by curanderos in the Ecuador highlands
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 
2009,
5
:3 doi:10.1186/1746-4269-5-3Anthony P Cavender (cavender@etsu.edu)Manuel Alban (manuel2004@andinanet.net)
ISSN
1746-4269
Article type
Review
Submission date
5 August 2008
Acceptance date
22 January 2009
Publication date
22 January 2009
Article URL
http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/5/1/3This peer-reviewed article was published immediately upon acceptance. It can be downloaded,printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below).Articles in
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 
are listed in PubMed and archived at PubMedCentral.For information about publishing your research in
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 
or anyBioMed Central journal, go tohttp://www.ethnobiomed.com/info/instructions/ For information about other BioMed Central publications go tohttp://www.biomedcentral.com/ 
Journal of Ethnobiology andEthnomedicine
 © 2009 Cavender and Alban , licensee BioMed Central Ltd.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 
TheuseofmagicalplantsbycuranderosintheEcuadorhighlands
AnthonyP.Cavender
1
*andManuelAlbán
2
1
DepartmentofSociologyandAnthropology,EastTennesseeStateUniversity,JohnsonCity,Tennessee,37604,USA.
2
Decano,CienciasdelaSalud,UniversidadEstataldeBolivar,Guaranda,Ecuador*CorrespondingauthorAPC:cavender@etsu.eduMA:manuel2004@andinanet.net
 
2
Abstract
Althoughtheuseofplantsfortreatingsupernaturallycausedillnesses(e.g.,soulloss,evilwind,witchcraft)hasbeendocumentedintheEcuadorhighlands,so-calledmagicalplantshavereceivedmuchlessfocusedattentionthanplantsusedfortreatingnaturalisticdisorders.Drawingoninterviewsdonein2002and2003with116curanderosresidingintheEcuadorhighlands,thispaperexaminesthecharacteristicsofplantsidentifiedasmagical,howtheyareused,andhowthestudyofmagicalplantsprovidesinsightsintothemindscapeofresidentsofthehighlands.
Background
TraditionalmedicalpractitionersintheEcuadorhighlands,thosegenericallyknownascuranderosbutespeciallythe
limpiadores
(“cleaners”),makeextensiveuseofmagicalplantsinthetreatmentofsupernaturalfolkillnessessuchas
susto
,
malviento,mal prójimo,
and
malaire
.Inmostdocumentationsonmagicalplantuseoverthepastthirtyorsoyears,however,therationaleunderlyingtheuseofmagicalplantsispoorlydescribedornotaddressedatall[1,2,3,4,5].Thispaperreportsoninformationgatheredfrom116curanderosintheEcuadorhighlandsontheuseofmagicalplantsforhealing.Topicsdiscussedincludethecharacteristicsofplantsidentifiedasmagical,whyandhowtheyareusedforthetreatmentofselectedfolkillnesses,andfinallyhowthestudyofmagicalplantsprovidesinsightsintotheworldviewofhighlandresidents.
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