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PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- Anthropologist Dr Kumar Mahabir will be launching his new book, Traditional Medicine and Women Healers in Trinidad, on Saturday evening at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

The 212-page book discusses the relationship between traditional healers and modern healthcare practitioners in Trinidad and Tobago. It focuses on folk masseuses, and the new mothers and newborns they treat.

The study is divided into three major chapters:

Chapter 1 explores the demographics of masseuses, their training, activity levels, remuneration, relationship with others, and types of disorders they treat.

Chapter 2 examines the care of the new mother with respect to seclusion and pollution, special foods, “setting” the womb back in place, herbal baths, and the chatti [thanksgiving ceremony].

Chapter 3 highlights the care of the newborn with regard to breast milk, neonatal jaundice, dew and evil elements, thrush and heat rash, and infant massage.

The two medical systems are presented in the context of racial, ethnic, class and gender dynamics which give rise to issues of power and control.

Traditional Medicine and Women Healers in Trinidad is located in the political-economic context of the Third World, which has a history of dependency on foreign goods and services rooted in the plantation economy.

The book also discusses the implications of the study for contemporary primary health care.

Mahabir is an assistant professor in the Centre for Education Programmes at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). He obtained his Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Florida and is the author of eight books, including two national bestsellers Caribbean East Indian Recipes and Medicinal and Edible Plants used by East Indians of Trinidad and Tobago.

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