Abstract

BALSANELLI, Alice. In the hands of the gods: traditional healing practices of the northern Lacandon people. Latinoamérica [online]. 2026, n.82, pp.107-136.  Epub Mar 23, 2026. ISSN 2448-6914.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cialc.24486914e.2026.82.57751.

ABSTRACT: This article explains why the Lacandon people of the north never had professional figures specializing in health care, such as therapists or healers, which is a unique ethnographic case among Mayan groups. Based on fieldwork and analysis of unpublished ethnographic information, this peculiarity is clarified. It is demonstrated that deities occupied a central place in sustaining the health and life of human beings, as they held the exclusive power to cause and heal illnesses. In this context, the role of the ritual expert was reduced to that of an intermediary between the divine and earthly worlds. A new interpretation of the sacred landscape is proposed, described by consultants as a space for healing, in which the dwellings of the gods constitute points of interaction for the performance of ritual therapies.

Keywords : Lacandon Maya; Traditional Medicine, Gods, Sacred Landscape.

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