{"id":10565,"date":"2019-09-03T16:49:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T16:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/the-rebirth-of-ancestral-medicine\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:06:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:06:42","slug":"the-rebirth-of-ancestral-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/the-rebirth-of-ancestral-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"The rebirth of ancestral medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The rebirth of ancestral medicine<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Rapanui community of today is in the process of reclaiming many different aspects of their social and political life.\u00a0 One of them is the rebirth of ancestral medicine.<\/p>\n

Currently on the Island is an old field hospital, built in the 1970s, which was originally destined by the Americans for the war in Vietnam.\u00a0 Under the Chilean government of General Pinochet, it was bought to serve the Islanders.\u00a0 But with growing immigration, the modest staff of professionals and the limited amount of technical equipment haven\u2019t been\u00a0 able to keep pace with the basic needs of the almost 5,000 inhabitants, much less the thousands of tourists who every year arrive to visit the Island.<\/p>\n

By the end of this year, it is expected that a new, modern building will be inaugurated to fulfill the requirements of the population.\u00a0 One of the innovations that will be considered within the official implementation is the \u201c<\/em>Special Program for Native People<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Health<\/em>\u201d<\/em>, which consists in offering modern Western medicine complemented by the ancestral Rapanui medicine.\u00a0 The objective is give the hospital in Hanga Roa a multi-cultural identity, generating programs to recover ancient health practices which were based on plants and therapy within programs for environmental protection.\"\"
This project of cultural integration began in 2007 when the \u201cCommittee of Original People\u201d,<\/em> or \u201cMesa Pueblo Papa Ra\u2019au\u201d<\/em><\/strong>, of the Hanga Roa Hospital was formed.\u00a0 It is made up of the director of the hospital, Iv\u00e1n Sep\u00falveda-Cid, the social worker and general coordinator of the program, Yolanda Nahoe, and the Rapanui specialists Carmen Nahoe, Lory Paoa, Felicita Tepano, Pedro Hito, Berta Hey, Ruth Ika, Adriana Atamu, Pamela Hucke, Elsa Pat\u00e9, Cristina Walter and Graciela Huke. Graciela Huke is the oldest \u201cTaote\u201d (doctor) of the Island and even today continues to prepare her medicinal plants.\u00a0 Over the last four years, these specialists, heirs of the medicinal knowledge of their ancestors, have treated patients with varied pains and illnesses : colds, allergies, stomach problems, aches in the bones, wounds, stress and post-partum assistance are among the most commonFor each syndrome, there is a specific treatment or therapy.\u00a0 Elsa Pat\u00e9 tells that one of her principal functions is to assist at child-birth in the hospital and apply therapy with hot rocks. \u201cAfter the baby is born, I visit the mothers.\u00a0 First, I build a fire, then I put on the rocks to heat, after which I wrap them in fig leaves and place them around the mother\u2019s stomach.\u00a0 The rocks serve to absorb all the air inside the woman, so that within three months her body returns to its previous form.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Elisa Hermosilla, who was diagnosed by a psychiatrist with congenital depression, tells us now that : \u201cI carried this sickness for many years and never was very good about following treatments.\u00a0 Last year when I came to see the doctor, he asked if I would like to try Harmonization Therapy with Carmen Nahoe.\u00a0 I accepted and found that there was a positive change.\u00a0 I used to sleep very badly and when I applied this therapy, I was able to sleep relaxed.\u201d <\/em>\"\"
In addition to therapy with hot rocks and phytotherapy, or therapy based on medicinal plants, there is also treatment based on full body massage, called Tauromi, together with harmonization and mud treatments.\u00a0 \u201cSince we were little, we were nourished in all this knowledge.\u00a0 I remember that as a small child my grandmother taught me the names and told me of the benefits and properties of each plant; she was convinced that when I grew up I would be a Taote\u201d says Pamela Hucke.\u00a0 On the other hand, Elsa Pat\u00e9 tells us that \u2026 \u201c<\/em>my maternal great-grandmother was a midwife and my paternal great-grandmother was one of the first women to work with the Matua Pua<\/em>\u2019<\/em>a<\/em>.<\/em>\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 The Matua Pua\u00b4a is today a central and sacred element of the Island\u2019s botanical pharmacopeia.\u00a0 It is found principally in the crater of the volcano Rano Kau, which is considered as the place most highly charged with Mana, or spiritual force.\u00a0 The search for the plant within the volcano is surrounded by a series of restrictions and precautions.\u00a0 The ritual calls for the person to go alone at dawn, following fasting of food and of sexual activity, without speaking to anyone whom she might encounter on the way and only thinking of the objective of the search.\u00a0 On this trip, she is not allowed to eat any of the fruit to be found in Rano Kau.\u00a0 It is a path of sacrifices which an Islander must not break for a \u201c<\/em>mere personal desire<\/em>\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 There is no doubt about the cultural importance of this remedy.<\/p>\n

Visitors interested in this natural medicine can request an appointment in the Medical Orientation and Statistics Section (SOME) at the Hanga Roa Hospital, where they will make a diagnosis and apply a treatment with a follow-up evaluation at no cost.\"\"
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Featured Reports:<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rebirth of ancestral medicine The Rapanui community of today is in the process of reclaiming many different aspects of their social and political life.\u00a0 One of them is the rebirth of ancestral medicine. Currently on the Island is an old field hospital, built in the 1970s, which was originally destined by the Americans for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rapa-nui-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}