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Show 161 1943 Eggan, Freg and Pijacan, Michel (Estados Unidos), "Some Problems in the Study of Food and Nutrition," America Indigena, III No. I (January, 1943), Mexico, D.F., pp. 9-22. Article written in English with a Spanish summary. Leighton, Dorothea C. (Estados Unidos), "El Indio y la Medicina," America Indigena, III No. 2 (April, 1943), Mexico, D.F., pp. 127- 133. English Summary: The author devoted herself during a year to the study of the personality of the Navaho Indians, who reside in the northern part of the bordering states of Arizona and New Mexico; a tribe which still continues to observe many of those customs which antedate our mechanized epoch of today. In order to carry out these studies, it was necessary to prepare the way by means of fomenting cordial relations between those studied and the observer, and for this purpose, the author dwelt with several Navaho families. As soon as confidence was established, they offered their professional services free and also the medicines necessary for the cure of the patients, and this gesture opened the doors to them to carry their studies to a successful termination, since they were permitted to be present at certain ceremonies which are forbidden to the white people, and especially those in which the Healers or Witch-Doctors, by means of their prayers, songs and incantations, try to discover the cause of the malady which the patient is suffering and, afterwards, to prescribe, according to their diagnosis, certain foods, herbs, emetics or sudorific baths. The religion of the Navaho places its greatest emphasis on the cure or prevention of those illnesses which, according to their belief, are caused by the fact that the individual is not in harmony with the Powers, among which discords they number the wounding of an animal without killing it, bad behavior during a ceremony, the killing of a pregnant serpent, lightning, wind storms, and the spells which some animals can exercise over man. Psychotherapy, which the witch-doctors use to alleviate the minor ills, is according to the beliefs of the Navaho, more efficacious than the methods which the Physician uses, but, when it is a matter of hemorrhages, appendicitis, tuberculosis, small-pox or other contagious sicknesses, the Healer is the first one to recommend that the patient be treated by the white doctor. The total elimination of the Healers, and obliging all patients to go to the hospital or to remain under the vigilance of the |