Traditional beliefs and attitudes of the Miskitos regarding certain illnesses

Abstract

This article examines how the perception of a disease is a factor that contributes to the social identification of the Miskitu. The traditional conceptualization of a disease and its appropriate cure are found to be related to values that create a unifying vision of the world. Therefore, this is an important aspect that delineates the social identity of the group. By refiring to those diseases that are caused by metaphysical reasons we will be permitted to identify the continuity of the traditional past into the Christian present. The beliefs, by the Miskito, that some diseases are caused by spiritual possession, by contacting the spirits of the death or by witchcraft presuppose the persistence of conceptions that existed before the acceptance of Christianity, which are expressed as life experiences in the present.