Blood and Ink: Treatment Practices of Traditional Palestinian Women Healers in Israel

Abstract

This article addresses the treatment practices of traditional Palestinian women healers in Israel. It begins with a presentation of the treatment practices utilized by women healers and continues with a description of the changes such practices are currently undergoing. The research indicates that some women healers?in particular, those residing in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in the country 's center?are slowly adopting treatment practices identified as masculine: they are abandoning the treatment of problems attributed to natural causes and taking up the treatment of problems attributed to supernatural causes, incorporating treatment practices of a magical or even a religious nature. These tendencies reflect their desire to attain the power and prestige ascribed to their male counterparts. Thus, in this community, the boundaries between feminine and masculine traditional healing, as well as the polarization between the little tradition and the great tradition (sensu Redfield) are not clear-cut, binary, or occurring in a vacuum, but rather contextual, dynamic, hazy, and elusive.