Scholarship on Maya healing traditions has focused primarily on the roles of midwives, shamans, herbalists, and diviners. Bonesetters, on the other hand, have been largely excluded from conversations about traditional health practitioners and community health resources. Maya Bonesetters is the first book-length study of bonesetting in Guatemala and situates the manual healing tradition within the current cultural context—one in which a changing medical landscape potentially threatens bonesetters’ work yet presents an opportunity to strengthen its relevance.

Drawing on extensive field research in highland Guatemala, Servando Z. Hinojosa introduces readers to a seldom documented, though nonetheless widespread, variety of healer. This book examines the work of Kaqchikel and Tz’utujiil Maya bonesetters, analyzes how they diagnose and treat injuries, and contrasts the empirical and sacred approaches of various healers. Hinojosa shows how bonesetters are carefully adapting certain biomedical technologies to meet local expectations for care and concludes that, despite pressures and criticisms from the biomedical community, bonesetting remains culturally meaningful and vital to Maya people, even if its future remains uncertain.

Servando Z. Hinojosa is a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is the author of In This Body: Kaqchikel Maya and the Grounding of Spirit and coeditor of Healing by Hand: Manual Medicine and Bonesetting in Global Perspective. Servando G. Hinojosa is a retired educator and an active sculptor, muralist, and illustrator.

Preface and Acknowledgments
 
Introduction
Chapter 1. Bonesetting over Time
Chapter 2. Empirical Forms of Maya Bonesetting
Chapter 3. Sacred Forms of Maya Bonesetting
Chapter 4. Challenges and Changes in the Injury Landscape
Conclusion
 
Appendix. Traditional Medicine and Bonesetting: Integration and Lessons
Notes
References
Index