ABSTRACT
Medical pluralism—the co-existence of diverse and often competing healing traditions within a single community, region, or national culture—is a central concern of most ethnomedical investigations. Countless ethnographies have documented the interplay between biomedicine, other literate or “cosmopolitan” medical traditions, and the more localized practices of herbalists or religious specialists, while a related line of research traces the history of medical pluralism in specific settings. The discourse of Catholic herbalists and midwives in rural Haiti challenges the assumptions. Catholic herbalists and midwives invoke the anj gadyen as part of a strategy to differentiate themselves from the immoral houngan, who serve not beneficent angels but rather the satanic hva (also excoriated as “dirty spirits.”) This is how herbalists and midwives justify their moral worth and legitimate their therapeutic power. Through this discourse of guardian angels and dirty spirits, we see that the practice of presumably secular healers is shot through with moral and religious concerns.
