ABSTRACT
This chapter is primarily about folk medicine. However, it is impossible not to take magic and sorcery into consideration as well, however marginally, because they play a role in both the underlying view of what sickness is and in the remedies used to treat it. In the creole world, folk medicine has been the subject of some works, of varying quality and interest. However, the genesis of the systems themselves has hardly been studied at all. Furthermore, due to the paucity of related works with which to compare their ideas, authors who do venture into this field often construct hypotheses that are tentative at best. Here again, therefore, I will refer mostly to my own research and to my direct knowledge of these societies, especially that of Réunion.
