La médecine des Aborigènes d’Australie

For sixteen months, Frédéric Viesner lived in the intimate community of medicine men in the Central Australian Desert, in Ptijantjajara and Yankunitjatjara territory. At a time when modern immunology research is beginning to develop unprecedented interest in ancient techniques for too long falsely dismissed as magic, the young French anthropologist looks at this "medicine of the soul" in a rigorous and sympathetic manner: rites of passage, treatment for grief, approaching death... Who among our modern doctors could deny the universality and modernity of this Nyangkari aboriginal definition: Physical health is just the visible expression of an emotional state ? This state is called wangkaru, meaning that one is alive, breathing easily and able to communicate.