Comprehension and Response in Face of Covid-19 from the Ancestral Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

By Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Munoz and Marcelo Eduardo Zaiduni Salazar
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Traditional Medicine, vol. 1, no. 1 (2020).

Abstract:

From the ancestral approach, COVID-19 needs to be addressed in terms of the resulting effect of a civilization crisis, and not as the cause of a new global economic crisis. The rapid globalization of the virus reflects that it is not the result of an apparent “natural mutation” but rather a combined effect of four factors: over population, accelerated environmental deterioration, hyper industrialization and hyper production –as well as genetic manipulation and the lack of sanitary and ecological regulations, particularly related to the climate crisis. Current global institutions, such as World Health Organization (WHO), and Bretton Woods Organizations do not offer conditions to slow down, stop and reverse the pandemic process because member states of these institutions rely on economic programs that tend to reproduce the four factors responsible for the civilization crisis in the first place.

As an alternative, the ancestral health approach is holistic and addresses the imbalance of all components of life. We argue that firstly, people need to face the repercussions of their behavior and beliefs on ecosystems that become dysfunctional and deteriorated. Next, they need take a deep look at the imbalance in the emotional and spiritual bodies to then turn to interpret the physical and biological imbalance. As they recover internal and external balance, they will be able to be active agents in the regenerating process of ecosystems which will reduce conditions for the proliferation of pathogens that attack humans and other species. Ancestral wisdom can help face COVID-19 and potential crises because of the holistic way of addressing life.



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