Kallawaya communities document their traditional healing and cultural practices for safeguarding purposes

28 September 2017

During the process of safeguarding, the traditions and healing knowledge of the Kallawaya Community in Bolivia have been documented in the recently released publication “Tejiendo Los Saberes Kallawayas. Aproximaciones a la historia y medicina Kallawaya”. The launch of this publication was celebrated on 21 September, at La Paz, Bolivia, and was attended by numerous government officials and members of the Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Kallawaya Cosmovision.
The publication aims to systematize, record and document the healing practices, the related botanical knowledge of the Kallawaya tradition. The community has demonstrated its commitment for the inventory of this knowledge to be continuously updated and revised in the future. The publication will not be widely distributed and will be exclusive to the Kallawaya communities in order to ensure the continued transmission of their knowledge to younger generations.
The publication was a multi-faceted effort between eight Kallawaya communities, the Japanese Trust Funds for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Cultures and Tourism, the municipalities of Curva and Charazani, Bolivia and other organizations including UNESCO within the framework of the project ‘Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage of Kallawaya communities’.
The Andean Cosmovision of the Kallawaya was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.

• Bolivia (Plurinational State of),