Maya Healers: A Thousand Dreams
Fran Antmann ’69 recently published Maya Healers: A Thousand Dreams (Nirala Publications, 2017).
Antmann's book was featured in Huffington Post and on NBC.
The book explores traditional indigenous healing practices among the Maya people of Guatemala through photographs and narrative. For over a decade, Antmann documented the work of Maya healers and shamans in Guatemala who work outside the confines of Western medicine. Their ancient practices mediate between the traditional practice of bone setting, faith-based healing, and modern medicine. These rituals survive despite the genocide of the Maya people perpetrated by government and paramilitary forces until 1996. Her work contributes to the process of recovering and restoring these imperiled cultural practices and shows how indigenous societies prevail over political violence.
A fiscally-sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Maya Healers was also a finalist for the Lucie Foundation’s 2017 Photo Book Prize.