Educational Media Reviews Online

The interface between modern and traditional, quick healing versus slow health, and modernism against custom all enter into this documentary look at the fading role of the traditional Tibetan medicine man, known as amchi. Drawing on a 2500-year-old Buddhist system of natural healing, amchis claim that their method of holistic medicine might not be as quick as modern antibiotics, but it is surer: amchis promise no side effects and perfectly restored health from their efforts to balance the various elements and humors that constitute good wellbeing. Says one amchi, “To get better, one must take the religious path.”

The focus for this anthropological consideration of fading indigenous medicine is Zanskar, a Himalayan village somewhere between India and Tibet. A new road has come to Zanskar, previously cut off from modern civilization. Now, young would-be amchi apprentices are looking to take the road out of this remote Himalayan hamlet to more lucrative and progressive positions in India. Amchis, dependant upon the ancient system of apprenticeship, see their hopes fading for the continuation of their native healing.

Blaming modernism, the amchis realize the shortness of time and struggle to find ways to keep their learning alive. One father decides to apprentice his adult daughter, an unusual move in a society that sees women called primarily to domestic and child-rearing tasks. Yet she states with certainty, “I shall be able to do it.” In another effort, 47 amchis cooperate in establishing a guild committed to keeping amchi learning alive. This guild undertakes to travel through the mountains to far-off Ladakh, to an established amchi school, where they will learn in hopes of bringing a similar type of medical school to their community.

A modicum of politics enters in: one amchi practitioner laments the lack of governmental support for training and establishing amchi medicine in these most remote of Indian villages. In another pastoral image, a grandfatherly amchi and his grandson, out collecting herbal roots and berries, argues for preserving Tibetan herbal medicine not out of nostalgia for the past, but because it is a fundamental good.

In terms of style, this is strictly documentary: the information is plainly presented, viewers are not required to maintain two or three storylines and there is no moody background music to contend with. However, there are long silent stretches where viewers must make do with only visuals without orientation to what’s going on (a bus ride or women playing music, but why, we’re not really told). In addition, some of the English spoken by the Tibetans and modern Indian doctors is so heavily accented that one wishes for a creeper with the English below for clarification. However, the treacherous, stark beauty of the Himalayans is brilliantly captured and the careful regard that the filmmakers hold for these people and their endangered traditions comes through with remarkable clarity.

The value of this work lies less in its outward depiction of herbal Tibetan medicine than in its compelling portrayal of the social/cultural impact of modernism on an indigenous society. For further research on the practice of Tibetan herbal medicine itself, one can read an interview with an amchi practicing in Boston (http://www.tbcs.net/medicine/interview.htm) or another website on the history and theory of amchis (http://home.t-online.de/home/520097278994-0001/yuthog/engl/med.html). Recommended for Asian studies and anthropology collections as well as alternative medicine collections.