When biomedicine appears not enough: local moral worlds and spiritual healing in Hunza valley of Pakistan
Asian Journal of Medical Humanities January 1, 2026 Fatima Maqbool, Inayat Ali
In Hunza, Gilgit-Baltistan, Bitans (shamans) treat illnesses such as recurrent miscarriage, spirit possession, infant mortality, and mental conditions attributed to nazar (evil eye), jinn, or pari, which biomedicine diagnoses but leaves experientially unresolved. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Karimabad and surrounding villages, the findings reveal a hierarchical medical pluralism where spiritual healers occupy an indispensable niche for morally and metaphysically attributed illnesses. Through embodied rituals, amulets, herbal remedies, and verbal healing, Bitans reconfigure domestic spaces into healing sites and restore coherence to disrupted life stories. Their practice is shaped by gender, generational expectations, and the local moral economy. Spiritual healing and intuition address moral, relational, and existential dimensions of illness that biomedicine alone cannot resolve.