Mountain Medicines

"The Cultural Context of Chinese Wild Animal and Herbal Healing Materia Medica"

Chinese herbal medicines have a long and venerated history. We follow the forays of a "barefoot doctor" to the mountains to collect herbs in central Taiwan, and observe his religious practices to cure his patients using these herbal medicines as well as summoning spiritual forces. This film reveals the cultural and religious context of Chinese medicines—the intertwined dimensions of physical and spiritual energy that relate to human fate.