One striking outcome of the research was the way in which, during verbal exchanges within performances of possession as well as during interviews with healers and local, people’s relationship with biomedicine appears charged with ambiguity. While in practice people call regularly on all kinds of healers, in their theorizing about healing they focus increasingly on the competition between local deities and biomedical doctors. Astrologers, learned practitioners of Ayurveda (,holy men’ who can provide healing through sacred verbal formulas, rituals, meditation practices and also herbal remedies)