Body, Soul & Word: Nahua Medicine in the Sierra de Texcoco. In this book, David Lorente gives voice to midwives, medicine men, herbalists and graniceros (shamans who control the weather), allowing them to explain how the Nahua communities of Texcoco understand and treat disease, but also how they acquired their gifts and knowledge of healing. Lorente spends time observing and analyzing the complex system of specialists—comparing them to the communities’ needs—while looking for convincing answers to the meaning of illness. In a cultural context where traditional Nahua medicine often clashes with conventional Western remedies, Lorente also focuses on the vital role of women as mothers and healers in the medical explorations of Mesoamerican peoples. Consequently, he comes up with a series of novel proposals that reach beyond the Texcoco highlands’ confines in order to involve experts from other rural societies outside the traditional orbit of Nahua culture.