Healing, Heritage and Cultural Sustainability: Traditional Healers in Minangkabau Society

Traditional healers preserve and transmit forms of knowledge that extend beyond the treatment of illness. This article examines how Minangkabau dukun, or traditional healers, contribute to cultural sustainability. Drawing on ethnographic observations, conversations with healers in a Minangkabau village community and relevant scholarly literature, the article offers an interpretative analysis of selected healing practices and the cultural meanings associated with them. Particular attention is paid to the Minangkabau principle alam terkembang jadi guru (‘nature, in its unfolding, becomes a teacher’), the interpretation of signs and numerical patterns, and the transmission of medicinal, ritual and textual knowledge. The analysis is informed by Frederick Errington’s account of the sign-oriented character of Minangkabau culture. It suggests that traditional healers help sustain cultural knowledge not only through their therapeutic practices but also by preserving oral narratives, manuscripts, understandings of the natural environment and practices concerned with communal well-being. Their work therefore connects healing with broader processes of cultural continuity and adaptation. Rather than representing an unchanging remnant of the past, traditional healing emerges as one sphere in which inherited knowledge continues to be interpreted and applied within contemporary village life. Further research could examine the position of traditional healers within the increasingly plural medical landscape of Minangkabau communities.