Claiming power through hardship: Initiation narratives of Palestinian traditional women healers in Israel

This article offers a new perspective regarding the initiation of traditional healers through an analysis of the initiation narratives of ten Muslim Palestinian traditional women healers in Israel. The analysis points to three shared themes within these narratives: they begin with a description of the initiation's source (inheritance or revelation); they focus primarily on a later stage of the woman healer's life; and they include an in-depth description of the suffering and hardships that she has endured. These findings describe the initiation of Palestinian traditional women healers in Israel as a process rather than an event; as a derivative of the woman healer's life rather than its driving force.